Which virtualization software should I choose

[Paul Vriens]

Hi,

Just upgraded to Fedora 11 and (yet again) having issues with VMware 
Workstation.

VMware still doesn't support Fedora (as a host) and I'm tired of 
fixing/patching things, again and again.

I need to run several Windows versions (95 up to Vista for now) for our 
winetest and I really like the snapshot possibilities of VMware.

Suggestions, recommendations?

[Nicolas Le Cam]

2009/6/11 Paul Vriens :
> Hi,
>
> Just upgraded to Fedora 11 and (yet again) having issues with VMware
> Workstation.
>
> VMware still doesn't support Fedora (as a host) and I'm tired of
> fixing/patching things, again and again.
>
> I need to run several Windows versions (95 up to Vista for now) for our
> winetest and I really like the snapshot possibilities of VMware.
>
> Suggestions, recommendations?
>
> --
> Cheers,
>
> Paul.

I'm using VirtualBox. Apart from some problems around d3d/opengl and
interruptions, it works quiet well. It also manages snapshots and have
a CLI.
See w2k-sp4-fr results on winetest. It has passed the test suite once
(I didn't run latest builds but I will).

Unfortunately, I don't know VMWare Workstation at all, so I can't tell
you what are the differences.

[Paul Vriens]

On 06/11/2009 11:30 AM, Nicolas Le Cam wrote:
> 2009/6/11 Paul Vriens:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Just upgraded to Fedora 11 and (yet again) having issues with VMware
> > Workstation.
> >
> > VMware still doesn't support Fedora (as a host) and I'm tired of
> > fixing/patching things, again and again.
> >
> > I need to run several Windows versions (95 up to Vista for now) for our
> > winetest and I really like the snapshot possibilities of VMware.
> >
> > Suggestions, recommendations?
> >
> > --
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Paul.
>
> I'm using VirtualBox. Apart from some problems around d3d/opengl and
> interruptions, it works quiet well. It also manages snapshots and have
> a CLI.
> See w2k-sp4-fr results on winetest. It has passed the test suite once
> (I didn't run latest builds but I will).
>
> Unfortunately, I don't know VMWare Workstation at all, so I can't tell
> you what are the differences.

Just installed VirtualBox and it does have snaphots but not so extensive 
as VMware. In VMware I have some W2K snapshots:

- out-of-the-box
- SP1
- SP2
- SP3
- SP4 + Windows Update

I can freely choose which I want to go to. Not so with VirtualBox I'm 
afraid as they are all on top of each other.

(I guess for now I keep my other, F10, box around).

[Nicolas Le Cam]

2009/6/11 Paul Vriens :
> On 06/11/2009 11:30 AM, Nicolas Le Cam wrote:
> > 2009/6/11 Paul Vriens:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > Just upgraded to Fedora 11 and (yet again) having issues with VMware
> > > Workstation.
> > >
> > > VMware still doesn't support Fedora (as a host) and I'm tired of
> > > fixing/patching things, again and again.
> > >
> > > I need to run several Windows versions (95 up to Vista for now) for our
> > > winetest and I really like the snapshot possibilities of VMware.
> > >
> > > Suggestions, recommendations?
> > >
> > > --
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Paul.
> >
> > I'm using VirtualBox. Apart from some problems around d3d/opengl and
> > interruptions, it works quiet well. It also manages snapshots and have
> > a CLI.
> > See w2k-sp4-fr results on winetest. It has passed the test suite once
> > (I didn't run latest builds but I will).
> >
> > Unfortunately, I don't know VMWare Workstation at all, so I can't tell
> > you what are the differences.
>
> Just installed VirtualBox and it does have snaphots but not so extensive as
> VMware. In VMware I have some W2K snapshots:
> - out-of-the-box
> - SP1
> - SP2
> - SP3
> - SP4 + Windows Update
>
> I can freely choose which I want to go to. Not so with VirtualBox I'm afraid
> as they are all on top of each other.
>
> (I guess for now I keep my other, F10, box around).
>
> --
> Cheers,
>
> Paul.

I thought it was possible but never tried as I'm just using an
up-to-date clean install, it suffices for my needs.
If I have some time I'll try more things with those snapshots.

[Ben Klein]

2009/6/11 Paul Vriens :
> Just installed VirtualBox and it does have snaphots but not so extensive as
> VMware. In VMware I have some W2K snapshots:
> - out-of-the-box
> - SP1
> - SP2
> - SP3
> - SP4 + Windows Update
>
> I can freely choose which I want to go to. Not so with VirtualBox I'm afraid
> as they are all on top of each other.
>
> (I guess for now I keep my other, F10, box around).

You can get this behaviour, but not using snapshots (which as you
noticed are cumulative, and rolling back one snapshot deletes its
changes). What you do is install your "out-of-the-box" version in a
new drive image, then mark that as "immutable". AFAIK, you still have
to do that from the command-line, and it's not really intuitive.
Something like:
1) De-register your "out-of-the-box" drive image from all VMs you have
configured
2) $ vboxmanage closemedium disk <filename>
3) $ vboxmanage openmedium disk <filename> --type immutable
4) Re-associate your VMs to the "out-of-thebox" image. It will inform
you now that it is immutable.

