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Types of virtual machines. Desktop virtualization platforms in business. Why do I need a virtual machine

Which one do you think is the best? best virtual machine?

I will not invent a story and retell others. I’d rather suggest you read an article from Linux Format magazine. In which experts made comparative review five popular virtual machines in the hope of finding the one... the best virtual machine. By the way, I highly recommend it to those who renounced and were able to escape from the captivity of Windows.

  • What is a virtual machine
  • Why do you need a virtual machine?
  • How we tested Virtual Machines
  • Performance
  • Functionality
  • Compatibility and snapshots
  • Desktop integration
  • Graphics acceleration
  • Verdict

What is a virtual machine

In simple terms, without getting bore, a virtual machine is an operating system within an operating system.

Why do I need a virtual machine

In our case, a virtual machine is primarily a platform for testing programs. Among which, as you understand, there may be . The virtual machine is also used by hackers to test their own and other people’s Trojans and other miracle files. No matter what group you belong to, you will still be interested in learning more about virtual machines and how they work.

How we tested virtual machines

First, we took a dual-core computer (due to budget restrictions) with fresh Arc Linux. In addition to proprietary VMware (version 7.1.0 of Layer and a 30-day trial of Workstation 11), we used the official Arch packages, which follow developer releases very closely. Each machine had 2 GB of system RAM and 128 MB of video memory (256 MB if required).

We tested each candidate on different guest OS: Mint 17.1 and Kubuntu 15.04 beta, as well as different versions non-Linux OS called Windows. To evaluate performance, we compiled the core Mint core, ran the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark, and played different games from our Steam library. To test the real world, we ran it on an 8-core machine with 16GB of RAM and a 4GB Nvidia GTX, but then we were forced to return it.

Virtualization technology has fundamentally changed the computing landscape. We'd be embarrassed to say that this is a new invention (early mainframes used it as a means of provisioning), but decade-old CPU innovations mean that you'll only get near-native performance with x86 code. And now we manage to cram dozens of machines (easily copied and restored) into one case, and the work of data centers has become much more efficient. You can also imitate another architecture, say, ARM, which is convenient for embedded system developers.

This is also a benefit for ordinary users: getting to know a new OS no longer has to be such a time-consuming exercise in constant fear of ruining your system. Even if you just want to test new program, it's much safer to do it in a virtual machine instead of risking your current setting. Support for in-kernel virtualization (via KVM) and the Qemu emulator means Linux users no longer need to resort to proprietary tools.

In the old days, VirtualBox from Sun (once owned by Innotek, now Oracle) was the only real option. But times have changed, so let's look at other virtualization applications.

Both VMware and VirtualBox use kernel-dependent modules that are loaded to work their magic. VMware will need to compile them, which will require installing the kernel header packages and all the compiler stuff. You will then receive an init script to load the specified modules, although this will be of no use to Systemd users. If this is your case, you might want to create your own init file instead of running this script as root all the time (or seeing the same error messages). At the time of writing, the 3.19 series kernels required patching up the VMware source code, but hopefully this will be fixed by the time the magazine is published. VirtualBox packages are available in most distributions, and if you have a standard kernel, you don't have to worry about anything.

Virt-Manager requires the libvirtd service to be running on your system before it can be launched, which a helpful message will notify you of, and if you're using a full-featured desktop environment, it will do this for you; All you have to do is enter the root password.

Both VirtualBox and VMware Workstation are quite simple, as long as you don't get distracted by each option. But in VMware Player there are not so many options, and you will get your machine up and running very quickly. But if you're determined to make the most of all these options, you'll have to install the Guest Additions.

Guests Linux add-ons VirtualBox is much easier to install (the CD will start automatically) than the additional VMware "tools" that require copying programs from an imaginary CD, changing permissions, and then running the script. Is it really 1999? But, having done all this, you will be rewarded with improved graphics and a number of additional functions, which we will discuss further.

The easiest to use of our selection is Boxes, even if this is due to providing only the bare minimum of Qemu / libvirt functions. VMware Player and VirtualBox come in second, followed by their paid rival (nominally they are more difficult, due to more options). Virt-Manager isn't particularly difficult to use, but it has just enough of Qemu's maze of settings to overwhelm a newbie. In addition, its mechanism for managing storage is quite confusing, especially if you are going to store your virtual disk in a non-standard location: then you first need to add the required directory as a “storage pool”. However, all the necessary exotic modules will be provided by your own distribution, and in this case, why not take a risk.

