Virtual Box

[andrew.]

Hey guys,

I was wondering whether you guys have tried Virtual Box and found it better than Parallels, VMWare, etc. I would like to know because I have a Linux system and I don't want to spend money for commercial VM software.

[md]

I have it and I find it works rather well for most things. USB passthrough it great, it's just as fast as vmware, etc.

I use it for windows, and vmware server for servers (free).

[Insectoid]

I just downloaded VirtualBox for my mac, and am running linux on it. Just one question: How do I increase the size of the virtual desktop? And another thought, what would happen if you had, say, virtual windows running on windows, but had another virtual windows installed on top of virtual windows, and another installed on top of that, and another on that? Would it just be really really slow?

[md]

Nesting virtual machines is slow yes. So slow as to not be worth trying in the majority of cases.

Changing the desktop size of the virtual machine (I assume you mean windows desktop) is as simple as changing the resolution. I would recommend installing the virtualbox drivers within hte VM first however, as emulated VESA displays are slooooooow.

[Zeroth]

md @ Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:12 am wrote:

Nesting virtual machines is slow yes. So slow as to not be worth trying in the majority of cases.

Changing the desktop size of the virtual machine (I assume you mean windows desktop) is as simple as changing the resolution. I would recommend installing the virtualbox drivers within hte VM first however, as emulated VESA displays are slooooooow.

Slow cat is sloooooooowwwww?

[Insectoid]

Actually, I'm running linux over the VM, and the resolution won't go up past 640X480. Is this a driver issue then?

[Tony]

andrew. @ Mon Oct 27, 2008 3:05 pm wrote:

I don't want to spend money for commercial VM software.

some software is quite reasonably priced, for what it does. Some

Also, it appears that for today only, Tuesday, October 28, 2008, CrossOver is being handed out for free -- http://down.codeweavers.com/

[Insectoid]

Would you recommend crossover over VirtualBox?

[Tony]

I haven't tried either yet. Will try CrossOver when they'll email me my key.

So far I've been impressed with VMFusion though.

[Insectoid]

I'm going to try CrossOver when I get my key as well, then decide for myself which I want.

[Zeroth]

Download the crossover apps NOW. Don't wait for your keys.

[Insectoid]

What's the difference between crossover pro and crossover games? Is pro a more powerful version, or is it meant to run only things like excel or word while the games version handles games only? (downloading both for now)

[Clayton]

I've downloaded it, and requested a key, but I'd like to hear your experiences Zeroth, what are they? Do you prefer CrossOver as opposed to something else like VMFusion?

[andrew.]

But Crossover isn't a virtual machine program, it's more of an API translation layer like Wine or Darwine. Right?

[Zeroth]

Crossover Pro is optimized specifically for office apps, like IE6, MS Office, etc. It also allows native installation of the windows flash plugin.
Crossover Games however, is optimized in a different fashion, for games. It supports Steam, Half-Life, Guild Wars, Spore, etc.

I prefer the Crossover stuff vs a VM, since they are pretty much a tweaked Wine binary. They also gainfully employ the main Wine dev, contribute to hosting costs and development, along with around 60% of the major patches to Wine. The fact that they are developing a successful business plan off of supporting and advancing the quality of an open-source app is awesome. Whereas, most things like VMFusion, Parallels, etc, are... non-free, and incredibly hostile in a business sense. The VM containers, like KVM and Xen however are great, but I've never tried them. :/ Personally, I'd go for the solution that requires the fewest layers, and thats Crossover.