Better Than VMWARE?

[turbocharged123]

I want to run Windows Vista under Linux. I have already used VMWARE for this purpose. Now I am looking for any other software that would be faster than VMware. Suggest me please.

[Jordan]

I've only tried VMware and Virtual PC. You can't run Virtual PC in a *nix environment since it is a MS product but I have heard good things about VirtualBox. It is also free. That might work for you.

You can also increase the resources available to your Virtual Machine in vmware to make it faster.

[Hignar]

VirtualBox is very good, especially considering it's free. However, I'm not sure it's any "better" than VMWare. I've read that it's lacking a few features compared to VMWare, but it's nothing that I've noticed while in use.

What I do like about VirtualBox is the ability to run the guest OS in "seamless" mode which tries make it look like the guest OS software etc is running on your host OS's desktop. Similar to how parallels works on OSX I guess.

The speed of your guest OS really does come down to the resources you can throw at it. Most of mine run at a decent speed as I can assign 1GB of ram to a guest out of the 3GB I have on my machine. I'm not sure that changing your virtualisation software will make much difference if you don't have the resources available originally. The minimum spec of an OS applies as much (if not more) to a virtual machine as it does to real one.

With it being Vista you are trying to run it could be the lack of graphics processing power in the VM that slows things down. You should be able to assign more RAM to graphics but you may be better turning off all of Vista's bells and whistles (if you haven't already). Personally, if I want to run a version of windows in a VM I'd opt for XP or even 7 before Vista.

[WingedPanther]

Qemu is another option you can try, though I haven't.

[turbocharged123]

VirtualBox is very good, especially considering it's free. However, I'm not sure it's any "better" than VMWare. I've read that it's lacking a few features compared to VMWare, but it's nothing that I've noticed while in use.

What I do like about VirtualBox is the ability to run the guest OS in "seamless" mode which tries make it look like the guest OS software etc is running on your host OS's desktop. Similar to how parallels works on OSX I guess.

The speed of your guest OS really does come down to the resources you can throw at it. Most of mine run at a decent speed as I can assign 1GB of ram to a guest out of the 3GB I have on my machine. I'm not sure that changing your virtualisation software will make much difference if you don't have the resources available originally. The minimum spec of an OS applies as much (if not more) to a virtual machine as it does to real one.

With it being Vista you are trying to run it could be the lack of graphics processing power in the VM that slows things down. You should be able to assign more RAM to graphics but you may be better turning off all of Vista's bells and whistles (if you haven't already). Personally, if I want to run a version of windows in a VM I'd opt for XP or even 7 before Vista.

Thanks, will do.. do you think that the Aero will work on it? And does it limit me to only 1GB or RAM?

Qemu is another option you can try, though I haven't.

I heard of this.. will have a look later, thanks.

[Hignar]

Thanks, will do.. do you think that the Aero will work on it? And does it limit me to only 1GB or RAM?

Aero would probably work but it would put quite a strain on things. If you really want to run vista in a VM then I'd definitely suggest turning off aero.

No you're not limited to 1GB of RAM. If you have more to spare then you can use it but you've got to remember to leave your host with enough RAM as well. I think in VMWare it actually recommends a maximum and minimum RAM based on the guests needs and the RAM available. The minimum is probably a guess based on the minimum spec of OS you want to install. The maximum is the point just before where the host and guest will have to "share" some RAM. I've never tried pushing it past this point so I don't know the consequences but I'd imagine it will probably slow down the host and, in turn, the guest (as the guest can't really run "faster" than the host).

[TcM]

I tried on VMWARE pushing it over the limit, the result was the guest os worked fine, but for me to close VMWARE on the host OS took some time, because the host OS did not have enough RAM.. it nearly froze.

[turbocharged123]

I tried on VMWARE pushing it over the limit, the result was the guest os worked fine, but for me to close VMWARE on the host OS took some time, because the host OS did not have enough RAM.. it nearly froze.

How come? since the host os emulates the guest os? if the main os has no ram how can it emulate the guest os?

[TcM]

Hmm, personally I don't know how vmware works.. so I can't say.

[turbocharged123]

Well, ok.. hopefully someone else can explain?