Is there currently a proper Type 1 "desktop" hypervisor? Either free or not? This is just for tinkering around at home on some beefy Phenom machines.

Basically i want to be able to run say 2 OSs on the same PC but without loading windows or a heavy flavour of linux and then use a hotkey to switch between them. I should get full performance out of them.

1. So do i need something better than vmware workstation and/or virtualbox. I think these are "Type 2"? I already run VMWare w/s and VBox but is there a more performant solution?

2. I saw a YouTube video from Citrix where a laptop was running XP and Vista. With the touch of a hot key they could switch between them. There was no visible underlying OS (there might be a hypervisor)? I have access to Citrix XenDesktop 3 enterprise edition evaluation. I realise this isn't for desktops but can i achieve my goal (geekiness) ?

3. If i use the free XenServer 5.5.0 how do my client PCs access windows/linux/whatever from the xenserver? Is it via a thin client RDP type application? If so if there one for both windows and linux? Also if i do use XenServer can i use USB in either direction?

4. What is Citrix receiver can i use that for (3) ? If so, is there some hotkey i can configure?

5. whatever client is used to access the server software (whether it be on a different server or local) can i get full opengl/directx acceleration?

6. what about Xen? i tried the Xen LiveCD but no clue as how to configure it.

As you can see much confusion. Any help/pointers welcome.

Cheers.