• Best Virtual Machine Software For Linux
• Best Virtualization Software For Linux Download
• Best Virtualization Software For Linux Mint

Platform virtualization software, specifically emulators and hypervisors, are software packages that emulate the whole physical computer machine, often providing multiple virtual machines on one physical platform. The table below compares basic information about platform virtualization hypervisors.

General[edit]

Nov 21, 2017  The question is not specific to Kali. All Linux distros support essentially the same features. In any case the options are as always VMware, Virtual Box, Xen and QEMU/KVM (which you already have as it's built in to Linux). On a fairly modern deskt. Nov 19, 2009  Linux - Virtualization and Cloud This forum is for the discussion of all topics relating to Linux Virtualization and Linux Cloud platforms. Xen, KVM, OpenVZ, VirtualBox, VMware, Linux-VServer and all other Linux Virtualization platforms are welcome. OpenStack, CloudStack, ownCloud, Cloud Foundry, Eucalyptus, Nimbus, OpenNebula and all other Linux Cloud platforms are welcome. Have been using Virtualbox and VMware (on Ubuntu hosts) for 3 years for Windows and Ubuntu guests. Virtualbox has issues with USB support, especialy flash drives, unless you predefine flshdrives and set them up like shared folders before starting.

Features[edit]

• ^ Providing any virtual environment usually requires some overhead of some type or another. Native usually means that the virtualization technique does not do any CPU level virtualization (like Bochs), which executes code more slowly than when it is directly executed by a CPU. Some other products such as VMWare and Virtual PC use similar approaches to Bochs and QEMU, however they use a number of advanced techniques to shortcut most of the calls directly to the CPU (similar to the process that JIT compiler uses) to bring the speed to near native in most cases. However, some products such as coLinux, Xen, z/VM (in real mode) do not suffer the cost of CPU-level slowdowns as the CPU-level instructions are not proxied or executing against an emulated architecture since the guest OS or hardware is providing the environment for the applications to run under. However access to many of the other resources on the system, such as devices and memory may be proxied or emulated in order to broker those shared services out to all the guests, which may cause some slow downs as compared to running outside of virtualization.
• ^ OS-level virtualization is described as 'native' speed, however some groups have found overhead as high as 3% for some operations, but generally figures come under 1%, so long as secondary effects do not appear.
• ^ See^[19] for a paper comparing performance of paravirtualization approaches (e.g. Xen) with OS-level virtualization
• ^ Requires patches/recompiling.
• ^ Exceptional for lightweight, paravirtualized, single-user VM/CMS interactive shell: largest customers run several thousand users on even single prior models. For multiprogramming OSes like Linux on zSeries and z/OS that make heavy use of native supervisor state instructions, performance will vary depending on nature of workload but is near native. Hundreds into the low thousands of Linux guests are possible on a single machine for certain workloads.

Image type compatibility[edit]

Other features[edit]

• ^ Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and Windows 7 SP1 have limited support for redirecting the USB protocol over RDP using RemoteFX.^[36]
• ^ Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 adds accelerated graphics support for certain editions of Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and Windows 7 SP1 using RemoteFX.^[37][38]

Restrictions[edit]

This table is meant to outline restrictions in the software dictated by licensing or capabilities.

Note: No limit means no enforced limit. For example, a VM with 1 TB of memory cannot fit in a host with only 8 GB memory and no memory swap disk, so it will have a limit of 8 GB physically.

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

1. ^Can run a guest OS without modifying it, and hence is generally able to run any OS that could run on a physical machine the VM simulates.
2. ^Older versions of VMware Workstation support x86.
3. ^Older versions of VMware Player/VMware Workstation Player support x86.
4. ^Version 3.0.0 and earlier allowed 8 cores.

