Recently, we had the User-Mode Linux suite out of Debian, which included user-
mode-linux, user-mode-linux-doc and uml-utilities package. We are happy that
we were able to bring it back into the archvie quick, and hope to maintain it
active.
For many who may not know about UML, here’s a discription from its
website:
User-Mode Linux is a safe, secure way of running Linux versions and Linux processes. Run buggy software, experiment with new Linux kernels or distributions, and poke around in the internals of Linux, all without risking your main Linux setup.
User-Mode Linux gives you a virtual machine that may have more hardware and software virtual resources than your actual, physical computer. Disk storage for the virtual machine is entirely contained inside a single file on your physical machine. You can assign your virtual machine only the hardware access you want it to have. With properly limited access, nothing you do on the virtual machine can change or damage your real computer, or its software.
Most of the use cases mentioned here are achievable with Containers today. The
big difference UML provides in, is with a separate kernel. UML is an
implementation of Linux as an architecture of Linux itself. It supports x86
and x86_64 architecture. And given that it is the port of the kernel, you can
do many of the tests and experiments of the regular kernel, safely inside a
confined UML environment. As with other virtualization implementations, the
limitation comes in if you are working on physical hardware.
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