Performance

Will they create a slow or agile VM for you?

Thanks to hardware enhancements and paravirtualization technologies, it is now possible to perform some tasks at speeds close to those of real hardware.

However, as it is, there is usually some performance hit. Almost every configuration on which we tested the guest desktop exhibited some kind of slowdown. But you get used to it, and you can turn off all the beauties or turn on the appropriate troubleshooting mode if it bothers you.

We're not taking 3D performance into account here - that wouldn't be entirely fair, and it has its own category across the page. However for daily tasks using Terminal you are unlikely to notice much difference between our candidates. Experiments with kernel compilation have shown that VirtualBox is significantly behind the competition. Comparison test JavaScript SunSpider confirmed this finding: both tasks completed 20% slower than the others. Disk input/output (I/O) (especially if you have an SSD) and network traffic were fast for all of our candidates. Ultimately, VMware gained the upper hand by supporting newer Intel processors.

Functionality

What does each candidate have to offer?

All of our candidates target different use cases and therefore each have their own, individual benefits. Of course, the presence of some standard features certainly implied: these include, for example, the ability to create snapshots, support for Intel VT-x and AMD-V processor extensions, and flexible configuration of virtual hardware. All this is offered by everyone, but some applications are capable of more heroic feats.

A disclaimer here is that Gnome Boxes and Virt-Manager are just interfaces to Qemu (via the libvirt abstraction layer). And Qemu is essentially a processor emulator that is capable of virtualization via KVM, but is still a world of its own.

So, let's look at our candidates individually.

Gnome Boxes ★★

When calling from command line Qemu supports a lot of options, most of which are missing in Gnome Boxes: its goal (implemented) is simplicity and clarity of appearance and operation. Through its user-friendly wizard interface, you can set up a virtual machine in literally three clicks - just point it to the appropriate ISO. Boxes abstracts the difference between a virtual machine and a remote machine, and you can connect to both via VNC, SPICE (which allows audio to work over a network), or OVirt.

Gnome Boxes

Boxes doesn't offer much in the way of managing your virtual machine over the network, but it at least provides all the NAT wizardry you need to make sure your virtual machine communicates with the world. The remaining candidates successfully configure NAT, network bridges or host-only networks, and all this can be very convenient in certain circumstances.

Virt-Manager ★★★★

Virt-Manager (aka Virtual Machine Manager) offers significantly more features Qemu (but again not all). He seems to have gone overboard with his supported list operating systems x86, in particular from Linux family.


Virt-Manager

Leaving this aside, Virt-Manager makes it relatively easy to configure a machine of any complexity - you can add any equipment, including several network interfaces. In addition to KVM VMs, Virt-Man-ager can enable Qemu/libvirt support for Xen guests and LXC containers. Optionally, it can also poll guest resources and thus provide very nice graphs (like the ones in the Performance section on page 25, which take about 30 seconds after Windows 10 starts). Additionally, Virt-Manager takes advantage of Qemu's recently added USB 3.0 support.

Compatibility and snapshots

Is it possible to move virtual machines between real ones?

Sometimes you need to move a VM between hypervisors. All of our programs can import machines stored in the Open Virtual Appliance (OVA) format, which is simply a tarball of a VMDK (VMware) disk image, and virtual hardware data. VirtualBox allows export to this format, but also has its own - Virtual Disk Image (VDI), and also copes with all the others.

The qemu-img command can be used to convert formats. Of particular note is his favorite QCOW2 format, which allows you to store multiple snapshots of the system internally, using the excellent Copy On Write (COW) technique.

Boxes, Virt-Manager, VirtualBox and VMware Workstation support system snapshots, saving different states your VM. VMware Player only allows you to have one snapshot per machine in addition to its current state. So deep regression testing is excluded.

VirtualBox and VMware Workstation can also "clone" a VM, and this is an effective method of creating system snapshots: data is written to the corresponding clone only if its state is different from the state of the parent. VMware allows you to mount a VMDK guest image on the host, which can also be convenient, although the same trick can be done by converting to a raw disk image and using standard Linux tools and arithmetic to calculate the partition offset.

