Virtualization

Microsoft is a widely used operating system for a few very good reasons. First, Microsoft Office is hands down the best option for word processing in my opinion, and Outlook has some very nice features. Also, Active Directory is a relatively good way to keep track of a large amount of domain users. Because of these two things, I find myself forced to use Microsoft Windows and while I enjoy these aspects of it, I still love Linux and Unix and BSD and Solaris. For this I use Virtualization. Now virtualization is an up and coming technology, so there are a lot of changes being made. That being said, here is my experience with two seperate desktop hypervisors.

VMWare. Vmware offers a wide range of products, from desktop hypervisors to enterprises solutions for virtualizing large amounts of servers. They have two desktop products, VMWare Workstation and VMWare Server. VMWare Workstation is not free like Server, so I've used it only in trial settings for short periods of time. It installs as an application and you are able to configure, start, stop and everything else you'll do from this application. The Server version runs as a server, in that there isn't an application specifically for it, and others can connect to it from elsewhere. To access the interface, you use a web browser. The web browser is a bit clunky in my opinion, and I found myself right clicking far too often seeing as it isn't allowed. The virtual machines themselves are opened into the Virtual Machine Viewer, another piece of free software, and you can work with them there. Installs are at times frustrating, its almost impossible to get into the bios to change boot priorities, so if you've installed an OS its hard to install something else overtop of it. I also don't like using the web browser as it isn't always very quick. I used VMWare server for about a year and a half. I never had issues with compatibility, using USB devices on virtualized machines, installing lots of distros of linux and even some Windows installs, installing hacked Mac OS X onto it even.

Virtualbox. Virtualbox is a free solution by Sun Microsystems. It runs as an application and is quick and easy to install. My first install went very quickly, I liked how there was a obtainable POST screen so I could jump into the bios, and they had very intuitive controls for hardware additions and locating media already on the computer. The VMWare solution required the isos to be in the folder with the virtual machines, which at times was frustrating as I would never remember to move them there or didn't want to store them there. Virtualbox can grab them from anywhere and not move them either. Virtualbox does have a lot of pop ups that warn you about interfacing between the virtual machine and your computer, but after clicking the checkboxes for do not show they were out of my way. I've had no problems to date with the Virtualbox, but there have been some things that are slightly annoying. I wish I had more control over my virtual networks. While trying to get two virtual machines to only see each other, I found that the virtual network didn't allow for this. Also, running an ipconfig command on a windows box with Virtualbox throws up an extra six or so virtual interfaces. In its defense, VMWare isn't much better, but it is a little better I feel about how many it adds.

Virtualization is great for when you have a single system, and a desire for multiple operating systems. I've used it for testing software installs, operating system installs, and for live boot isos. Its quick and easy. VMWare makes products for both Windows and Linux and I've run it on both without much difference, and the Virtualbox is available for Windows, Solaris, and Linux.