You can then create as many VMs as you need with the "immutable" image
as the base, and it will automagically create differencing images for
you, which you can install the service packs in.

The disadvantage of this is you have multiple VM configurations, all
of which have independent settings, but this is what I do for my WinXP
browser testing (so I have multiple different versions of
IE/Opera/other browsers that don't like other versions existing on the
same installation :) ).

[Michael Stefaniuc]

Paul Vriens wrote:
> Just upgraded to Fedora 11 and (yet again) having issues with VMware 
> Workstation.
>
> VMware still doesn't support Fedora (as a host) and I'm tired of 
> fixing/patching things, again and again.
>
> I need to run several Windows versions (95 up to Vista for now) for our 
> winetest and I really like the snapshot possibilities of VMware.
>
> Suggestions, recommendations?

I'm using KVM/Qemu with libvirt aka virt-manager. I have problems with 
WinNT and NetBSD; those hang/crash during the install. Win2k3, FreeBSD 
and OpenSolaris work just fine and I didn't try anything else yet. But 
I'm on F9 and once I have a little spare time I'll move to F11. I'll 
test it there (never qemu) if that fixes WinNT.

bye
    michael

[David Gerard]

2009/6/11 Michael Stefaniuc :
> Paul Vriens wrote:
> > I need to run several Windows versions (95 up to Vista for now) for our
> > winetest and I really like the snapshot possibilities of VMware.
> > Suggestions, recommendations?
> I'm using KVM/Qemu with libvirt aka virt-manager. I have problems with WinNT
> and NetBSD; those hang/crash during the install. Win2k3, FreeBSD and
> OpenSolaris work just fine and I didn't try anything else yet. But I'm on F9
> and once I have a little spare time I'll move to F11. I'll test it there
> (never qemu) if that fixes WinNT.

Since you're asking on the Wine list ...

VirtualBox does okay for Windows and Linux, barely for FreeBSD with
lots of caveats and not really for anything else. Notably, OpenBSD
doesn't work and the VirtualBox developers admit it but consider the
bug beneath their attention. It's really not a very well-written
virtualisation app.

VMWare is reputedly better - it's the oldest common VM software and
its emulation is very seasoned, well-tested and robust.

QEMU *without* KVM works well, if slowly - it's almost a complete "red
pill" for the guest OS. With KVM, OpenBSD is known not to work
entirely properly.

(OpenBSD is a bit of a torture test for virtual machines. It's very
wary and cautious about what it runs on, and will happily segfault at
a perceived hardware problem rather than risk letting a program access
memory it shouldn't. Theo de Raadt says about a third of all problem
traces come from VMs.)

For testing Wine in other OSes, bugs found in a VM should always,
always be confirmed on a physical machine, with the OS running on the
bare metal - there are too many "glitches in the Matrix" in almost any
VM software to be sure a bug is real.

- d.

[Austin English]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 7:58 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> VirtualBox does okay for Windows and Linux, barely for FreeBSD with
> lots of caveats and not really for anything else. Notably, OpenBSD
> doesn't work and the VirtualBox developers admit it but consider the
> bug beneath their attention. It's really not a very well-written
> virtualisation app.

Virtualbox works great for OpenSolaris as well.

[David Gerard]

2009/6/11 Austin English :
> On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 7:58 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> > VirtualBox does okay for Windows and Linux, barely for FreeBSD with
> > lots of caveats and not really for anything else. Notably, OpenBSD
> > doesn't work and the VirtualBox developers admit it but consider the
> > bug beneath their attention. It's really not a very well-written
> > virtualisation app.
> Virtualbox works great for OpenSolaris as well.

*cough* Yes, I expect it would :-)

(explanation: Sun owns VirtualBox, you can be very sure their own OS
runs like a charm!)

- d.

[Austin English]

On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 11:22 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/6/11 Austin English :
> > On Thu, Jun 11, 2009 at 7:58 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> > > VirtualBox does okay for Windows and Linux, barely for FreeBSD with
> > > lots of caveats and not really for anything else. Notably, OpenBSD
> > > doesn't work and the VirtualBox developers admit it but consider the
> > > bug beneath their attention. It's really not a very well-written
> > > virtualisation app.
> > Virtualbox works great for OpenSolaris as well.
>
> *cough* Yes, I expect it would :-)
>
> (explanation: Sun owns VirtualBox, you can be very sure their own OS
> runs like a charm!)