VirtualBox ★★★★

Originally a desktop virtualization client, VirtualBox is still probably the go-to tool for many. This program has a clear structure, which simplifies setting up a virtual machine, and many useful options. In addition to limiting the number CPU cores that the guest OS has access to, VirtualBox allows you to specify a limit level CPU usage guest as a percentage. VirtualBox also supports video recording, so you can record a Windows tutorial for your computer in an evening. YouTube channel.


VirtualBox

It can import any virtual disks, but only offers USB 2.0 host controller support, and then only if you install Oracle's proprietary extension pack. Options for distributed clipboard access and drag-and-drop (in one or both directions, as you wish) are quite convenient. VirtualBox has convenient indicators for network and disk I/O and CPU usage.

By the way, in the article “” we talked in detail about how to install and properly configure the VirtualBox virtual machine.

VMware Player ★★★

VMware's free offering has come a long way since its introduction in 2008. The most remarkable thing is that this is no longer a player: it is more than capable of creating a high-quality virtual machine for you.


VMware Player

In addition to supporting a number of network configurations (NAT, bridged, host-only, etc.), it offers very nice configuration options network traffic, which is very convenient if you are testing latest version, say, a DDoS client or see how much malware you can attach to your Windows XP virtual machine until it crashes. VMware also supports USB devices 3.0, and installing guest tools will allow you to use brilliant graphics, a shared clipboard, and shared directories. Player is somewhat inferior when we're talking about about snapshots (it only allows you to take one), but we criticized it in the previous section.

VMware Workstation ★★★★★

There is a non-free version of VMware Player (VMware Player Pro), but we decided that for of this Comparison It would be more appropriate to take a higher quality Workstation instead. The app has a lot of extra features for developers, including the ability to group virtual machines into a sort of virtual phalanx so you can have them all come online at the same time with a single click.

VMware Workstation also offers support for new commands modern processors Intel, and also allows you to configure machines with virtual CPUs, up to 16 and 64 GB of RAM. However, Workstation is very much aimed at integrating with the rest of the (rather heavy) VMware suite, and therefore will look more at home in an enterprise environment.

Desktop integration

Will they clash with your color scheme?

Some users love the perfect harmony of the interfaces of virtual machines and their corresponding hypervisors with the host desktop, while others are just confused.

VirtualBox uses Qt4, which is especially infuriating on the Qt-based Arch Linux desktop, which uses Qt5 everywhere, but it's just something of a niche flaw. Boxes fits perfectly with Gnome 3, as you'd expect; Virt-Manager and VMware use GTK3 and also work perfectly with it.

All of our candidates allow us to switch the virtual machine to full-screen mode, and fortunately they all allowed us to switch back using the appropriate key combination.

Standout modes include Unity in VMware (no, this is not a way to make everything Ubuntu-like) and Seamless in Virtual-Box - both display application windows directly from the guest on the host desktop. This is very good for a Linux VM (eliminating the potential confusion between guest and host windows), however trying to run
the preview didn't go well; Windows 7 with Aero enabled was also not the most pleasant experience.

All of our candidates support running the guest in full screen mode, and can be configured to change resolution when the window size is changed. Suitable hotkeys are provided to exit this scenario. Drag-and-drop capability on VMware machines very convenient, which is why VMware wins in this category.

Graphics acceleration

Is it possible to avoid software rendering problems?

Any of our candidates would serve you well if you just wanted to install a virtual machine with no intention of doing anything graphics-intensive.

But if you need 3D acceleration, you need to use VMware or VirtualBox. Once you get past installing the Guest Additions (including the double-negative VirtualBox question that tries to steer you away from its experimental WDDM support needed for, say, the Windows 7 Aero interface), you'll be able to enjoy 3D acceleration in VirtualBox and in two VMware clients.


Boom-boom, Maxwell's silver hammer landed on the, uh, beehive. He died shortly after this screenshot was taken in Don't Starve.

