Virtual Box vs. VMWare WKS?

[PiqueABoo]

Comtemplating and about to try using Virtual Box 1.6 OS edition (free) instead of VMWare 6 WKS (not free). Host will be Windows XP and guests will be Windows XP, 2k3 etc. Want to use existing VMWare VMs and snapshots are a key ingredient.

Has anyone already compared them in this scenario and have any comments, tips etc.?

[localzuk]

I am currently trying out VirtualBox. I'll let you know when I have some idea about how good it is. (I only just installed it and am setting up a Ubuntu 8.04 server install guest on top of my Ubuntu 8.04 host, but will be trying XP soon enough).

[kesomir]

IIRC isn't virtualbox restricted to 2Gig memory per guest?

That aside, I've found virtualbox to be less hassle than vmware server in use.

Not used the paid for version of vmware

[localzuk]

Well... the server version of Ubuntu 8.04 doesn't work. The kernel it installs is incompatible with Virtualbox.

[dhicks]

Well... the server version of Ubuntu 8.04 doesn't work. The kernel it installs is incompatible with Virtualbox.

I've switched to CentOS with Xen for virtualisation. No hassle at all - simply selected the "virtualisation" option on the install wizard and that was it. Admittedly, the only problem I can see is moving VMWare VMs over to Xen. I've had no problem with Linux-based machines as I can simply mount the VM's filesystem and copy the files straight into the new VM, but I'm not sure if this would work with Windows-based VMs. Could try it and see.

--
David Hicks

[PiqueABoo]

> CentOS with Xen

Fails the Windows host requirement..

-

Had a very quick play with XP VB1.6 host and a VMW6 virtual XP disk.. had problems getting keyboard input to it and it freezes part way through the Windows boot menu countdown. Other than that I was pleased to read somewhere in the manual that it emulates the same NICs as VMW e.g. PCNet, e1000.