I'm well aware...though, interestingly, sound is broken out of the box
and requires compiling your own oss driver :-/

[Paul Vriens]

On 06/11/2009 02:58 PM, David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/6/11 Michael Stefaniuc:
> > Paul Vriens wrote:
> > > I need to run several Windows versions (95 up to Vista for now) for our
> > > winetest and I really like the snapshot possibilities of VMware.
> > > Suggestions, recommendations?
> > I'm using KVM/Qemu with libvirt aka virt-manager. I have problems with WinNT
> > and NetBSD; those hang/crash during the install. Win2k3, FreeBSD and
> > OpenSolaris work just fine and I didn't try anything else yet. But I'm on F9
> > and once I have a little spare time I'll move to F11. I'll test it there
> > (never qemu) if that fixes WinNT.
>
> Since you're asking on the Wine list ...

I'm using VMware only for running winetest on Windows, so there is some 
relevance.
> VirtualBox does okay for Windows and Linux, barely for FreeBSD with
> lots of caveats and not really for anything else. Notably, OpenBSD
> doesn't work and the VirtualBox developers admit it but consider the
> bug beneath their attention. It's really not a very well-written
> virtualisation app.
>
> VMWare is reputedly better - it's the oldest common VM software and
> its emulation is very seasoned, well-tested and robust.

I've been a happy user of VMware Workstation from the very start but it 
always annoyed me that they don't support Fedora.
> QEMU *without* KVM works well, if slowly - it's almost a complete "red
> pill" for the guest OS. With KVM, OpenBSD is known not to work
> entirely properly.
>
> (OpenBSD is a bit of a torture test for virtual machines. It's very
> wary and cautious about what it runs on, and will happily segfault at
> a perceived hardware problem rather than risk letting a program access
> memory it shouldn't. Theo de Raadt says about a third of all problem
> traces come from VMs.)
>
> For testing Wine in other OSes, bugs found in a VM should always,
> always be confirmed on a physical machine, with the OS running on the
> bare metal - there are too many "glitches in the Matrix" in almost any
> VM software to be sure a bug is real.

That's basically true for most applications. Most vendors have these 
caveats in there support contracts.

Maybe I just revert to F10 for now and wait till VMware can properly 
install/run on F11 (It's mostly issues with compilation and dealing with 
newer kernel versions, 2.6.29/30). F11 doesn't do OSS (by default) 
anymore which means no out-of-the-box sound in VMware Workstation 6.5.2

The problem with both VirtualBox and QEMU/KVM seems to be supporting 
older Windows versions as guests (< NT4).

[David Gerard]

2009/6/11 Paul Vriens :
> The problem with both VirtualBox and QEMU/KVM seems to be supporting older
> Windows versions as guests (< NT4).

Yeah. Try QEMU without KVM on a very fast host machine, your ancient
Windows should run just as well as it would on a 486 ;-)

- d.

[Jeff Latimer]

Paul Vriens wrote:
> The problem with both VirtualBox and QEMU/KVM seems to be supporting 
> older Windows versions as guests (< NT4).

I don't understand VirtualBox says it supports up to Windows 7 and I 
have XP running.  I have had QEMU/KVM running XP.  What annoyed me about 
VMWare Server was the broken SeLinux which eventually forced me to look 
around for another VM.

[Paul Vriens]

Jeff Latimer wrote:
> Paul Vriens wrote:
> > The problem with both VirtualBox and QEMU/KVM seems to be supporting 
> > older Windows versions as guests (< NT4).
>
> I don't understand VirtualBox says it supports up to Windows 7 and I 
> have XP running.  I have had QEMU/KVM running XP.  What annoyed me about 
> VMWare Server was the broken SeLinux which eventually forced me to look 
> around for another VM.

I just had look at: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Guest_OSes

I didn't check myself.

[Kai Blin]

On Thursday 11 June 2009 14:58:14 David Gerard wrote:
> VMWare is reputedly better - it's the oldest common VM software and
> its emulation is very seasoned, well-tested and robust.

If you discount that last I checked, VMware still couldn't do IPv6 in their 
virtual networks, and every single kernel upgrade your distro does is a pain.

There's always something, I guess.
Kai

[David Gerard]

2009/6/12 Kai Blin :
> On Thursday 11 June 2009 14:58:14 David Gerard wrote:
> > VMWare is reputedly better - it's the oldest common VM software and
> > its emulation is very seasoned, well-tested and robust.
> If you discount that last I checked, VMware still couldn't do IPv6 in their
> virtual networks, and every single kernel upgrade your distro does is a pain.
> There's always something, I guess.

It's closed-source software for stable enterprise environments; people
like us are as the buzzing of flies to such elevated beings. The
quality of the VM is superb though.

- d.

[Paul Vriens]

Kai Blin wrote:
> On Thursday 11 June 2009 14:58:14 David Gerard wrote:
> > VMWare is reputedly better - it's the oldest common VM software and
> > its emulation is very seasoned, well-tested and robust.
>
> If you discount that last I checked, VMware still couldn't do IPv6 in their 
> virtual networks, and every single kernel upgrade your distro does is a pain.
>
> There's always something, I guess.
> Kai

FWIW, I'm back on F10 with VMware Workstation 6.5.2. I don't have the 
time right now to convert all my virtual systems to VirtualBox (or the 
likes).

With respect to IPv6, I'm not supposed to disclose any beta information ;)