Virtualization & Virtual Machines

[e]

For some of my upcoming class work, I'll be needing do some cross-platform development, and since I'd like to develop it all from the same machine without having to reboot, I thought I'd take a look at virtualization (or running OS's within an OS).

I've seen there are a couple of free solutions (VirtualPC, VMWare, VirtualBox, Xen, ...), so I figured I'd give it a shot and ask here who's used what and what worked best. I'm sure at least N or Alexander will have an idea? Or maybe Cocoa. Anyway...

Which virtualization software works best with Windows XP (SP2) as your host OR Debian etch (x86)?

 

[Pavilion]

I've used VirtualBox and its really good,
If you have to choose its this one

 

[___]

VirtualBox is really solid and has some neat integration features (see http://lifehacker.com/367714/run-window ... side-linux). The free version of VMWare imo is a pain in the ass in comparison - you have to get a 3rd party front-end for making virtual boxes in it as it's only supposed to be a 'player', though the commercial VMWare Fusion does have support for 3d acceleration which is both unique and cool.

 

[e]

I'd prefer if my host system was Windows XP, but I guess I can make do with a nix base if it's fast enough. Is it? I remember using VMWare on Linux and it being really, really slow, though that might've been my computer.

 

[___]

By faster do you mean "virtualized windows will run faster than linux will run in the virtual box" or "the main operating system is faster"? Linux is most definitely "faster" than Windows, and depending on how your VM is set up you may see better VM performance in Linux than in Windows using VirtualBox (I don't know about VMWare). There are however things that will not be as fast in Windows, particularly anything that relies on hardware acceleration such as XP & Vista's visual effects or any games, which will result in an apparent lag when dragging windows and such.

You may try using Wine to run 3d-accelerated Windows apps if you chose Linux as a host system. I believe there are similar extensions available for Ubuntu if you want to do a seamless integration setup using Windows as your host, but I don't know of any handy guides for setting it up like that one on lifehacker.

 

[Tohsaka]

I use VMWare Fusion 2.0 for my virtualization. Runs Ubuntu and Windows XP great- With 3D Acceleration.

 

[___]

You gotta buy (or p*****) Fusion though unless they've released a free Fusion player now?

 

[Tohsaka]

WMware Player is free, but you can't create new virtual machines- Instead, you'll have to get one from their site, or get a pre-made machine from another user.

 

[___]

I was under the impression that Fusion VMs don't run in the regular VMWare Player.

 

[e]

So I went with VirtualBox on a Windows XP host, and I'm pretty impressed by the seamless mode. I mean, once you get the guest additions installed, then it's a real blast, and there's little to no difference between your host and guest OSs. I don't get how I managed to miss out on these kind of things

 

[___]

Yeah that is a pretty badass feature : )