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Virtualization in Linux: A Review of Four Software Choices

techthrob.com — Virtualization is the technique of running a "guest" operating system inside an already-running OS; for example, Windows inside Linux, or visa-versa. This article compares four virtualization products available for Ubuntu Linux: the free, open source Qemu; the closed-but-free versions of VirtualBox and VMware-Server, and the commercial Parallels.

Who dugg this? Made popular Feb 9, 2008

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  • nodnod, on 02/09/2008, -1/+57You would really have to be a retard to buy Parallels. They haven't done anything but _very_ minor updates for over a year. They will just use you money to fund the Mac development. Yes, I'm a retard who bought it over a year ago when I thought they gave a crap about Linux.
  • xqb4dpx, on 02/09/2008, -2/+45these are the digg articles i miss nowadays
  • thethorn, on 02/09/2008, -1/+23What about Xen?
  • cenarta, on 02/09/2008, -6/+27Very well done article. I have been wondering how well Parallels performs in Ubuntu but have been so happy with my VirtualBox setup that I haven't bothered giving it a try. After reading this article, I'll probably wait a little while longer.
  • geoken, on 02/09/2008, -1/+16I don't think his hardware supported virtualization. He said he was using a P4 and I don't think Intel started using hardware virtualization until the C2D series.
  • nemilar, on 02/09/2008, -2/+17And for whatever it's worth, I agree with NodNod; don't buy Parallels for Linux, it's a waste of money. Why spend $50 on a license when you can get three other products, either equally good or better (personally I think better) for absolutely free? Unless you need the support, there's no benefit to paying for Parallels.
  • kenplaysviola, on 02/09/2008, -3/+17Sorry, but if Xen isn't available in Ubuntu, then it just doesn't exist...
  • pltnz64, on 02/09/2008, -1/+14"VirtualBox doesn't add itself to the Gnome menus by default, however, unlike the other three applications here (Parallels and VMware add themselves to the System Tools menu, while Qemu-Launcher places itself in Applications), so I loaded it up using the terminal command "VirtualBox"."

    Virtualbox does add itself to the gnome menu under System Tools. It's listed as "innotek Virtualbox"
  • sirhomer, on 02/09/2008, -1/+14Qemu benefits greatly from the virtualization extensions found in newer processors, in fact, the kernel virtual machine doesn't even work on older processors. That can explain Qemu's poor performance compared to Virtualbox and VMWare, which implement a different virtualization strategy by default.
  • plusmedic, on 02/09/2008, -0/+12You mean, if it's not available as an idiot friendly RPM/Deb, then it doesn't exist... God forbid you have to compile it yourself!
  • MattBD, on 02/09/2008, -1/+13I love VirtualBox. I've been using it over the last few days in both Windows and Kubuntu (the OSE version from the repositories). I'm right now using it on my Windows Vista laptop (because it's much more powerful than the Kubuntu laptop, even if Vista is slower) to run the 4th alpha of Kubuntu Hardy. I've also been trying OpenGEU and gOS 2.0 in it.
    It is probably the best way I've ever found to try a new Linux distro without trashing your existing install - in the last few days I've tried Symphony OS, gOS 2.0, OpenGEU and Fluxbuntu on it. It completely eliminates problems with Wi-Fi as it seems able to use the host system's connection, effectively becoming an Ethernet connection as far as the guest OS is concerned.
    If you're using Windows or a Mac but would like to try a Linux distro, VirtualBox is the easiest way to go IMHO. The setup is really easy.
  • inactive, on 02/09/2008, -1/+11Funny how most websites you've ever visited are run by a "not a real OS".
  • DontEatTheFish, on 02/09/2008, -0/+9read the article, parallels costs money and did the worst...
  • colorme, on 02/09/2008, -0/+8I don't know if this is just my experience with Parallels, or if other users' experiences differ.

    I tried Parallels on my MacBook Pro (2.2ghz Core 2 Duo, 2 GB 667mhz DDR2 memory) with Mac OS 10.4 and then 10.5 as the host operating system. Performance for me was utterly abysmal, even after installing Parallels Tools. A friend turned me on to VMWare Workstation, and I don't regret switching for an instant. Performance for me in VMWare--especially with VMWare Tools installed on the guest OS, feels much snappier and virtual machine boot times seem to be faster by a third. 3D seems better, too.

    Anyone else out there having similar experiences?
  • shrewduser, on 02/09/2008, -0/+7its another one of those people who really hates the linux operating system, browsing and commenting on upcomming linux stories that haven't reached front page yet...

    its an operating system, stop being a child and go outside or talk to someone or something.
  • Ellipsys, on 02/09/2008, -0/+6Good overview, though I'd like to see some more modern hardware and extensive usage testing. Isn't it said that Parallels, at least on OSX, is going to be able to run games at full speed with OpenGL or DirectX (up to 8? 9?) support? Lets see some usage of common programs like Photoshop, or 3d games, to get a feel for which program really comes out on top?
  • fjc8, on 02/09/2008, -0/+6Not all Core and Core 2 CPUs feature hardware virtualization.

