Teach me about Linux VM choices.

September 12, 2007 7:28 PM

VMFilter: Talk to me about virtual machines on Ubuntu.

I am running Feisty. My processor supports hardware virtualization. I'd like to run WinXP and/or Vista from within Linux, and possibly experiment with other Linux setups.

I'm overwhelmed by choices. I used vmware many moons ago, but it now seems silly to emulate an x86 processor when I'm on an x86 processor, especially when I don't have to. Xen is one of the things I've heard of supporting hardware virtualization, but it seems like a decent amount of work to get it running. But it seems like I'm overlooking a lot of others. There's virtualbox, but I don't quite get that. And I keep seeing references to kvm. Is that out? Stable?

I don't want to dual-boot. I want to run Windows within a VM inside of Linux.

I'd strongly prefer a free solution. What are my options? What would you choose? What do you use now? (Bonus points if the solution lets me run an application on my desktop, Coherence (I think?) style, as opposed to forcing me to use a whole desktop inside a window... But this isn't a dealbreaker.)

posted by fogster to Computers & Internet (9 answers total)

Best answer: If you want to run Windows, and you want to take advantage of the virtualization extensions of your hardware (Intel VT or AMD's AMD-V), then your choice is simple: KVM. Other options are either non-free, don't really use the hardware extensions, or aren't as good at your meeting your Windows requirement.

As for running (or at least displaying) single Windows-based applications -- this is a good place to use RDP running against a virtual machine, where the VM's console isn't being displayer -- but get your virtualization stuff setup first.
posted by toxic at 8:03 PM on September 12, 2007

Vmware does not emulate a x86 in the sense of running a full model of a processor and peripherals. You might be thinking of qemu which does a full emulation of a processor in software. Actually, most people run qemu on x86 processor with another module which uses tricks to virtualize the underlying x86.

Vmware server is free. I use it to run win Xp on my debian machine but my processor is too old to support the new virtualization stuff. When I want to run an application on my debian desktop I just run vnc to the virtual machine. Vmware is dead easy to install but they don't track linux kernel releases very well so you normally have to install patches to run on nearly newest kernels and give up on running on the newest kernels.

If I had a newer processor I'd try Xen and Vmware to see how much of a win you get from the new virtualization stuff and I'd lean towards vmware becuase I don't want to spend much time on the problem.
posted by rdr at 8:07 PM on September 12, 2007

I recently built a server on ubuntu 7.04 and VMWare server. It hosts 2 VMs- another LAMP server and a Windows 2000 instance, made through vmware's p2v software.

It's been up and running fine for a month now. Loads are pretty low on it, and it was a fun process. I have no idea if I made the best choice in server, virtualization software and configuration.... I'm just faking it, and so far, so good.
posted by Steve3 at 8:18 PM on September 12, 2007

Vmware server is free

At the risk of being pedantic. VMware server and player are free as in beer (and so is this solution). They cost you nothing, but they are closed source products. QEMU, KVM and Xen are free as in speech.

To some people, this is important, to others, it is not. Fortunately, you are free to choose to run either one at no cost.
posted by toxic at 8:33 PM on September 12, 2007

Best answer: I'm running WindowsXP on VirtualBox on Ubuntu 7.10 (tribe5), and so far so good. It's definately worth a look.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:48 PM on September 12, 2007

I occasionally fire up a windows virtual machine on my ubuntu box at work for when I need to work in Access or something. I use vmware player and a virtual disk I made using qemu. This approach is free and it does work -- although my particular box would benefit from more ram to make it speedier. I have no idea how it compares in terms of performance, but it was really easy to setup.
posted by ph00dz at 8:52 PM on September 12, 2007

I am a long-time linux user, but I have to use Windows to use the free-as-in-beer Altera FPGA development suite. I chose vmware server because its performance and integration (e.g., I can freely move my mouse in between the virtual machine and my linux desktop). Since I already had $$-software (windows XP) and beer-free software (Altera's FPGA suite) involved, it didn't seem like any more of a cop-out to use the beer-free vmware.

Vmware also boasts nice "suspend" and "resume" buttons, the ability to attach and detach from the guest while it's running, and the ability to run the guest on a different system from the one where it's displayed. Qemu does at least some of these things but through an odd commandline (at least in the 0.6.x version I tried)
posted by jepler at 8:27 AM on September 13, 2007

2nding virtualbox, running windows 2000 in it (on a pure 64-bit system) and it's unbelievably fast. also running 32-bit ubuntu gutsy in it, but having xorg.conf issues bleh.

nb you may want to evaluate both hardware extension and non-hardware solutions -- I've read people positing that the cpu extensions are rather rigid and limited, and that pure software virtualization can in certain cases outperform the vanderpool/pacifica stuff. there may be solutions (xen?) that can take the best of both.
posted by dorian at 8:33 AM on September 13, 2007

oh and virtualbox has an open source edition (which is what I use), in addition to its vmware-type-binary version.
posted by dorian at 8:35 AM on September 13, 2007