New to Virtualization

corbryant said:

Nice. I appreciate the info. I'd love to have a Linux box to play with. I've got very little experience with it, and it would be nice to have it on hand like that. What distro do you guys like? I guess to say, what would be good for someone just easing into Linux?

My suggestion would be Ubuntu Linux. Lots of people also like Mint Linux, which is simply a respin of Ubuntu with all of the multimedia features already incorporated.

DeanP said:

VMware is always slow because it adds a layer of virtualisation above your hardware which is limited in speed by the actions of the host operating system

Sure, in any virtual environment, it's not "quite" as fast as running completely on the real hardware. However, for Windows and Linux hosts...the speed is incredible and feels just like a real machine (as long as you have a suitable host computer). But OSX on the other hand, is painfully and excruciatingly slow in a VM environment. Even for learning the most mundane tasks in an OSX environment, this isn't going to be fast enough. If I recall correctly, it takes about 3-5 minutes simply to boot from a power on. It's awful.

Booting OSX on a virtual machine takes on this computer (laptop as in my specs) about 3 minutes in VMware and about 50 to 60 seconds in VirtualBox 4 Beta 2. But both are almost unusable in real life, for me VirtualBox one worked better but even that was a real PITA to use, so after my network tests I've not used it anymore. The biggest culprit is lack of Guest Additions, I think.

However all Windows and Linux machines, both in VMware and VirtualBox, work great. Nothing to complain. It's quite an experience to have dual display system, running Seven host on main screen and Novell SUSE 11.3 in seamless mode on second display. Recommend wholeheartedly!

I have to add that I am also completely happy when running XP, Vista and Seven machines in Virtual PC. The negative publicity VPC has gotten is to me like this with Vista was: I have no problems, can not understand why people are complaining

Kari

Yeah, like Dean said you are OK. In fact, you answered your question yourself; if you are already installing Ubuntu on a vm, virtualization works.

Thanks Kari. So I gather it is not worth trying because without the guest additions and the slow speed it is a dog. But installing Snow Leopard must be "legal". They sell it in the big box stores here.

It is legal, of course, to install on any computer that can run it and is made by Apple. Mac OSX EULA makes that very clear, Apple authorizes user to use their OS only on Apple computers.

That for instance kept me for testing Mac OSX on VirtualBox before I got a Mac. I have no interest in pirated software. After I got a Mac and valid OS install media I made a moral decision that because I am going to use it on PC only to test different networking scenarios and to learn OSX, I can test it on PC as long as I do it purely by and for myself, not instructing others on how to do it. Keep in mind almost all OSX's running on PC vm's are illegal, pirated copies.

I did it to better learn how Mac works, and rather did the testing with a virtual machine because of its ability to create and restore an image in seconds (VirtualBox Snapshots).

But really, it's a real gigantic PITA to use. Very slow to react, and because there are no Guest Additions very difficult to integrate to your virtual or physical network. I can understand Oracle not publishing Guest Additions to Mac OSX, it's quite clear they would not even think on publicly working against Apple.

In my of course subjective opinion, whereas Windows and Linux guests are acting and working more or less as any physical computer, the only benefit of having Mac OSX running on a PC virtual machine is to brag as I do: Look guys, I did it!

Kari