recommendations on virtualization software

[Jeffrey O'brien]

>>> 
From: 	Mark Ellison <mark at ellisonsoftware.com>
To:	Greater NH Linux User Group <gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org>
Date: 	3/19/2009 11:58 AM
Subject: 	recommendations on virtualization software

Hi,

I am seeking recommendations and pros/cons of different virtualization 
software.

The physical machine is a Intel T9400 quad core with 8GB ram, 2x500GB 
sata disks and 1Gb nic.  My current plan is to run 64 bit Fedora Core 10 
(or 11 as available) as the host OS.  The guest OSes will include a mix 
vista, xp and other UNIX variants.

I am aware of the commercially available VMware workstation, VirtualBox 
and Xen.  Any feedback and recommendations are appreciated.

Regards,

Mark

-- 
Mark Ellison                        Ellison Software Consulting, Inc.
tel: +1 (603) 362-9270              38 Salem Road
web: http://EllisonSoftware.com     Atkinson, NH  03811, USA

>>>

Mark,

Your best bet for OS support would be in VMware(Try Server, its Free and less bloated than workstation), due to the binary translation they are able to run the most variety of OSes (BSD's, Solaris x86, Windows, Linux 2.4 -2.6).  For 64bit support you will have to enable VT for your intel platform in the BIOS (under processor options as the default is disabled, AMD is enabled by default).  KVM is up and coming and is a good choice for running Linux and Windows, but you wont see other UNIX variant support there.

Cheers,
Jeff