I could use more than two cores.
I don't know about you, but I have a bunch of security scanners -- Trojan Hunter, SpyCop, SpyBot, NOD32, AdAware, HiJackThis, RootKitRevealer -- that cannot run simultaneously. Ideally, I'd like to have them all running in the background!
I also have COMODO-firewall, Adwatch, ProcessGuard, TCPView, and Process Explorer running constantly to give me a reasonable chance of dodging malware bullets (plus a router/hardware firewall).
With virtual machines, its easy to improve security, by having only certain virtual machines (VMs) connected to the internet, by keeping sensitive stuff (credit card info, passwords, etc) in other VMs, and by using strong passwords to start them up.
"The only secure machine is one disconnected from the internet."
Next year, after nested page tables for the AMD processors come out, and the new Linux kernel with KVM (kernel based VM) comes out, I'm planning to build a new system around virtual machines. I'm going to have KVM Linux as my host operating system and run nearly all applications, both Linux and Windows applications, in virtual machines. I'm going to have lots of hard drive space.
Once you create a virtual machine, its easy to create multiple copies of it to use for different purposes -- for different types of applications.
* No need to install too many applications on the same machine.
* Easy to keep backups.
* Easy to keep checkpoints
* Easy to accommodate multiple users.
* Easy to keep clean copies ready to use.
* Easy to provide the kid his own game machine.
With large hard drives, you can have as many virtual machines as you want. (They are large files though, so they take a while to copy.)
The down side is, when upgrades come out, you have to upgrade every copy. And you need to maximize memory to handle at least two simultaneous operating systems. You need more memory bandwidth and more physical memory.
Its not often necessary to run more than one VM at a time, but with enough memory (and cores) running more than one VM on your home computer would be the norm.
"If you build it, they will come." |
