Which Program is best for running Virtual Machines with various Linux distros?

I've always used Windows operating systems, starting with 95, ME, XP (family computer) and now Vista (bundled with my new notebook). So I wanted to explore an alternative operating system. I don't want to be so dependent on Microsoft.

Which of these programs is best for running Virtual Machines; VMware, QEMU, or VirtualBox?

 

I'm also looking for one.

I need one that would allow it to take a big resolution. at least 1440x900, VMware only supported 640x480 & 800x600 last time I tried it.

 

I'm leaning towards VirtualBox at the moment, but I was hoping to get some feedback here before I take the plunge with one of them.

 

Well, I use VirtualBox and run an XP virtual machine to run my vertical market tax programs as that's what I do for a living. I also use my Canon LIDE90 usb scanner as that's not supported yet in linux. I really like it. It seems stable and has a certain wow factor to it. I have used Vmware server which was slick, but I think you need to pay version to use usb and have shared folders with the linux partition which was mandatory for me (VB does support this). I can't have my whole life locked up, or 'imprisoned' in a single .vbi file.

 

innotech is another to look at..
easy to configure and a lot of features worked...
but your wanting to run a vm under vista, thats where you may have problems...
if your lappy has vm hardware support then you have a few advantages there too...
with vm hardware support, you could theoretically run the existing version of windows from your linux distro, using vmware or another that supports hardware vm...

 

yes it is innotek, sorry my typo....
running vm in vista, you may need to do some research about that, i dont use vista so cant help you there, but have learnt that vista will run in vm, but not sure which vm supports it fully

 

I'm a full-time Kubuntu Linux user and I use VirtualBox to virtualize Windows XP and I had a KDE4 image and a separate Kubuntu image for testing things.

Granted, I'm not familiar with Vista, but if you can get VirtualBox to work on it, I think I like Virtual Box a lot more than I liked VMWare when I used it. I used Qemu for a while but didn't like it very much, it felt slower than VirtualBox and was all command-line based which, while I generally prefer the command line, in that particular application it bothered me.

- Trip

 

how about virtual pc 2007. its free and supports vista as a host machine

 

My problem with Virtual Box is that you can't set up the guest OS to a resolution higher than 1024x768, wich is quite troublesome on a 1680x1050 or 1920x1200 screen.

 

JCMS...just checked my VirtualBox XP installation....display resolution is at 1672x914 at the moment because of the way I enlarged the screen....did you have guest additions installed? It won't go to higher resolutions until you install those, plus several other features....very important!

 

Oh yeah I should install those! Got any places to download 'em?

 

I'm having this problem, too, to a degree. In Windows I can't get it to go to any widescreen resolutions, but in Linux I can specify 1280x800, for instance, in the guest's xorg.conf and it adjusts fine.

I imagine there's just some setting in Windows somewhere that has to be played with.

- Trip

 

Go to the 'device' drop down menu and click, 'install guest additions'...it will ask to download a small .iso....say yes, yes, etc..

 

I haven't tried VirtualPC, but I've read that it doesn't work as well with Linux guests, possibly because its a product of Microsoft and optimized mainly for Windows guests.

 

Virtualbox is my call.
I am using it for office, visio, itune, and photoshop. I also installed vmware-fusion on my girlfriend's macbook since she's just new to mac. Generally those two vms have identical functions. Although they are on different platforms (I believe that vmware-fusion is only for mac, or the mac version of vmware-server). Somehow VB on my linux box runs faster than fusion runs on my gf's macbook. Since I have a dedicated graphic card (nvidia geforce 6400 go), but I also have less ram (1.5g vs 2g) and older cpu (centrino 2.13 m vs C2D 2.16). The last thing, VB is free.
I only run xp guest with them.

 

You can customize it like you want. www.gnome-look.org (not sure, google it).

I went with Ubuntu in the end because I like the bootscreen & sound effect better.

 

Yes, you CAN get rid of the orange at boot up....no problem....just check the ubuntu forums