VirtualBox allows you to allocate up to 256 MB of system RAM to the virtual video card, and VMware - up to 2 GB. Note that these gigabytes are not taken from your actual graphics card, so you often won't see much improvement above 256 MB. VirtualBox also provides 2D acceleration for Windows guests, which should help speed up video rendering, screen enlargement, and color correction, although this largely depends on the host configuration - on fast car This setting won't have much effect. Virtual machine Windows probably won't run Battlefield 4 or Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (which turns out we're pretty lucky to have those ported to Linux) when everything is cranked up to 11, but older or less demanding games will go great: we spent a good hour playing the popular indie game Don’t Starve, completely forgetting about our Comparison.

Everything worked better on VMware than on VirtualBox, but perhaps this was due to a more advantageous configuration - on Arch Linux we used the latest proprietary Nvidia driver, which could lead to the superiority of one over the other.

Verdict

Virtualization is a long-standing and complex topic for comparisons. Wanting to run 3D games, you won't even look at Gnome Boxes or Virt-Manager, and unless you achieve it in VirtualBox best results than us, you will choose VMware as your hypervisor. But again, this technology is by no means as mature as the one working in native format DirectX 11. You may have even better luck with games in Wine [Ed.: - Or not.] with some experimental performance patches. We're actually not crazy about VMware licenses, especially ones that force you to pay after 30 days trial period, but for some, Workstation's enterprise-grade features will be a boon. Particularly if you use vCenter Converter from VMware, you virtualize a machine with one click - ideal if you want to test something new on your current system.

We haven't covered the ton of command line tools that come with all of our candidates, but they are there, along with more than copious documentation. You can use them in your scripts when you go all out on virtualization, pushing out a whole host of virtual machines from the safety of the command line environment. Perhaps hackers will prefer to work with Qemu directly, while those looking for a simple free solution With open source happiness will be Gnome Boxes.


The bubbles look good if you don't see the effort that went into rendering them.

But there is only one winner (a tie is a rare exception), and this time it is Virt-Manager - well, we couldn’t let VMware win. Virt-Manager allows you to harness most of the power of Qemu without resorting to lengthy command-line spells. Virtual machines can be paused, reconfigured, moved and cloned - all without much hassle. The only thing it lacks is support for graphics acceleration, but who knows, maybe it will appear. VMware Player and Gnome Boxes are tied for second place as they both score highly for their simplicity, and we love the Boxes icon, which features a tesseract (or a hypercube, or a cube within a cube - whatever you prefer).

Virt-Manager ★★★★
All managers should do such a good job.

VirtualBox ★★
Once the only solution, now on the sidelines.

VMware Player ★★★
Fast and convenient, but the license let me down.

VMware Workstation ★★
Fast and full-featured, but not free.

Boxes ★★★
The simplest way to install and configure a VM.

If you need to have multiple operating systems on your computer but don't want to dual boot, then the only option left is virtualization and virtual machines for Linux. When using dual boot on slow systems, rebooting from one system to another can take up to several minutes, which is very inconvenient.

Therefore, virtualization is an excellent solution, because with enough random access memory and processor power, you can run several systems at the same time and even work fully with them. But what software is better to use? What to choose and how it all works is the topic of our article today.

Virtual machines are programs that create a software environment that simulates the desired hardware equipment. An operating system can be installed into this environment and can then be fully used. We call such systems guest systems, while the main system installed on the computer is called the host.

Previously, virtual machines did all the work themselves, on program level, and it is clear that all this worked very slowly. But then processors began to support hardware virtualization, which significantly speeds up the operation of the guest operating system. These are technologies such as AMD-V from AMD or Intel VT-x from Intel. However, these technologies may be disabled by default in the BIOS.

In addition to virtual machines that completely emulate the operation of a computer, virtualization for Linux includes containers, for example, LXC or OpenVZ. Next we will look at virtual machines for Linux that you can use to install your systems.

1. VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a universal Linux virtualization software that supports other operating systems, including Windows and MacOS. You can install almost any system here, except, of course, systems designed for devices on an ARM chip. All installed virtual machines are stored in files that contain disk images. This makes it very easy to complete them backup or transfer to another computer by simply copying the machine file.

VirtualBox supports both 32 and 64 bit systems and you can install not only a Linux distribution, but also Windows or even MacOS. All systems will work perfectly. When creating a virtual machine, you can select a guest OS profile for which the correct parameters memory, processor and video card.

