Xen Project FAQ Compatibility
Which OSes run on Xen?
To achieve such high performance, Xen requires that OSes are ported to run on it.
See Xen Dom 0 Kernels and Xen Dom U support
Does Xen support Microsoft Windows?
The paravirtualized approach we use to get such high performance has not been usable directly for Windows to date. However Xen 3.0 added Intel VT-x support to enable the running of unmodified guest operating systems, including Windows XP & 2003 Server, using hardware virtualization technology. Xen 3.0.2 and later support AMD Pacifica technology as well. Check to see if your CPU is among the list of HVM Compatible Processors, and if your motherboard is among the list of HVM Compatible Motherboards.
(Note: This does not necessarily mean, that just about _any_ OS runs in HVM Mode! Reports vary about getting *BSD to work in HVM mode, on the Mailing List there's only 1 success for OpenBSD (http://www.openbsd-france.org/ml/archives/msg02494.html), no success message for the others, but some problem reports)
Does Xen run on laptops?
Xen will typically run on laptops.
Which architectures does Xen support?
Xen currently runs on the x86, x86_64, IA64 (Itanium) and ARM architectures. On x86 Xen requires a "P6" or newer processor (that's any Intel or AMD x86 CPU purchased in the last seven years). Multiprocessor and multicore machines are supported, including support for Hyper-Threading (SMT). Support for x86/64 is available since Xen 3.0. We hope to add other architectures such as PPC.
32bit and 64bit
The 32bit and 64bit questions are many and more complex than you might think. Things can be 32bit, 32bit PAE or 64bit. There is the hardware, the xen hypervisor, the dom0 kernel and userland and the domU kernel and userland.
| 32bit PAE Hypervisor | |
| 32bit PAE PV DomU | Yes |
| 64bit PV DomU | No |
| 32bit HVM DomU | Yes |
| 64bit HVM DomU | No |
Which VGA Adaptors work with VGA pass-through?
There is a community maintained list at Xen VGA Passthrough Tested Adapters.
Is Xen 4.x incompatible with Xen 3.x
No. The 4.x version was just a version bump and had no more impact on compatibility than any other new version of Xen. See Xen Version Compatibility for more information on compatibility between versions of Xen.
