Re: [Sheflug] Virtualisation and using debian packages with ubuntu

[John <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Saturday 01 Aug 2009 14:10:26 Simon Brown wrote:

> I want to change from dual boot to running XP in a VM. What are your
> views on the various free systems out there, KVM, virtualbox, Xen etc.

The first question should be why? The reason for the question is Wine may be a 
better alternative if you are just after a particular program. VM systems are 
very poor for graphics drivers so you should not expect to play games inside a 
VM.

The next is what hardware do you have? Assuming this is x86 and not a PowerPC 
or Sparc. The newer VMs make use of the Intel VTx and AMD-V hardware code. 
This allows for an unmodified guest VM, such as XP under Xen, to run much 
faster.

KVM (Kernel based Virtual Machine)
QEMU Without the hardware accelerator this can emulate other chipsets so is 
fun to play but very slow.
VirtualBox (has a non Free USB driver)
VMware Server
VMplayer With something like easyvmx.com this is as useful as server

KQEMU supports both 32 and 64 bit without the hardware code.

I would probably choose either KVM or Virtualbox as both work without any 
changes for your Ubuntu system.

Virtualbox and VMware being closed source while QEMU/KVM and Xen are open 
source. (OK so Virtualbox is opensource if you do not want the USB part).

For me (YMMV) QEMU is slow although I do actually still use bochs which makes 
everything else look amazingly fast. (Boch is very old and very very slow. In 
fact DOSbox is quicker). KVM is very fast followed by Virtualbox.

John

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