John Carl Villanueva21 July 2009, 1:12 PM
Microsoft has dumped a batch of code that should make running Linux on Windows easier.
People who are fond of test-running various Linux distros will be well acquainted with virtualization software that allow these test runs to operate within a Windows environment. Microsoft has now made it easier by releasing 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux community.
The source code release was announced recently at the 2009 O'Reilly Open Source Convention or OSCON in San Jose, CA. The code will apparently enable Linux to run seamlessly on Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V or Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V. Hyper-V allows multiple operating systems to run at the same time on a single x64 server.
Not only is this the first time that Microsoft will be releasing code to the Linux kernel, it's also one of its very few major code release under the GPL licence. GPL v2 is the Linux community's preferred license but not Microsoft's, which has avoided it many times in the past when conducting major code releases.
This development will not only benefit Linux but Microsoft as well since this would mean the host machine would be running on one of its products. Of course, customers will stand to gain the most as they stand to enjoy the best of both operating system worlds in just one piece of hardware.
The key features of Hyper-V include Symmetric Multiprocessors (SMP) support, network load balancing, quick migration capabilities, virtual machine snapshots, scalability & extensibility.
When we talked about Linux Kernel 2.6.29 earlier this year, we mentioned the notable rise in the number of contributors and how big names like IBM, Intel, Novell, Oracle, and Red Hat were helping out. Well, they don't get any bigger than the latest addition to that list -- Microsoft's own code will now be built right into the Linux kernel.
Naturally, Microsoft's just one of many players in the hypervisor and virtualization market. We recently wrote about Sun's excellent, free cross-platform virtualization software, VirtualBox, and we have a full tutorial series on how to install Linux and Windows into VirtualBox containers.