[clug] October Canberra Linux Users Group meeting

[Alex Satrapa]

On 20/10/2009, at 09:00 , chris at christophersmart.com wrote:

> Abstract:	Alex will be talking about either database development
> 		or replication. If you see this message he hasn't
> 		decided which.

I'm intending to provide a newbie intro to
- virtualisation software I've played with
- cross-platform VM images
- bridged, NAT, host-only networks and why you'd use one or the other
- preparing new guests
- PXE boot & over-the-network installation of Debian and Ubuntu
- Using Chef to manage guest systems

(this based on feedback from the list over the past month or so)

Then I hope to open the floor to see how much you guys can teach me  
(and thus each other, and by extension the RotW) about setting up  
consumer-level VM farms for things such as playing with Asterisk,  
providing a testing environment for that change you want to make to  
your client's web site, providing an isolated environment for security  
penetration games, determining just how much faster Karmic Koala is at  
booting than Hardy Heron, etc.

In particular, I'm hoping people can contribute:
- experience with Parallels & VirtualBox
- experience with Zen para-virtualisation
- experience with bare-boot + puppet/chef vs FAI
- other issues I've raised on the list

The main thing I'm hoping to achieve is to help some folks who haven't  
touched virtualisation yet get some idea of just how useful it is.  
More importantly, I'd like to provide a framework and "tips for new  
players" for playing with virtualisation.

Please bring your laptops and experience/curiosity of virtualisation!

Alex