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geekhack Community => Other Geeky Stuff => Topic started by: Input Nirvana on Tue, 28 October 2014, 19:21:35

Title: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: Input Nirvana on Tue, 28 October 2014, 19:21:35: I used to use VMWare Fusion on OS X to run Windows for some Windows-only based software. My needs have changed and am considering other options.

www.VirtualBox.org
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: tp4tissue on Tue, 28 October 2014, 19:23:51: (http://emoticoner.com/files/emoticons/onion-head/woa-onion-head-emoticon.gif?1292862526)
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: Input Nirvana on Tue, 28 October 2014, 20:11:00: Quote from: tp4tissue on Tue, 28 October 2014, 19:23:51
Show Image
(http://emoticoner.com/files/emoticons/onion-head/woa-onion-head-emoticon.gif?1292862526)

U like dat, tp?
lol
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: tp4tissue on Tue, 28 October 2014, 20:13:06: Quote from: Input Nirvana on Tue, 28 October 2014, 20:11:00
Quote from: tp4tissue on Tue, 28 October 2014, 19:23:51
Show Image
(http://emoticoner.com/files/emoticons/onion-head/woa-onion-head-emoticon.gif?1292862526)

U like dat, tp?
lol

the emotic was making ultra many posts..

but.. as far as oracle virtual box.. i tested it out on my server.. Feels sluggish, interface wise. but I/o is ok.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 28 October 2014, 20:20:17: I use it all the time.

At home, and it is the VM standard at work too.

Works well :)
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: Input Nirvana on Tue, 28 October 2014, 20:21:57: I'm feeling lonely an need some attention, so I megaposted to get the luv, and boy did I get it from the mods.

I'm just considering other options.

Option #1
Use Mac check printing software (only see a couple programs, dunno if decent or not)
Option #2 (previous set up)
Used VMWare Fusion, windoz, and windoz VersaCheck software
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: rowdy on Tue, 28 October 2014, 20:29:07: You could take a calculated risk (hahaha) and just try VirtualBox. it's free!
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: Input Nirvana on Tue, 28 October 2014, 20:35:47: Option 3
VirtualBox, windoz, windoz-based check printing software

:)
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: vimx on Tue, 28 October 2014, 20:58:11: VirtualBox is great! It runs the latest Windows flawlessly. It also allowed me to install an ancient version if Linux, Slackware 3, my first distro, just for fun. It is now my go-to VM solution. If you are into DevOps, give Vagrant with VirtualBox a try. Good stuff.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: Sygaldry on Tue, 28 October 2014, 21:18:47: What's wrong with VMWare Fusion (I'm currently using this because I got a 1-year license for free through dreamspark)
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: vyshane on Wed, 29 October 2014, 00:02:23: I use VirtualBox for my development Docker host VM. It's alright - it's free. I only use it because boot2docker is a convenient way to run Docker, and boot2docker is built on top of VirtualBox.

I prefer VMWare Fusion for my other virtualisation needs: better integration with OS X, more features, better performance.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: Input Nirvana on Wed, 29 October 2014, 00:25:56: Goood tooooo knowwwwww

Thanks for this info, it's nice to have options and learning about this stuff is sooper-cool
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: rowdy on Wed, 29 October 2014, 00:53:22: One thing I like about VB is that a virtual machine created on one host can be exported, and then imported on a different host. I do this to transfer VMs from work (Windows host) to home (Mac host), and sometimes to our semi-dedicated VM server (Linux).
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: iri on Wed, 29 October 2014, 04:50:44: i use virtualbox daily with no complaints.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: Input Nirvana on Wed, 29 October 2014, 12:23:11: Sounds like a nice option in addition to VMWare Fusion and Parallels (which I've used both, but not since 2011, I know they've changed since then).
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: davkol on Wed, 29 October 2014, 19:54:38: I use it. It's the easiest way to get MS Windows VM running on desktop. That's about it. It sucks for about everything else.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: osi on Wed, 29 October 2014, 20:04:19: I also use virtualbox daily. Try it out!!
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: xandr on Thu, 30 October 2014, 02:56:57: I use VirtualBox as provider for my Vagrant boxes. I also have a Windows 7 VM running in VB which is fine for most tasks as long as you don't want to use anything that needs Direct3D. VirtualBox's support for that is miles behind VMWare or Parallels sadly.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: smknjoe on Thu, 30 October 2014, 03:26:49: If you need speed VB isn't where it's at. Is VMware player not free any more?
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: CSCoder4ever on Thu, 30 October 2014, 08:24:57: I use Virtualbox everday as well, it's rather neat :))
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: osi on Thu, 30 October 2014, 08:31:42: Quote from: smknjoe on Thu, 30 October 2014, 03:26:49
If you need speed VB isn't where it's at. Is VMware player not free any more?