In addition to virtualization itself, VirtualBox also supports additional functions, for example, recording video from the virtual machine screen, and creating system snapshots for quick recovery and creation virtual network between several machines. In addition, if you install guest OS add-ons, you can set up a shared clipboard between the host and guest systems, transfer files between them, or even integrate guest system program windows into the main one.

We can say that this is the best virtual machine for Linux, it offers all the necessary features, and at the same time is quite easy to use.

2.VMWare

Unlike VirtualBox, which is distributed with open source source code, this is a commercial product, the full version of which costs money. But for home use There is a simplified version that is completely free to use.

VMWare has almost all the same features as VirtualBox, in some tests it performs better than the first option, but overall their performance is the same. It is also possible to organize a network between virtual machines, combine the clipboard and transfer files, but there is no video recording.

A notable feature of VMWare is that for some systems scripts have been developed and are already ready automatic installation, which allow you to install the system automatically and without specifying too many parameters. This can be very convenient in some situations.

3. Qemu

If you want to run not the usual x86 operating system, but a system for ARM devices, for example, Android, Raspbian or RISC OS, then the two previous Linux virtual machines will not help you. Only Qemu can handle this task.

Qemu is short for Quick Emulator. This is a very easy to configure console utility, but it allows you to do many interesting things at the VirtualBox level, you can run any operating systems, including ARM, you can install the OS on a real hard drive or to a file, use hardware acceleration and even automatically download some distributions via the Internet.

Despite its name, it is a very powerful tool for working with virtualization on Linux; to install Qemu on Ubuntu, run:

sudo apt install qemu qemu-kvm libvirt-bin

4. KVM

KVM or Fully Kernel-based Virtual Machine is a kernel-level implementation of a virtualization platform that provides additional capabilities for Qemu and very high speed work thanks to working directly in the kernel.

All this means that KVM is faster and more stable than VirtualBox, but KVM is much more difficult to configure and maintain. KVM technology is a very popular solution for hosting virtual machines, including on many servers on the Internet.

To start using KVM, you first need to check whether your hardware supports hardware acceleration; to do this, use the cpu-checker utility. If everything is supported then you can proceed to install KVM:

sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm libvirt-bin virtinst bridge-utils virt-manager

Once installed, you will be able to access kvm virtual machines using the virtual machine manager that will appear in the menu. Other Linux virtualization systems, such as XEN, are also managed using this manager.

5. XEN

This is another virtualization platform for Linux that is very similar to KVM. But there are some differences. Like KVM, it supports hardware acceleration, many architectures, including ARM, as well as running various guest systems, including Windows. But the main difference is that KVM is built in by default Linux kernel, and for Xen to work you will need special assembled kernel with his support.

Among other features of Xen, it can be noted that the system will work quite quickly even without hardware acceleration if you run Linux. Otherwise, these Linux virtualization systems,

conclusions

In this article, we looked at the best virtual machines for Linux. As you can see, virtualization on Linux is developing very quickly and there are quite a lot of solutions that you could use on your system. What virtual machine or virtualization system are you using? Write in the comments!

To have several operating systems with separate workspace and applications at hand, you don’t need to buy a second (third, fourth, etc.) computer. Because it all fits into your single PC. How? Thanks to virtual machines (VMs) - special programs that create (emulate) imaginary (virtual) computers inside the main operating system.

A virtual PC is almost like a real one. It has its own processor, memory, hard drive, network adapter and everything else. Of course, these are not physical devices, but they are made in such a way that operating systems consider them to be just that - real.

On one physical computer Several virtual ones can work simultaneously. Exactly how much depends on the hardware resources: the faster the processor, the larger the RAM, the more spacious the storage, the more. A typical average-performance home PC running Windows 10 can handle three to five lightweight operating systems simultaneously (for example, Windows XP, Android and Lubuntu + the main system). Or two or three relatively heavyweight ones (for example, the main Windows 10 + virtual Windows 7 and Mac OS X). As you already understand, virtual computer emulator applications allow you to install and run a variety of operating systems on them.

Virtual machines general purpose(as opposed to specialized ones, such as, for example, VM Java), use:

  • To run applications that the main system does not support.
  • To protect the system from potential harm from untested programs.
  • As an additional barrier against viruses when visiting dubious web resources.
  • For creating isolated environment to study the activities of malware.
  • As a testing ground for debugging your own developments.
  • To master network construction technologies.
  • For double authorization on some gaming portals and much more.

And of course, virtual machines are widely used to distribute server work resources.

Today we will not touch on the industrial use of VMs, but will only consider what can be useful to home users of Windows OS.

Oracle Virtualbox

Let's look at the process of creating a new virtual machine and starting to install Windows 10 on it.

  • Click the “Create” button in the top panel.

  • In the first window of the VM creation wizard, we will indicate the name of the OS (it will be displayed in the list of guest systems), its type (Windows, Linux, etc.) and version. In our example, this is Windows 10 32 bit (you can install 64 bit, but it will require more resources). To go to next step Click Next.

  • Next, we will indicate the size of the VM RAM. By Windows default 10 x86 is allocated 1 GB, but you can increase this amount by moving the slider to the right. If your PC does not have a lot of RAM, do not give the VM more than 2-3 GB, otherwise the main system will slow down due to lack of memory.

  • Next we create virtual hard disk. If you are installing the system for the first time, select the “Create new” option.

  • Leave the virtual disk type as default.

  • Data storage format is an area on physical storage your computer, which is allocated to the VM. It can have a constant or dynamically expanding volume within the limits that you define further. To save space, we will choose a dynamic format.

  • Next we indicate the name of the volume (virtual disk C) and its size. The default is 32 GB.

  • After clicking the “Create” button in the last window, a new virtual machine will appear in the list. Its parameters are shown in the frame on the right.
  • To go to Windows installation Click the “Run” button in the top panel.

  • In the window that opens after this, the “Select boot disk" Click on the folder icon and specify the path to the system distribution. This can be an image in .iso format or physical media (DVD, flash drive). After selecting your distribution, click Continue.

  • The further course of installing the OS into a virtual machine is no different from installing it on a physical computer.

Some VM and guest system settings

Clicking on the virtual machine window will lock the mouse cursor (i.e. it will only move within virtual screen). To return the cursor to the main OS, press the Ctrl+Alt combination.

To access the full range of features of the guest OS, you need to install special add-ons. Go to the "Devices" menu, click "Mount Guest Additions Disk Image" and follow the further instructions.

To connect a folder to the guest system for exchanging files with the main one, click the “Shared Folders” item in the “Devices” menu. Click on the “folder+” icon in the window that opens and use the “path to folder” field to specify it in Explorer (it shows the directories of the main system).

If you want the setting to work constantly, check “Auto-connection” and “Create permanent folder" The shared folder will be accessible from the virtual machine explorer as a network folder.

To change the order in which boot devices are polled (for example, to boot a virtual machine from a DVD), shut down the guest OS, open its settings (in the main Virtualbox window) and go to the first tab of the “System” section. In the "Load Order" list, select the desired media and press the arrow buttons to move it to the top.

VMware Workstation Pro

Some Hyper-V virtual machine options

To take a snapshot of the running guest OS, Open Top Menu its "Action" window and click " Check Point" Or press the combination Ctrl+N.

Access to the settings of an individual virtual machine is available from its context menu in the list of the main manager window and is hidden behind the “Options” button.

Other features of the program are also very simple and can be mastered without much difficulty.

A Virtual Machine is software environment, which emulates the hardware of a computer with all its components. Essentially, a virtual machine is a separate virtual computer on which operating systems, programs, drivers, etc. can be installed, which can then be run in isolation from the main operating system installed on this computer.

In this article we will look at what a virtual machine is and what it is needed for. Using a virtual machine goes something like this: you install a special virtualization program (virtual machine) on your computer, into which you can then install one or more operating systems supported by this program.

For example, your computer has the Windows 7 operating system installed, and you want to try another operating system: Windows 8.1, or Windows 10. You are not yet ready to immediately switch to a newer operating system, so by installing Windows 10 on a virtual machine, you can Familiarize yourself with its work and capabilities in detail and gain the necessary skills.

