Best Virtualization software (free)

N

n00zler

Limp Gawd
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Nov 13, 2002
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I'm starting to mess around a bit with having a few VM's, and am wondering whats the best free VM software. I'm currently running Virtual PC, but I've used VMWare in the past.

I want to run Server2k8, maybe a WHS box, and xp64. I'd also maybe mess around with a couple linux distro's if I got ambitious :)
 
It depends on what you want to do, realistically, so I'll break it down the way I make my recommendation (which is VirtualBox, overall).

If you intend only to run Windows inside the VM, meaning you never have intentions of ever running Linux or any other OSes aside from Microsoft Windows (doesn't matter which version of Windows, but just Windows only), then VirtualPC 2007 will probably be enough for you to learn with and get your "virtual feet" wet with. It will run some other OSes, but let's be realistic: it's handicapped in favor of running Windows as guest OSes, period. It's not as feature laden as the competition, but then again, it's free now just like they are and development has ended on VirtualPC, period.

If you wish to run Windows and Linux and some other stuff, then VirtualBox offers a bit more feature-wise and is actively under development. The primary reason I recommend VirtualBox is it's easy as hell to set up, it's very tiny (the download is like 43MB these days), it installs fast, creating a new VM is simple, after it's installed it does not have shit running in the background - and for some of us that matters a great deal on our tuned/tweaked boxes, regardless of power (mine's a quad), or RAM (I have 8GB), etc. When it's not running, it's not running, period. Very small installation size also so it's not screwing around with a huge footprint on the OS.

Some will argue that it's not as feature laden as VMWare is, and I'll agree - but then again, it's not VMWare and it doesn't come with some of the penalties VMWare does.

Now the king of the hill, which is of course VMWare. 3 products primarily these days (I won't get into the ESXi stuff since this is not that in-depth): Server, Workstation, and Player. Server is free, Workstation is a commercial product, and Player is free. You can use the Player to run the VMs you create with Server (and there are some free tools out that can actually create VMs for the Player without needing Server or Workstation, go figure), but it's large and has the same issues the full blown Server or Workstation does:

It's fairly huge for a download (ok, I know this isn't such a big deal but dammit, it's fucking huge, period), it leaves a huge footprint on the drive, it leaves not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 services running 24/7 regardless of whether VMWare itself (any version) is running or not. That's insane and ridiculous on top of each other with a side order of jelly toast. 4 services - and again, I know on today's powerhouse boxen it's not a big deal but to me and others it is - even when you're not using any VMs in operation at all.

Positives? It's the king of the hill, as I said. It's well supported (so is VirtualBox, for that matter, VirtualPC is a giveaway now and Microsoft could care less), has a large community, a huge user base since it's the oldest VM software still on the "market" today, and is in constant development.

In my own experience and testing, on the same hardware, VirtualBox outperforms VMWare Server or Player in day-to-day usage of guest VMs. That's my own experience, not the same thing others may say based on theirs, but because of this, and VirtualBox's very lean environment, it gets the nod for the recommendation from me.

If you were a hardcore VM user, you wouldn't have asked the question in the first place, so I'll say you're probably involved with some VM stuff (as you admitted), but now you'd like to get a bit more serious. VirtualBox would be the next step logically over VirtualPC because you can do a lot more. You get support for VT-x (virtualization on a hardware level if your current CPU/mobo supports it) that will give you nearly native installation performance with a guest OS in a VM as if it was installed on the bare hardware. VirtualPC can't, doesn't, and never will support VT-x because it's effectively a dead product.

Aside from that, I'm sure others will chime in with their own recommendations and perhaps experience. Mine is VirtualBox, hands down.
 
Virtualbox for free. Works well, pretty intuitive to use from a user standpoint. I'm not a fan of the free VMWare products as there were bizarre issues running stuff I worked on in VMWare Server that didn't show up in VMWare Workstation, stuff like hanging installs, install loops, software corruption. The only VMWare product I use is Workstation (which has a 'faster' development cycle than the free server products), but it is not free at all so I can't recommend that.

Virtualbox all the way.
 
i am interested in the OP's post, does virtualbox support usb devices... i am looking at their site now...
 
