> I'll see your VMWare and raise it with a *free* Sun VirtualBox. I dropped > all of my VMWare licenses a few months ago and switched over completely to > VirtualBox. > > http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Community > > Sun's VB is much faster, more flexible, and more full featured for what I > need to do with a VM.
Having recalled a similar conversation some months ago, I'll confess that I installed VirtualBox on a Dell D820 under Linux 8.04 (x_64) with very poor results. However, I fully acknowledge that I didn't evaluate Virtual box on different x_64 hardware nor a different version/distribution of the OS (Linux or Solaris), due to $work and a lack of time for further experimentation. Until I (or anyone for that matter) have time to test the performance of VirtualBox on various x_64 Linux platforms, I can only attest to the notably excellent performance of VMWare Fusion on OS X 10.5.x for running 32-bit Windows virtual machines and both 32/64 bit Linux vms. Windows XP SP2 and your average 32-bit Linux distro (e.g. Gentoo) ran reasonably well on an AMD am2 x_64 hardware platform under VMware Workstation 5.x. Having had performance issues with versions of Windows XP on a Dell D820 under VMWare Workstation 6.x, I am beginning to suspect the particular Dell hardware and/or the behavior of said hardware with the graphics Ubuntu codebase/libraries. The point of this is that Virtualbox may be an entirely acceptable and performance-oriented hypervisor, notable for its support of more OS's (Solaris), but VMware is not a bad choice for those willing to pay the reasonable price of admission ($80 for VMware Fusion for OS X or $100+ for VMWare workstation for Linux. My last point being that VMWware workstation relies heavily on GTK and issuing a standard version of the VMWare workstation product for Linux is something of a challenge due to GTK (1.x, 2.x, etc.) variations on a per distribution basis. For those building a box as Doug suggests, I'd say try VirtualBox before shelling out for a VMware workstation license, and if the results are positive, why not pursue the open source free VirtualBox option prior to the commercial product? Virtualization certainly offers a platform/computing versatility that is very appealing for people with diverse application needs. However, for some people features such as snap-shotting and cloning of VM's may be significant features. I'm not advocating for the commercial product (VMware) over the open source one (VirtualBox), but I think Mendel Rosenblum and Co. have a reasonable product worth purchasing under certain circumstances. All of this notwithstanding, I work primarily in a Sun shop (NCGR) and from that perspective VirtualBox deserves every (if not preferred) consideration. -Nick ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
