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Trash Talk - Free Virtualization

Mine GO BOOM - Wed Jul 12, 2006 11:26 pm
Post subject: Free Virtualization

There are tons of free virtualization applications out now, with Microsoft throwing in their software for free as of today. Now is a great time to get your hands on one and start playing around in a Linux environment without having to reboot or fiddle with hard drives.

VMware
- VMware is my favorite of them all, mostly because of the Workstation's snapshots and tabbed virtual machines. Then again, that costs money, so the Workstation is thrown out. But, they offer VMware Server and Player for free, which is almost the same.
  
  Get Player and pick out one of their pre-built images for being ultra lazy and not even having to install a Linux environment. Some recommended ones to try:
  - Debian
  - Fedora
  - FreeDOS (hey, sometimes you just need a DOS environment)
  - FreeBSD
  - Gentoo
  - Hacking and networking security usage & training tool
  - Jabber server (based on Slackware, great for a LAN party IM network)
  - Kubuntu
  - PXE Virtual Appliance (in case you have thin clients just laying around)
  - Solaris
  - Ubuntu
  Want a Windows environment? Well, you'll need to make your own image. Easiest way is to use their free Server to create and manage your own vmware images.
Microsoft Virtual PC
- Microsoft is now in the free market as well. They plan on giving away their 2007 version when it comes out, which will work with Vista. So if you plan on emulating Vista, this is a safe bet. The thing that pissed me off the most about this was the installer, which disconnects your network for a split second. Have any TCP connections open? Well, now you don't. Oh well, at least it only asks for a restart when you uninstall it.
  
  Their Virtual PC software handles Linux fine, but it excels at Windows. VMware has a nice toolset to jump between the two, but Virtual PC's tools is really, really nice at this. My recommendation is to use both, and have VMware do non-Windows environments and Virtual PC for Windows.
Xen
- Already have a Linux machine going and want to do emulation? Well, VMware Player works for you, but if you plan on emulating headless machines, Xen is really, really nice. In fact, the server you are connected to right now is running under Xen 3 on a Gentoo master. It is more complex than the other Wizard-based ones listed above, but really excels with its speed, since you can compile the kernels of the virtualized machines specifically for Xen. Can only emulate Linux/BSD machines for now, but with work or a new processor can do Windows. This is the true up-and-coming virtualization software, but being that, it still has a few kinks that novice users may have problems with.
OpenVZ
- The father of the non-free Virtuozzo, it is the most limited of all in that it works on Linux only and can emulate Linux only. I have not played much with it, but it works pretty well.
CoLinux
- Finally, the bastard-child of free virtualization software, colinux. Sure, it is the first free, open sourced virtualization software to let you run Linux on Windows, but its abilities fall short of VMware and Virtual PC. I'd recommend going with one of those two, because just like the Browser Wars caused browsers to become free and better, the Virtualization Wars going on now will only lead those free products to become better. With Parallels coming out of left field with the first commercial Mac virtualization software, we may soon even have a third player in this field. And on the horizon, AMD and Intel are fighting it out to have virtualization be based in the CPU, which will help out the big players very well and may even make them unneeded. My recommendation is to just skip colinux completely.

So, what should you as a user do? Download VMware Player and one of their prebuilt images and go give Linux a try. While their, start up ASSS and run it in the environment it was designed for. Next, download Virtual PC and setup a virtual machine to run IE in, so you can go to all those porn sites and not have to worry about viruses anymore or fighting over who has 4+ computers to share. (I have 8 in my room and two servers running in the basement. Granted, of those 8, I only use 3 at least once a week and actually plugged in.)

Chambahs - Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:42 am
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Lamens terms on what this is please :-p

Maverick - Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:04 am
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Nice post MGB. I will definately check out Microsoft Virtual PC to see if it's any better then VMWare. Probably not, but it's worth the try.

What I dislike about VMWare that it has such impact on your system: (Don't know if other virtualization software also has this.) It creates extra connections and I have had problems with all kind of network/dns related problems because of this. (Running on WinXP)
Maybe I just don't understand the solutions VMWare provides to have your image connect to the network but it should be made somewhat easier and user friendly imo.

MGB, what linux image would you recommend for someone who is quite new to Linux but wants to use it for a server environment in an image and wants to learn how to use Linux?

Chambahs - Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:16 am
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Gee, thanks for the translation mmav

SpecShip - Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:24 am
Post subject: Re: Free Virtualization

Cham...you're making it too easy, so I'll pass.

Thanks Murphy, this is some great information.
I suppose the OS/Commander-esque type programs are coming to an end.

Wait...no bluetooth image? WAH! ;P

Mine GO BOOM wrote:

Next, download Virtual PC and setup a virtual machine to run IE in, so you can go to all those porn sites...

Don't you mean so you can play SubSpace on the ASSS you ran over the at linux virtual machine?

Maverick - Thu Jul 13, 2006 4:41 am
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Chambahs,
Read & Learn

BDwinsAlt - Thu Jul 13, 2006 6:55 am
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Well I use VMWare Workstation. Anything that cost money you can get for free. Weather it be very cool friends or a nice website. Very nice stuff MGB. Thanks for the post.

SpecShip - Thu Jul 13, 2006 7:13 am
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BDwinsAlt wrote:

Anything that cost money you can get for free.

Meh, no challenge, I pass...

Mine GO BOOM - Thu Jul 13, 2006 10:38 am
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Maverick wrote:

MGB, what linux image would you recommend for someone who is quite new to Linux but wants to use it for a server environment in an image and wants to learn how to use Linux?

Go for anything Debian based. Gentoo is great, but most people don't give it the time needed to learn it (aka, they give up installing the kernel or at another step).

Since you want for a server, Debian itself is great. Or if you want, Ubuntu is another option to install (get the server install over their desktop iso). Either way, using apt-get to install apache/sql/etc is very simple and sets up most items in a nice way. I choose to go with Ubuntu for this server over Debian, mostly due to the fact that Ubuntu has a ton of money backing it and the current release, Dapper Drake, has LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) support right out of the installation and is scheduled for Long Term Support, meaning when they release the next couple of versions, you don't need to upgrade your system as they will backport security fixes for a long time. Thus, the stability is there for servers.

For home servers, Gentoo is the way to go. Emerge is, in my opinion, one of the best and strongest tools out there. And Gentoo's package world contains everything imaginable. And if it doesn't, generally someone made an ebuild for it for a package overlay, or you could make your own within a couple of minutes.

Maverick - Thu Jul 13, 2006 3:08 pm
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Thanks, Gentoo it is then

I have heard much about Ubuntu, maybe I will take a peek at that first.