I've been loving ESXi lately, but it's an OS. For something installable, VBox looks really good.
 
@JoeAverage

Thanks for the rundown! You're spot on. I've got some limited experience with VM's, but I'm wanting to get a bit more serious about it. I'm exploring possibilities in creating a few new boxes without having to buy anymore new hardware (web server, file server, etc). I'll be checking out VirtualBox for sure :)
 
Adidas4275 said:
i am interested in the OP's post, does virtualbox support usb devices... i am looking at their site now...
Click to expand...

Yes, it supports USB passthrough just fine. I use USB sticks and external drives with VMs constantly, and an HP Deskjet printer as well. Even got my Dell Axim x50v using ActiveSync in a VM too, works without issues. Only thing you can't do (from what I gather and my own testing) is get a VM to boot off a USB device, however. That would be nice for testing bootable recovery sticks, etc since I deal with making those all the time. Perhaps at some point we'll see this option (I'm speaking of VirtualBox here, of course).
 
Kinda off topic I know, but bootable USB sticks have always been hit and miss for me. I worked a tech help desk for several years, and we had a very hard time coming up with a build of anything (BartPE, WinPE 2.0, etc) that would consistently work when booting off of USB. I'd finally get a build that worked perfectly on our test machines, but when I tried to use it on a customers, nothin. So glad I'm not at that job anymore ;)
 
Thanks for this thread!

I came here to post a thread exactly like this; I have a quad (q6700- I know..dumb..should have went with the 6600 ), 8gb ram on Vista 64.

I have plenty of resources to play with VDI more, and I really want to finally start getting my head around Linux as for 10+ years I have said I wanted to, but never got around to it! So, wanted a solution to host, build, run Virtual machine, but of course was looking for free! So, I guess the best way to go about that would be Vbox, right?

Thanks again all
 
so, installed the Vbox 64.. super easy.. so far have built Fedora 10 x64 KDE VM, and a Ubuntu 8.1 x64. wow. linux, at least those 2 distros, are super easy to run!

cool stuff. vbox..
 
Joe Average said:
It's fairly huge for a download (ok, I know this isn't such a big deal but dammit, it's fucking huge, period), it leaves a huge footprint on the drive, it leaves not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 services running 24/7 regardless of whether VMWare itself (any version) is running or not.
Click to expand...


4 services using a trivial amount of resources ≠ huge footprint. Otherwise, I think you've written a great comparison.

If you really don't want them running, they can be changed to manual startup.

I ran what was the current version of vmware workstation, about a year ago, on a Pentium 3 machine, and did not find it's services to be taxing, on that ancient machine..

The download is pretty huge, considering that only a version or so ago, it was only 50MB
 
Instead of starting a new thread, ill ask here.
Is there a free VM software that supports x64 bit OS's?
Vbox doesnt.

I have XP pro x64, and i want to install it in linux, but vbox says that it does not support the OS
 
illuminate said:
Instead of starting a new thread, ill ask here.
Is there a free VM software that supports x64 bit OS's?
Vbox doesnt.
Click to expand...
Virtualbox 2.0.x supports 64-bit guests.

The latest 2.1.0 has experimental support for 32-bit hosts in x64 hardware being able to use 64-bit guests.
 
Here is what version i have:
Screenshot-VirtualBox-About.png


When i try to start and install my Xp pro x64 VM, it says that it's not supported.
 
Remember that VirtualBox OSE doesn't support USB passthrough.

I heard a rumour that VBox 2.10 supports OpenGL acceleration through the host machine's card...now that is sounding far more interesting than supporting x86_64 in a guest to me ;)
 
Can I run VBox in Ubuntu Intrepid 64 bit to run Vista Ultimate 64 in a virtual environment? Or is VBox a Windows only utility?
 
RoastedTiresX said:
Can I run VBox in Ubuntu Intrepid 64 bit to run Vista Ultimate 64 in a virtual environment? Or is VBox a Windows only utility?
Click to expand...

The open source version (minus USB passthrough support) is already there in the Intrepid repos. A simple "sudo apt-get install virtualbox" oughta do it.
 