In parallel, you can install other operating systems in the virtual machine: various Linux distributions, Mac OS X, etc. At the same time, you can use Windows 10 on your computer, for example, on the main system, and on the virtual Windows machine 7, Ubuntu, and Mac OS X.

Most popular programs to create virtual machines (VMs) for ordinary users (there is a large corporate segment of virtualization systems): Oracle VirtualBox(free), VMware (free for personal use VMware Player, paid VMware Workstation), Parallels (for computers with Mac OS X), Windows Virtual PC (Windows 7 starting with Pro edition, supported free installation virtual Windows environment XP Mode), Hyper-V (works in x64 bit versions of Windows, starting with Windows 8) and others.

Virtual machines different manufacturers differ in their capabilities and features. It will be possible to download virtual machines from the websites of software manufacturers.

Using virtual machines

Virtual machines (VMs) are mainly used for the following purposes:

  • installing another operating system to study or work with
  • testing unfamiliar programs without risk to the main operating system
  • using programs that cannot run on your computer
  • setting up a local network
  • Safely launch suspicious applications
  • simultaneous installation of several operating systems on a computer

For example, on my computer in different time, were installed in virtual environment the following operating systems: Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Mac OS X, Linux Mint, Android.

Working in an operating system installed in a virtual machine is no different from working in normal system installed on your computer. This is a regular OS running in a virtual environment. You can do whatever you want without fear of killing Windows or another system. If as a result of your actions the OS becomes inoperable, then you can simply remove this operating system and install another one instead.

Many virtual machines have the ability to create a snapshot of the system, so you can easily restore a “dead” OS.

Most likely, powerful, resource-intensive games will not run on a virtual machine, because such games will most likely slow down greatly. The performance of the operating system installed on a virtual machine depends on the power of the specific computer.

In this image you can see that Windows 10 is installed on my computer, and in the virtual machine window (I deliberately made the virtualization program window smaller) the Windows 8.1 operating system is running. Thus, at that moment, two different operating systems were running simultaneously on my computer, independently of each other.

The operating system installed in the virtual machine will run in isolation from the main operating system installed on your computer. You can do whatever you want with Windows (or another operating system) installed in a virtual machine. The main system installed on your computer will not be affected by running in the virtual machine, or by other changes made to the operating system installed on the virtual machine.

You can test unfamiliar programs on a virtual machine before installing them on a real system. Windows OS, or another operating system (if it is not free), will need to be activated.

Some programs do not run on a particular operating system, so you can install such a program on a supported operating system in a virtual machine. In this case, you can continue to use the required application on your computer.

A virtual machine can be used for security purposes. For example, you may not immediately install a program on your computer that makes you suspicious, but will first install such a program on a virtual machine. If your suspicions are confirmed, the main operating system installed on your computer will not be affected in any way.

You can safely visit suspicious sites, risking only the guest system installed in the VM.

In this image, the virtual machine is running the Mac OS X operating system, with the Safari browser open in the window. In VMware Workstation guest the system can be expanded to fill the entire screen of your computer monitor.

When using a virtual machine, along with the advantages, there are also some disadvantages. The main problem: on low-power computers, work in a guest system installed on a virtual machine may slow down (freeze, slow down). This is due to the fact that at this time the resources of your computer are simultaneously consumed by two operating systems: the main operating system installed on your computer and the guest operating system installed in the virtual machine.

In order not to overload your computer, I recommend, while working in the guest operating system, to close currently unnecessary applications in the main system. After this, the load on your computer’s resources will decrease somewhat, and it will become more comfortable work in the guest OS installed on the virtual machine. On powerful computers similar problems, usually do not arise.

If you would like to try another operating room Windows systems on your computer, and due to the low power of the computer, working in a virtual machine will be difficult, then you can install another system on a virtual hard disk (VHD). You can read more about this. With this option, you will launch operating systems on your computer one by one.

When working with a virtual machine, you can easily remove any operating system from there without any consequences for your computer, and also remove the virtual machine program from your computer.

Conclusions of the article

Using a special program: a virtual machine (Virtual Machine), you can install another operating system on your computer to familiarize yourself with its operation, test applications, solve compatibility problems, for security purposes, etc. You can try several different ones virtual machines and choose the most convenient option for yourself.

