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Does anyone know if either XenServer of VMWare have a virtual server version that will run on old 32bit servers? I've got a spare old server that I want to do some testing on with the technologies.

Thanks.

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Äh - you are aware that NO 32 bit hardware supports virtualization in hardware, so the result - even if you would find software - would SUCK. Like majorly.

Even early 64 bit CPU's lack hardware virtualization.

Retire the old stuff. That is what I do with my old hardware. There simply is no way to run a proper hyper-visor without hardware support in the CPU.

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Uhhhh.... ESX3.x ran just fine on 32-bit CPUs. And without sucking majorly. – Graeme Donaldson Sep 8 '10 at 7:08
Ah - your definition of not sucking is my definition of crap. Really. WEithout hardware virtualization - which no 32 bit CPU i know of has in the intel world - there is a significant CPU overhead. Virtual Server ALSO worked 32 bit without hardware support. I used it for years. I would not have called that non-sucking performance wise, though. It sucked. NO way to reun anything requiringr real performance on that. – TomTom Sep 9 '10 at 9:08
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TomTom is actually quite incorrect. VMware ESX(i) ran fine on 32 bit hardware. – Brennan Sep 14 '10 at 21:47
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ESX 3.x(i) will run on 32-bit hardware, but will only allow you to run 32-bit guests. Furthermore, you can check the whitebox hcl for stuff that you have laying around that will make a nice home lab environment. I'd recommend against running it in production.

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Xen would only support paravirtualised guests (i.e. Linux). VMware ESX would run everything but it wouldn't be fast. I recommend Xen if you are happy with paravirtualisation and/or don't need to run Windows guests.

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