Hi Guys,
For those running VMs, what 'player' do you use?
Preferences, pros & cons etc.
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Hi Guys,
For those running VMs, what 'player' do you use?
Preferences, pros & cons etc.
I use VMWare Server on a Linux host.
Pros:
- Interoperable with VMWare ESX, VMWare Workstation, and VMWare Player
- Supports both Linux and Windows hosts
- Easy to port VMs from one machine to another — simply copy the files and add them into the target server
- Snapshots — save the state of a virtual machine at any point (even while running) and restore to that point. Can be automated too
- VMWare Tools for Linux and Windows guests
- Reasonable performance — suspending/resuming VMs is much quicker than using the guest OS's hibernation mode
- Command-line tools for managing VMs and virtual disks
- Highly configurable and scriptable
- Free
Cons:
- Server version 2.0 only supports a web-based management interface — not so bad once you get used to it though
- VM console view doesn't integrate as well as it could with GNOME and Windows user interfaces — I get around this by using remote desktop or VNC viewer and multiple workspaces
- Not as fast as a dedicated hypervisor such as ESX
- Have to rebuild modules every time the host kernel is updated (I think this is true of all Linux virtualisation software though).
Hi Penagate, :wave:
I'm having a play with VMWare at the moment using VMWare Player (and I will try M$ VM when I get back home). I must say I didn't know VMWare Server was free tho.Quote:
Originally Posted by penagate
Cheers,
I agree with Penagate! I think you can download VM Server. However, it has activation purposes which I reckon you would need to buy the license key for. I don't know how much the license key cost because I got the software from Tafe and it already come with the license key.
The licence keys are free. You simply need to register for them on the VMWare website.
VMWare Server is their 'entry-level' virtualisation product. VMWare ESX is their enterprise-level server solution and VMWare Workstation is a professional-grade product for workstation machines which provides better integration with the host operating system than VMWare Server.
Indeed, ESX doesn't run on a host operating system, it includes its own kernel and has complete control of the host system.
This wikipedia page can be kind of useful in comparing different virtual machine software:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...rtual_machines
there's a reason microsoft started giving virtual pc away. And vmware includes better hardware support. Once you have installed the guest OS, you can install a driver package that gives you much better performance.