KVM, Options for AMD-V and Intel VT

Thanks to a colleague, I found a nice informative link on Virtualization. Trying to resolve ACPI on my new laptop, I recently stumbled on the 2.6.20-rc2 kernel option for KVM and assumed it to be some new piece my Xen hypervisor could take advantage of (once I get the ACPI issues resolved). Instead, I have just learned that it provides native kernel virtualization, such that you can just boot your favorite ISO (Windows, Solaris, OSX, Linux) and go. Seems easy enough I will try out the Deban instructions tonight as shown on kvm.sourceforge.net. The first step is only apt-get install kvm if you already have a 2.6.20-rc2 or greater kernel.

To install and run kvm on Debian, follow these steps:

1. Run the commands:
   apt-get install kvm apt-get install kvm-source
   m-a build kvm
   m-a install kvm
   modprobe kvm
2. Create a disk image:
   qemu-img create -f qcow vdisk.img 10G
3. Install an operating system:
   kvm -hda vdisk.img -cdrom /path/to/boot-media.iso -boot d -m 384If you’re installing Windows, add the -no-acpi flag.
4. After installation is complete, run it with:
   kvm -hda vdisk.img -boot c -m 384

Note, the mm series of the current kernel (2.6.20-rc4-mm1) has quite a few KVM updates.