:LJ: said:
The open source version (minus USB passthrough support) is already there in the Intrepid repos. A simple "sudo apt-get install virtualbox" oughta do it.
Click to expand...

Good stuff! I've NEVER tinkered with any virtual OS's... so I'd like to mess around with one or two and see what kind of trouble I can get myself into.

Thanks!
 
I have tried VMware 1 and now 2 (free) and I am tremendously pleased, it all just worked and wasn't even too hard to figure out for me with ZERO VM experience. VMware 2 with its web interface is a little awkward to deal with but everything you need to work with the VM's environments can be accessed through a browser somewhere else so that's nice. The services running when you have no VM's running are significant, they sit on about 160MB of system memory while doing nothing, remember you have that tomcat web server sitting there ready. The older application version 1 was much slimmer, but now left behind.

Seems I need to try VirtualBox next.

Multi core processors, lots of memoty, and a hard drive set aside just for VM will help a lot with performance. You might not notice the VM's are running in the background there for most stuff.
 
One thing, for those thinking of using VMWare on the desktop - the one main advantage that VirtualBox has is the ability to use guest resolutions outside the normal 1024x768, 1280x1024 etc. You can just resize the window containing the host OS (once you've installed the Guest Additions pack) and the guest resolution will change accordingly. To my knowledge, VMWare doesn't allow you to do that...
 
:LJ: said:
One thing, for those thinking of using VMWare on the desktop - the one main advantage that VirtualBox has is the ability to use guest resolutions outside the normal 1024x768, 1280x1024 etc. You can just resize the window containing the host OS (once you've installed the Guest Additions pack) and the guest resolution will change accordingly. To my knowledge, VMWare doesn't allow you to do that...
Click to expand...

VMware Server 2 does, assuming you have the tools installed on the host OS. Can also work it the other way around and set the resolution in the VM and it resizes the host VM window.


Myself I am still using bridged networking all with the onboard NIC and I haven't had problem one with it, but some people preach separate NIC's per VM. Don't know if it is a performance or reliability thing but again something to think about if you already have multiple NIC's.
 
Does Virtualbox support running as a service on a (headless) host machine and having clients connect remotely (much like VMware server as opposed to workstation)? I tired a few VM software back when I started and the biggest reason I decided to go with VMware server was that it could do just that..run as a server. I looked around for a similar solution for Virtualbox but I couldn't find any.
 
puffcap said:
Does Virtualbox support running as a service on a (headless) host machine and having clients connect remotely (much like VMware server as opposed to workstation)? I tired a few VM software back when I started and the biggest reason I decided to go with VMware server was that it could do just that..run as a server. I looked around for a similar solution for Virtualbox but I couldn't find any.
Click to expand...

I'd like to know that as well. The box I'll most likely be running my VMs on will be headless.
 
VMware Player :)

VirtualPC is also pretty decent, but haven't really used it in the past year or two
 
ESXi is free if you ever want to dedicate a piece of hardware to run your VMs. Its definately the fastest (an pretty much the only true) baremetal hypervisor. Its 32Mb to boot and takes about 5 minutes to install and configure (no joke here, I did 4 servers at our DR datacenter in 20 minutes one day).
 
No one mentioned Qemu? It's not as user friendly as the others but with VboxManage it's getting there.

For something totally different try JPC (http://www-jpc.physics.ox.ac.uk/Demo.html) it's a real mode "virtual machine" running straight in your web browser. Lets you play Commander Keen.
 
puffcap said:
Does Virtualbox support running as a service on a (headless) host machine and having clients connect remotely (much like VMware server as opposed to workstation)?
Click to expand...

Yes it does. You can configure a VRDP server for any of your virtual VMs.
 
I like VMWare over Virtual PC.

I have my mother running Vista 32-bit in a VM on her Vista 64 laptop, because some of her programs just do not like Vista 64-bit. Tried Virtual PC first, it wouldn't pass through USB stuff like scanners (she needs for scanning receipts). VMWare handles this nicely.
 
XenServer Enterprise (Free!) Although it is baremetal...

To all the people saying ESXi because its free, how the hell do you manage your VM's remotley for free? Also it needs to be installed on server hardware (not free!)
 
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