References[edit]

1. ^'Bhyve supports Windows'. Retrieved 22 December 2015.
2. ^'1.8. Supported Platforms'. Bochs.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
3. ^'3.4. Compiling Bochs'. Bochs.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
4. ^'PowerPC - KVM'. Linux-kvm.org. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
5. ^'Development Preview of KVM Virtualization on Red Hat Enterprise Linux Server for ARM'. redhat.com. Retrieved 15 May 2017.
6. ^ ^ab'QEMU Official OS Support List Version 2.0'. Claunia.com. Archived from the original on 15 August 2011. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
7. ^Oracle VM VirtualBox User Manual, Chapter 3: Configuring virtual machines | Mac OS X guests
8. ^'virtualbox.org • View topic - Theo de Raadt discourages VirtualBox usage.'forums.virtualbox.org. Retrieved 15 October 2017.
9. ^'Oracle and Virtual Iron'. Oracle.com. 13 May 2009. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
10. ^'VMware Player Pro FAQs: Create and run virtual machines | United States'. Vmware.com. 17 October 2014. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
11. ^[1]Archived 15 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine
12. ^'Licenses - xcp-ng/xcp Wiki'. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
13. ^'Main Page - KVM'. Linux-kvm.org. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
14. ^Look at RedHat or Novell for details
15. ^Logical Domains#Supported guest operating systems
16. ^'Welcome to'. Imperas. 12 March 2014. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
17. ^[2]Archived 2008-08-10 at the Wayback Machine
18. ^ ^ab'A Performance Comparison of Hypervisors for Cloud Computing'. Digitalcommons.unf.edu. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
19. ^Soltesz, S.; et al. (2007). 'Container-based Operating System Virtualization'(PDF). EuroSys. ACM SIGOPS. Archived from the original(PDF) on 20 July 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2014.
20. ^'8.19. Disk Image Modes'. Bochs.sourceforge.net. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
21. ^ ^abc'Chapter 9. Advanced topics'. Virtualbox.org. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
22. ^ ^abcdefgh'Xen blktap2 driver'. Retrieved 3 February 2014.
23. ^ ^abc'Virtual Machine Manager'. Archived from the original on 10 June 2007. Retrieved 20 February 2010.
24. ^'Sheepdog is a distributed storage system for KVM'. Archived from the original on 22 February 2013. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
25. ^'KVM Migration'. Retrieved 20 May 2010.
26. ^'beadm in Non-Global Zones - Creating and Administering Oracle® Solaris 11.2 Boot Environments'. oracle.com. 11 November 2014.
27. ^ ^ab'What are 'VirtualBox Guest Additions'?'. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
28. ^ ^ab'VirtualBox Changelog 3.1'. Archived from the original on 28 September 2010. Retrieved 1 October 2010.
29. ^ ^ab'Introduction to Guest Additions'. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
30. ^'VirtualBox Changelog 3.0'. Archived from the original on 3 December 2009. Retrieved 30 June 2009.
31. ^'VirtualBox manual: PCI passthrough'. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
32. ^'VMware VMDirectPath I/O'. Retrieved 12 May 2012.
33. ^ ^abcde'VMGL (formerly Xen-GL)'. Archived from the original on 4 November 2007.
34. ^'VMware Workstation Features, Multiple OS, Run Linux on Windows - United States'. Vmware.com. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
35. ^'Xen USB Passthrough'. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
36. ^'Configuring USB Device Redirection with Microsoft RemoteFX Step-by-Step Guide'. Technet.microsoft.com. 16 February 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
37. ^'Microsoft RemoteFX'. Technet.microsoft.com. 23 February 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
38. ^'Hardware Considerations for RemoteFX'. Technet.microsoft.com. 8 February 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
39. ^'Getting Started with VMware Player'(PDF). Vmware.com. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
40. ^'Folding@Home - VMWare Player 3.0 and Folding Bigadv Support'. LinuxForge.net. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
41. ^'VMware Server User's Guide'(PDF). Vmware.com. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
42. ^'Configuration Maximums : Sphere 4.1'(PDF). Vmware.com. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
43. ^'Configuration Maximums : Sphere 5.0'(PDF). Vmware.com. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
44. ^'Free Virtualization with VMware vSphere Hypervisor (ESXi)' (in Dutch). Vmware.com. Retrieved 17 January 2014.
45. ^'Configuration Maximums VMware® vSphere 5.5'(PDF). VMWare Inc. 30 October 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.
46. ^'Changelog-4.0 – Oracle VM VirtualBox'. Virtualbox.org. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
47. ^'Chapter 1. First steps'. Virtualbox.org. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
48. ^'Oracle revs VirtualBox, mushrooms memory : Virtual iron more supple than real iron'. Theregister.co.uk. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
49. ^The command-line version allows a virtual disk image of more than 2 TB.
50. ^'Requirements and Limits for Virtual Machines and Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2'. Retrieved 10 February 2015.
51. ^Protalinski, Emil (1 September 2009). 'Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 arrives for free'. Ars Technica. Retrieved 8 October 2013.
52. ^'Hyper-V Scalability in Windows Server 2012'. Technet.microsoft.com. Retrieved 22 February 2015.
53. ^ ^ab'Xen Project Release Features - Xen'. wiki.xen.org. Retrieved 14 August 2018.

