recommendations on virtualization software

[Jerry Feldman]

On 03/19/2009 11:55 AM, Mark Ellison wrote:
> 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.
>
>   
Depends what you want to use it for. KVM/QEMU are distributed in the 
Fedora 10 (Core is no longer used) distro. One advantage that I see over 
Virtualbox is that you can virtualize CPUs. I've currently got Vista and 
XP set up as guest OS (quad core AMD Opteron). Another advantage is that 
the kernel will always contain the proper module. I use Virtualbox on my 
Ubuntu laptop wth XP and Fedora 10 as the guests (Turion 64 single 
core).  Both VMWare and Virtualbox have guest os installed add ins 
(called Guest Additions in Virtualbox). Normally, when you are working 
in the VM, your cursor is locked in the VM, and you need a special key 
sequence to unlock it. With the guest add ons, the cursor is integrated, 
so the VM cursor behaves like it does with a normal window. I have not 
personally tried Xen.Virtualbox 2.1.4 is the latest release and it is a 
free download.

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id: 537C5846
PGP Key fingerprint: 3D1B 8377 A3C0 A5F2 ECBB  CA3B 4607 4319 537C 5846


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