Choosing my VM options

DeaconFrost

DeaconFrost

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Here's my thinking, so shoot holes in it if need be. The PC in question is in my sig, and does support VT. If I'm not "publishing my apps" is there any real reason to use XP Mode? I was thinking of ditching XP Mode in favor of VirtualBox so I could run an Ubuntu VM as well. I don't need any apps published, and actual prefer my VMS to have limited contact with my host system, aside from a shared drive to copy files over.
 
It depends on what you need your VMs to accomplish, and what you need your host OS to accomplish before we can give you any real advice on what platform to go with.

On a side note, your system specs look good and virtualizing will not be an issue with that hardware.
 
Mainly I use the VMs to test out software or settings without breaking my host OS, or playing around with an OS that I don't need or want to run on a dedicated system, such as Ubuntu.
 
I would use VirtualBox, as the hypervisor software only. It should provide you more stability, plus give you the ability to run Linux VMs.
 
If you are already used to XP Mode, why not just use Virtual PC too? Works real well, is free, and hooks into the host OS for sharing peripherials. Even shares USB devices.
 
DeaconFrost said:
As far as I can tell, Virtual PC doesn't handle Linux guests.
Click to expand...

Vmware Server does. From your first post it seems like your leaning toward Virtual PC more than vmware. I know for a fact that it does work. I had several Centos install up and running in virtual machine on my laptop. Worked without a hiccup.
 
I haven't honestly been considering VMWare at all. I prefer VirtualBox, and was only really comparing Virtual PC and VirtualBox. If anything, I'm leaning towards VirtualBox, since I won't be giving up any features that I actual use, such as publishing apps to the host.
 
DeaconFrost said:
As far as I can tell, Virtual PC doesn't handle Linux guests.
Click to expand...

It did for me. The intergration features aren't Linux compatable but you can install any OS on Virtual PC and just use the keyboard hot key to unattach the mouse and keyboard.

And there is the VMWare free version. It will handle just about anything, even though it'll give you grief about installing it on a non-server OS host. It will still install and run. I use it on some older machines I have that don't have the Intel virtualization hardware.

There are a lot of pre-built machines available from the VMWare site also.

Plenty of options for what you want to do! :)
 
You want a challenge? Find a VM that will support early versions of HP-UX on a PA-RISC platform for a x86/x64 Intel Host. The only one available is the Aries application that runs on Itanics under later versions of HP-UX. :(
 
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