[ale] Virtualization question

[Joshua Kite]

Hello all,

I am looking for advice on how to set up some virtual environments for use
at home.

I have a server, and I want it to have two distinct functions.  One is
network filtering, etc. using squid and some other applications.  The other
is my basic web/file/print server.  I may want to play with something else
in the future, so virtualization seems like the right choice.

The hardware that I have available is a dual xeon hyperthreaded 32 bit
machine.  And that's the problem.  I would like to run a bare-metal
hypervisor, but all of the current ones seem to be for 64-bit only.  That
makes sense, but it doesn't work for me.  I actually installed the previous
version of VMWare's ESXi only to find out that the free license will only
allow me to make use of one of the processors once the trial period is up.

So the next option appears to be a light OS for a host system with a
hypervisor running inside of it.  I have run Ubuntu for both desktop and
server for the past 5 or so years, but I am willing to consider other
distributions for both host and guest for the network filtering OS.  I'll
probably use Ubuntu for the web/file/print functionality since I'm most
familiar with it.

I have been fighting with my home server for weeks after a crash, and I'm
kind of tired of playing with it, so I am looking for a very dumbed down,
easy solution with step by step instructions for installation and automatic
startup of guests.

Do any of you have recommendations?

Thank you very much,

Josh Kite
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