I decided to publish this article after received several emails from readers regarding what is the best desktop virtualization software. This is completely from my experience and personal opinion. If you ask an automobile expert about which is the best car in the world, he or she can’t answer, because it depends on your requirement and category or type. It’s applicable here too.

I’m a heavy user of desktop virtualization software on daily basis. I use these products at my work place to install Server operating systems with client operating systems for testing purpose. Again at home, I do all testing on different types of guest Operating systems such as Windows, Linux and Mac OS X for blogging purpose.

So far, I have worked with VMware workstation, VMware Player, Sun/Oracle VirtualBox and Microsoft Virtual PC. I have never worked with Parallels desktop virtualization products.

So, what is the best desktop virtualization software? Here are the few facts decide it.

1) Compatibility

The best software should run on any host operating Systems with any guest OS. For example if you take VMware Player, it should be able to run in Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, also it should support multi Operating Systems as guest.

Most of the time we use desktop virtualization software for testing purpose with different types of OS without disturbing host OS. So, make sure your software can run most of the latest OS as guest.

2) Performance

This is another major factor to decide the best desktop virtualization software. Performance of guest and host machine should be good with any product.

Some software will take more resources from host computer to just run the application without running any virtual machines. On the other hand, with minimum configuration for VM, it should work fast and smooth within the desktop virtualization software.

3) Built in Features

The each additional built in features will help to have a good working experience with the best product. When it comes to desktop virtualization, I think Snapshots, P2V, Cloning, Export/Import, guest additions, shared folders, networking and virtual disk options are essential for a normal user.

Therefore, it’s always better to have software with most of the built in features.

4) Cost

Yes, it decides the best. If I can get the most of the features what I wanted for free, then I will stick with it. Instead of paying some money for few features for different product, we will be happy with using free product without any cost. Am I right?

5) Hardware Support

The program should be compatible for the hardware platform of your physical computer. If you have AMD, Intel, 64 bit or 32 bit processor based computers, then the software must run in it with full usage of physical hardware.

Supporting number of processor cores, virtual memory, virtual display, sound cards and physical ports will be an added advantage.

6) Additional Tools for Virtual machines

The special package which helping Virtual machine to communicate with host computer’s hardware, is an essential for each guest OS. In my opinion, the best desktop virtualization software must have these types of tools (like VMware tools and VirtualBox guest additions) for all guest Operating Systems. So, we can experience the performance improvement, display options, sound and other features.

7) Cross Software Support

I don’t know how much this is important for you, but I like this feature. For example, if I have a Linux VM in VirtualBox at home, I should be able to take this VM to office tomorrow and work in VMware with different host, then bring back again. It sounds cool, isn’t it? But it’s very much possible.

This type of cross software supports depends on virtual machine’s configuration and hard disk file formats. Also, export and import options of different file formats will be an added advantage of moving virtual machines across different hosts.

8.) Support and Updates

How quickly you get support from vendor? How often they release the patches and updates?, these all are not only important for desktop virtualization software but for all software.

Final Thought about Best Desktop Virtualization Software

I have listed above points which I considered to select the best desktop virtualization. These all are depending on my requirements. To be honest, I worked only on Intel physical computer with Microsoft host Operating Systems, therefore I would have missed some important facts should be considered here.

Leave comments on points I missed.

Best Virtual Machine Software For Linux

Oracle VirtualBox is the best desktop virtualization software in my personal opinion. I never worked with Parallels for Windows. VMware workstation is an excellent and competitive product for Oracle VirtualBox, but it’s not free. VMware Player is a free product, but its missing most the required features.

Best Virtualization Software For Linux Download

This final thought doesn’t mean that VirtualBox is 100% perfect and not having any issues. It’s having several drawbacks.

Best Virtualization Software For Linux Mint

I do expect your opinion on this post and tell me what is your favorite or best desktop virtualization software and reason for that.