These days, virtualization is gaining more and more popularity. Very often virtualization is used in production, for example, on servers, VPS and so on, but also in home systems. Virtualization will be especially useful for Linux users who need, for example, to run multiple distributions for testing or Windows.

Now there are two most popular virtualization environments for Linux - the free VitrualBox and the proprietary Vmware. Each of the programs has its pros and cons; in this article we will try to figure out what is better than Virtualbox or Vmware, as well as how they differ. For convenience, we will compare different categories.

For many users, especially home computer price is very important. This is where vmware workstation or virtualbox differs.

VirtualBox

Wednesday VirtualBox virtualization distributed open source. It is developed by a community of programmers around the world and is completely free to use.

VMware

Everything is a little more complicated here, the program is commercial, but has several editions. There is a version for corporate users VMWare Workstation Pro, which has many more features, such as connecting to vSphere, ESXi servers, setting up networks, creating encrypted machines, and so on. The free version of VMware Player has limited functionality, it is intended only for home use and it must be said that its functions are quite sufficient. There are the same installation templates, detailed settings virtual machines, network and much more.

2. System installation process

One way or another, after installing the program itself, you still need to configure everything and install the operating system in the virtual environment. Therefore this point is very important. The process of installing and configuring systems is similar, but there are differences.

VirtualBox

All setup is done in graphical interface, unlike console tools like qemu. When creating a machine, you will have to specify many settings, select the type and bitness of the operating system, select the amount of memory for it, create a hard drive, configure video memory. Installation can be done from ISO image, USB flash drives or DVD disc. But you will have to go through the entire installation process manually, just like when installing on a regular computer.

VMware

Virtual VMware machine makes installation much easier, there are more settings for the virtual machine, but the main thing is not that, there are templates for various operating systems with which you can install them automatically. For example, you select a template for Ubuntu or Windows, specify initial parameters, indicate installation image and go about your business, and when you return, the system is already ready. VMware also has tools to optimize the performance of a guest system in a virtual environment.

3. Opportunities

The biggest difference when comparing Virtualbox or VMware can be found in the capabilities of the virtual machines.

Virtualbox

Even though VirtualBox is a free solution, a virtual machine has its advantages. Let's look at the main features:

  • Command line support;
  • Screen integration, shared clipboard and file sharing between host and guest;
  • 3D graphics support is limited, only OpenGL up to 3.0;
  • An unlimited number of operating system snapshots are supported;
  • Virtual machine disk encryption via VBoxExtensions is supported;
  • USB 2.0/3.0 supported;
  • Video recording from the car is supported.

Of the minuses, it can be noted that you cannot allocate more than 256 megabytes of video memory to the machine, and for modern systems it's not very much. DirectX for 3D graphics is also not supported.

VMware

VMware has a little more features, but the free version doesn’t have everything, let’s look at the features of the free version:

  • Automatic installation of systems according to a template;
  • Detailed hardware configuration, including setting the processor ID, arbitrary amount of video memory and other parameters;
  • Simple setup of a virtual network between machines, it rises automatically, unlike VirtualBox;
  • Improved graphics support and DirectX 10, you can play games;
  • More complete implementation of BIOS and EFI support;

The disadvantages include the lack of video recording and lack of support for snapshots in the free version. Although cars can be cloned thus taking snapshots, native snapshot functionality would be much more convenient. If you take professional version, then there are pictures and integration with the cloud, but we won’t talk about that.

4. Performance

Contrary to the beliefs of many users, virtual machines do not work much slower than the host, sometimes even at the same speed. This is achieved through support for hardware virtualization and virtual machine optimizations. As for the differences in performance between implementations, for example, VMware or VirtualBox, they are insignificant and almost invisible to the eye.

Many users claim that VMware performance is better. In addition, VMware works much better in terms of graphics.

conclusions

Our VitrualBox vs VMware comparison has come to an end. There are many factors to consider when choosing virtualization software. But the most important thing is your needs and personal preferences. If you want a stable virtual machine with good graphics performance that can install systems automatically, but you don't care about snapshots, you can choose VWware.

If you are a fan of free software and want snapshots, but hardware settings are not so important to you, then you can use VirtualBox. What virtual machine are you using? How would you answer the question what better than VirtualBox or VMware? Why did you choose her? Write in the comments!

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