[dba-Tech] Linux VM server software

I am looking seriously at running much of my stuff in virtual machines.  VMs
run on a server system, and VMWare's VMs don't care whether they run on
Windows servers or Linux servers.  Since the Linux OS has much lighter
demands in terms of memory footprint and CPU it seems like an obvious Host
OS.  Does anyone here have experience in running Linux specifically for the
purpose of hosting VMWare VMs?

Also does anyone know about assigning CPUs to the VMs and the effects of the
host OS?  I have a quad core and I need to know if it is legal to assign 2
cores to each of two virtual machines?  What if I have three virtual
machines, can I assign two cores to each machine?  IOW will the VM server
software sort out the results or will it crash and burn?

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting
www.ColbyConsulting.com