Virtualization and using it

I'm running a server at home right now, and was thinking about expanding the range of functions. Currently is acts as a file server mainly, but would like to expand that to run MythTV backend (to record shows), and a webserver, internet host type setup, as well as a internet gateway for my lan.

Since there are many pre-made systems that do the jobs I want (mind you not all together) I was thinking of settung up a base OS, and then running in a virtual machine things like Knoppmyth (the myth tv setup) and some soft of lan gateway os, and an ISP host OS.

This would be a farely easy setup to manage (since updating software would be as easy as replacing the image file of the virtual machine) compared to installing all the software under one OS (my main concearn is installing MythTV since I tried a while back with not so good results).

The only drawback to running multiple VMs I guess is needing more of a computer (better CPU and more ram) compared to running all under one OS.

Any thoughts on this? Anyone try this?

You will definetly need more RAM and a good computer for that. It looks as if you want your computer to have four functions, three of which are through VM's. It's entirely up to you but unless you have a large amount of RAM (my guess would be at 1.5-2GB of RAM), it's not going to be worth it.

Bryan