VB doesn't have any speed performance issues at all for me. The last I used vmware player--it was a really basic hypervisor. VB offers most if not all features from vmware workstation and works just as well and is free.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: smknjoe on Sun, 02 November 2014, 04:52:33: The last time I used VB was probably a year or two ago, but I've tried several hypervisors over the past 8 or 10 years: MS hyper-v, xen, kvm, VMware, Virtual Box and they all have advantages and disadvantages, but VB, KVM, and Xen have all been really slow for some reason or another (usually disk access latency.) VMware, with the VMware tools for the VMs, has been blazingly fast for production servers and even desktop OSs. You (all) shouldn't take my word for it, you can get trial versions of any of the pay-for versions and test them out for yourselves.

I've tried to get away from VMware and switch to KVM, but it just works better in most cases for me. Workstation is not that much at ~$170, Fusion is $50(?) and their ESX/i server hypervisor is free.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: swill on Sun, 02 November 2014, 08:01:18: I have used all 3 softwares mentioned in this thread extensively. Here is a bit of a breakdown.

Parallels: I enjoyed using it for Windows. For Windows, it might have the best implementation. I used to use it for gaming primarily. However, it got old very fast that they would ask for another $50 every 6 months for an 'upgrade'. I spent like $100 on upgrades without really seeing any real benefit and after that I basically just said '**** off' and switched. I still have it installed, but I hardly ever use it anymore.

Virtualbox: As a free option this is an excellent choice. If you need to you can script against it with its command line hooks. It supports both Windows and Linux quite well. My main gripe with Virtualbox is that it does not support Paravirtualization (PV), but I will cover that later.

VMware Fusion: Depending on your needs, this is the best option. It is the only one that supports true Paravirtualization (PV), so that alone for me makes a huge difference. This means that you can run something like a Xen hypervisor in a VM and virtualize VMs on that VM. This is important for me because I do a lot of development on cloud computing platforms (like CloudStack or OpenStack) and I need to virtualize hypervisors for a working local environment. Also, the networking capability of Fusion is excellent and gives you the closest mirror to real networking.

As for speed, I can't really remember having any performance concerns with any of them. They all worked as needed for me. Keep in mind, I did not use them all for the same use cases. I used Virtualbox extensively as a test/dev environment until I no longer could due to my need for PV. I used Parallels really only for Windows and I used it because it performed well for gaming and that was the sole purpose of that box at the time. I now use Fusion exclusively other than a couple workloads here and there on Virtualbox (boot2docker, scripting conversions of VMs between image types (vhd to ovf type of thing), etc).

That is my experience. Feel free to ask questions if you have any and I will do my best to answer. I still have all 3 installed on my machine...
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: Hypersphere on Sun, 02 November 2014, 08:22:52: I've used VirtualBox, VMware (Fusion and Desktop), and Parallels.

VirtualBox is fine for many routine operations. However, it falls short on graphics performance. On a Mac, Parallels works best for me, for both Windows and Linux VMs. I have a graphics-intensive molecular modeling program that won't even open on VirtualBox, but it will open on VMware and run acceptably well under Parallels.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: lae on Mon, 10 November 2014, 00:48:47: I use *gasp* XP in VirtualBox pretty much every other day to run Tenhou's windows client (online mahjong) over RDP and desktop virtualization in general. Other than VB, I've only really used qemu-kvm on the desktop but it's been years since I have - and thanks to this thread I just discovered virt-manager (a desktop GUI for qemu), so I might try it out again. VB is also pretty useful with Vagrant for devops work/testing environments, but "docker is the future."
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 10 November 2014, 03:06:17: Quote from: lae on Mon, 10 November 2014, 00:48:47
I use *gasp* XP in VirtualBox pretty much every other day to run Tenhou's windows client (online mahjong) over RDP and desktop virtualization in general. Other than VB, I've only really used qemu-kvm on the desktop but it's been years since I have - and thanks to this thread I just discovered virt-manager (a desktop GUI for qemu), so I might try it out again. VB is also pretty useful with Vagrant for devops work/testing environments, but "docker is the future."

No need to be embarrassed. I still have a few Windows 2000 VMs kicking around somewhere that get used from time to time.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: blackbox on Tue, 11 November 2014, 08:58:42: used virtualbox many times. Mostly for private use.
Title: Re: Anyone use VirtlualBox?
Post by: DanielT on Tue, 11 November 2014, 09:17:36: I use VirtualBox a lot. It's a great piece of software. I run it on Solaris 11, but also on Windows or Linux. My main home lab is based on Solaris 11 an VirtualBox, was able to build a lot of test scenarios, clusters and stuff like that. And the command line is very nice. I have tons of VM's in suspended state, and if I need to test something on a specific OS and OS Version I can resume the machine in no time. So from me it's a +1 :thumb: