On Saturday 05 September 2009 13:02:10 Richard Jones wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 05, 2009 at 01:03:28PM +0100, Jon Harrop wrote:
> > Linux is basically a complete disaster in this regard because it
> > offers so little binary compatibility between distros.
>
> You probably want to use a commercial Linux distribution.  Red Hat (as
> an example) *guarantee* perfect binary compatibility for the 7 - 10
> year lifespan of a release of RHEL.

You mean sell only to RHEL users and not Linux users?

> > Building upon a decent VM solves this problem and many others, of
> > course, but Linux has none.
>
> Not sure what you mean by this.  Linux was the first _PC_[1] OS to
> incorporate a hypervisor into the kernel (Xen or KVM depending on your
> interpretation of the words "hypervisor" and/or "incorporate").

I'm talking about user space VMs like the JVM and CLR and not OS kernel 
hypervisors.

-- 
Dr Jon Harrop, Flying Frog Consultancy Ltd.
http://www.ffconsultancy.com/?e