    VMware and VirtualBox do not need hardware virtualization to run 32-bit guests because they say their original approach is faster.
  • Kral, on 02/09/2008, -1/+7In Debian, Xen and all the requirements is an apt-get install. Does Ubuntu exclude Debian's Xen packages? It's the best virtualization option in the majority of situations, so any review of virtualization without it is a joke.

    Also, as of Linux 2.6.23, Xen is integrated into the mainline kernel.
  • oobuntu, on 02/09/2008, -3/+9nice article. a part 2 would be good, where the everyday use is considered a bit more, rather than focussing so much on the installation.
  • nemilar, on 02/09/2008, -2/+7@ pltnz64:

    VirtualBox will add itself to the menu if you use the OSE version in repos; here I used the binary version provided on their website, as I explained.
  • eighto2, on 02/09/2008, -0/+5Apparently so are "REAL OS" nerds....
  • fjc8, on 02/09/2008, -0/+5VMware Server might not as fast as other products because of the way it pages memory to disk. VMware and VirtualBox do not use VT (hardware virtualization) by default on 32-bit guests because virtualization is faster without it using their code patching techniques. I'm not sure if Parallels uses it by default or not either.
  • shadearg, on 02/09/2008, -3/+8It would be nice to know if the reviewer was using a processor with hardware virtualization. Parallels Workstation for Windows acts near native with Ubuntu 7.10 and Windows XP Professional even without Parallels Tools installed on my E8400. VMware Server was really sluggish for the exact same installations, even with VMware Tools installed.
  • durzagott, on 02/10/2008, -0/+5Xen is brilliant. It's completely revolutionizing the way we work at my office. For each decent server we buy we can throw on about 4 servers as virtual machines. These all perform quite heavy duty tasks and Xen manages it all very smoothly.
  • fluxion, on 02/09/2008, -0/+4even on a core2 (merom) i've found that, while performance for XP was pretty decent, and the virtual sound devices worked fine (unlike in the article), even with the kqemu module loaded, qemu does tend to spike my processor from time to time for no apparent reason. i've also found that enabling SMP caused XP to hang.
  • SeekerDarksteel, on 02/09/2008, -0/+4Uh, actually it IS available as an idiot friendly package in ubuntu.
  • fjc8, on 02/09/2008, -2/+6Did you even try to check?
    http://www.google.com/search?q=Core+2+without+VT
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Core_2

    "The Core 2 branded processors featured the Virtualization Technology (except T52x0, T5300, T54x0, T5500 with stepping "B2", E2xx0, E4x00 and E8190 models)"
  • fjc8, on 02/09/2008, -0/+4OpenVZ and VServer are more correctly containers. Xen isn't something you can just intall like an application and requires hardware virtualization support to run any arbitrary operating system (modified guests only, so you can run primarily open-source BSD and Linux). KVM does not appear to be very useful without QEmu and also requires VT. When using Xen and KVM, the emulated I/O provided to guests isn't very good.
  • NowakFilms, on 02/09/2008, -1/+5The biggest benefit of switching to Linux is the fact that the vast majority of applications are free. I don't like the idea of Canonical or Ubuntu pimping for software companies by suckering people into buying crapware like Parallels. If it's not free (either freedom or beer) then it shouldn't appear anywhere in Ubuntu.
  • nemilar, on 02/09/2008, -0/+4Even though the processor used didn't have VT support, it's still a processor used by a lot of people, especially on Linux.
  • vibrokatana, on 02/09/2008, -0/+4Xen is very nice, I have a few servers that use it and have never seen them "hiccup" like I have with vmware or virtuozzo. Too bad they failed to test xen...
  • fluxion, on 02/09/2008, -2/+6xen would win hands down, but you need a xen-enabled kernel and libc library. it's more useful when the host-OS is a dedicated host-OS, rather than your primary OS, since it's a bit more intrusive than the other options.
  • damentz, on 02/09/2008, -0/+3Thats more realistic, you have no idea how many people still use 32bit only cpus.
  • moschops, on 02/10/2008, -0/+3I talked with a VMWare employee last year about my experience with their free VMWare Server - he told me it is using very old technology at the low level, it is really intended to give you a feel for the tools capabilities and running VMs as a server. He suggested that I try the VMPlayer product which actually has better performance and more features - like USB2.0 support. And of coruse if I really wanted to know what the product was capable of then buy the workstation product.

    I followed this VMPlayer advice and definitely think it runs faster (sorry couldn't say exactly how much) and has much better USB2.0 support (although I still couldn't get my Epson scanner to work from inside the VM without a blue screen of the entire machine, oops).

    So my suggestion is, if you don't need your VM to run in server mode (background and headless) then create and edit your VMs with VMWare Server on one host, then use VMPlayer to run them on your target host (because as far as I know you can't run both on the same machine).

