AOTD – VirtualBox
Today’s Application of the Day is Virtualbox!!! Woo. Ok, so, VirtualBox is a computer emulation program to run operating systems on. It is one of many methods of virtualization for linux. Virtualbox has many advantages such as an easy to use interface, a kernel module that allows for OS acceleration, and guest packages that allow even more improvements on supported guest operating systems.
So, why feature VirtualBox? The ease of use. It has one of the best interfaces out there out of all the ones I’ve used. It’s also one of the fastest. I tested it installing Windows 2000 and Windows XP, and both worked nearly perfectly (Win2000 froze at one point.. but I can’t tell if that’s windows or the emulator that actually froze).
Qemu is a great competitor for speed of the virtualization, however it does not [yet] have an easy to use GUI interface. I was reading about a program called Qemulator earlier which would add an interface similar to VirtualBox’s to qemu, perhaps giving qemu an advantage.
One of the best comparisons I’ve read (Comparing Virtualbox, qemu, and VMWare) is located at http://www.linux-gamers.net/smartsection.item.56/virtualbox-vs-qemu.html – It has a great chart comparing the speed of each. Keep in mind though, that for most users Virtualbox’s GUI makes it easy to accept its slight disadvantage in speed.
Happy virtualizing!