    I was encouraged to see good things about VirtualBox - I may give it a try soon myself, especially since it seems to be available on Windows hosts which I did not know about before.
  • digitalarcanum, on 02/09/2008, -0/+3can't say I agree with you. I run windows. I am a gamer. However, I like to transfer files and have remote access capabilities (such as ftp, and sftp) without going through all the trouble to set it up in windows. So therefore i get vmware server, an iso of pclinuxos (highly recommended, by the way), install, set up ftp, ssh, and samba (for sharing files with the host OS) and I'm all set. Some of us home users enjoy virtualization as much as corporations do (working in a company where said stratagy is being used. vmware esx sever ftw.)
  • nemilar, on 02/09/2008, -0/+3Intel began implementing the VT extensions in their chips during the P4 era, but my CPU does not seem to have them :( Although I would argue that P4s aren't at all uncommon among Linux users; I see a lot of PIII users on ubuntuforums.org, in fact.
    Of course, the newer chips that do have this support will run virtual machines far better. That being said, I was still impressed by the speed of the VMs on my hardware, especially VMware and VirtualBox.
  • mooninite, on 02/09/2008, -1/+4The Xen packages are available in a Fedora or Red Hat *installation* option. You don't have to compile. You don't have to type in anything in the command line. They'll be installed by default if you use your *MOUSE* to *CLICK* a *CHECK BOX*.... is that "hard" for you guys?

    *gasp* Fedora typically has a better package set than Ubuntu, fyi.
  • Awspire, on 02/09/2008, -0/+3I just decided to give VirtualBox a try on my WinXp machine by creating an Ubuntu VM, and the installation went flawlessly. Installing the Guest Additions was also a snap. VirtualBox is truly a fantastic piece of software.

    I used to create VM's with Microsoft Virtual PC 07, and quite a bit of configuring went into getting Ubuntu to install, and it still never worked quite right.
  • strangeman, on 02/09/2008, -1/+4After reading this article I have to mention two things: It is nice to see the four big players in comparison. It is however a bad article because this author has no idea about the subject. While his limited perspective allows the reader to see which one is the easiest to use, it doesn't have any detail on which method produces the best results. VirtualBox for example has more features, than the VMWare Server that you get with Ubuntu (like USB2.0). It doesn't however allow you to boot an already installed OS (raw mode). KVM should have outperformed them all, so I guess he either didn't have a processor supporting real kernel virtualization, or didn't know how to set it up correctly.
  • RobotBuddha, on 02/09/2008, -0/+3My big question is whether it'd be fast enough to get netflix streams in an acceptalbe size from my linux setup. I've heard people report that it's the case for the osx version of Parallels. But so far slow speeds with other windows virtualizations for netflix streaming makes me hesitant to toss down any money.
  • JoshHendo, on 02/10/2008, -0/+2I use the binary version, and it added itself to the gnome menu under System Tools as innotek Virtualbox as pltnz64 said.
  • Fryguy8, on 02/10/2008, -0/+2I'm happy to have come across this article. I was using qemu for my (minimal) virtualization needs, and mostly as something to play around with. Mostly because virtualbox wasn't really good when I last checked. This article prompted me to try virtualbox again, and I'm EXTREMELY impressed with it. It does everything parallels does and faster. I use parallels on occasion on my mac at work, and I much prefer virtualbox to it.
  • CoolWind, on 02/09/2008, -1/+3But it's a dumb test of Qemu, and your article doesn't make it clear that you aren't using a modern processor with VT support.
  • fjc8, on 02/09/2008, -1/+3I wouldn't call them all super low-end chips. Lower-end chips such as the E2xx0 (Pentium Dual-Core) and E4x00 (the cheaper Core 2 Duo) find their way into many desktop machines, whether they be retail, corporate desktops, or custom-built machines. T5000-series CPUs are common on cheaper laptops. I have seen these VT-x free chips "in real life".

    I already mentioned that VMware & VirtualBox claim that their original virtualization approaches are faster in the grandparent to your post. However, some software requires virtualization extensions (Hyper-V requires it and Xen will only run modified guests without it.)
  • iXneonXi, on 02/09/2008, -1/+3Dugg and favorited for reminding me why I came to Digg.
  • schoate09, on 02/09/2008, -0/+2VMWare workstation for Windows has hardware accelerated video, too.
  • moghua, on 02/10/2008, -0/+1I'm personally running VirtualBox (from svn), but I am thinking of switching to VMWare to get some extra stability. I've had problems with applications that do heavy disk IO locking up the entire computer (that is, the HOST machine crashes when the guest does too much disk IO too fast).

    Also, I wish I could allocate more than 2GB of ram to a virtual image. Do any of the other virtualization systems allow that (yes, I have 4GB of ram on my 64 bit Fedora T61).
  • davemak, on 02/09/2008, -0/+1Do you mean VMWare Fusion for the Mac? I have been using it on my MBP and it is working really well.
  • RobotBuddha, on 02/09/2008, -0/+1I gave it a shot, as well as trying a couple other guides. Apparently the installation is broken for modern kernels. I couldn't find any patch for the latest version of parallels.
  • ferrofluid, on 02/14/2008, -0/+1Been playing with Virtualbox under PClinuxOS, VB Vmachines use NAT and networking works out of the box, zero config.
    Ran both win2k and DSL in VB and both saw and used network automatically.
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