Any comparisons? I only used vmware on windows haven't even set it up on slack. which is better and which is more slack friendly?

Can not comment on vmware, v-box works well for me on Slack. Easy enough to install. I spent way more time on the XP install, than on Slack + V-box.

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+1 for virtual box - but look into qemu too. I installed it and loved it

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You can't compare VMware and Virtualbox. VMware is a company with several different virtualization products, Virtualbox is a virtualization product.
If you want to compare VMware Player with Virtualbox, the answer is the usual one: it depends. VMware player can only launch one VM at a time, Virtualbox can run many (only limited by your hardware) simultaneously. So if you want to build a virtual network Virtualbox is the way to go. If the software you want to virtualize depends somewhat on 3D acceleration the VMware Player is the way to go, its virtual video card has more features and is faster.
i can not comment on the other VMware products, i haven't tried them.

See you are a good example of what makes Slackware Community Better Tobi.

I haven't used VMWare, but I'm using VirtualBox, and occasionally qemu. They're OK.

thanks guys im interested in qemu as well

The free starter virtual machines are about the same. VMplayer and Virtualbox have about the same features and run about the same speed. They are both easy and safe ways to run a VM at or near native speeds. I saw one study that showed about 90% but your system has a lot to do with it. I use them all the time. Not worth testing a distro without using a vm to me.

qemu is a bit different. It may not be true but at one time it let you use swap file to offset low ram and didn't really care about the actual hardware.

There is also similar KVM and xen and maybe a few more out there.

I like V-box a lot it runs well. Qemu is nice if you want to run the BSDs in a VM, that is, some BSDs like OpenBSD segfault when they are installed in V-box. Try them both out and see what you like.

Qemu needs KVM in order to provide decent acceleration, but your processor needs to support virtualization extensions in order to use KVM with qemu. The KVM kernel module has been included by default in the Linux kernel for some time; you also need the userspace qemu-kvm tools, which you can compile quite easily from source. I found performance of qemu-kvm VMs as close to bare iron performance as you can get, with the exception of graphics performance for gaming and perhaps Flash. I use Xen on NetBSD but I believe recent Linux kernels (3.0 > ) now support full Xen dom0 and domU virtualization as well. For business or server use I would go with KVM or Xen; for home use VMWare Workstation (€150+), VMWare Player (free) or VirtualBox.

VMWare on -current is a bloody mess. The installer doesn't work (without special options), because it expects some files the big distributions have.

Got around that after a bit of googling, but then the next problem occured - the kernel modules of VMWare don't work on the 3.2 kernel. I had to patch them manually and recompile them manually.

Third problem: The init scripts are put in the wrong place. /etc/init.d instead of /etc/rc.d - had to move them after the install.

Fourth problem: If an update to VMWare is available, all that has to be done again. Looks like the guys over there are working too slow to keep up with latest kernels. The automatic update function does not work.

Fifth problem: The VMWare GUI is not localized and only available in english.

Virtualbox compared to that: Started up the installer and it was running. Placed init-scripts correctly, built kernel modules correctly and is running in German. And it doesn't generate as much heat as VMWare does on my Core2Duo.

This is just my personal opinion, but VMWare drove me crazy all the time. -.-

VirtualBox is a good solid VM to use. There are two version the OSE which doesn't include some higher level drivers and the Oracle proprietary version which includes extra higher level function drivers.

VMware is a great VM tool to use but it's not free however and more or less VMware and VirtualBox have nearly identical functionality.

Has anyone tried LXC on Slackware yet? How was it?

If you want some VMs on your desktop, use VBox. You can run the VBox host either on your own machine, another machine or even a headless server. Command line support is very good indeed. But VBox does just that: if you need to run another OS, it does that for you.

VMWare products like ESX virtualize everything: CPU's, disks, switches, NICs. It let you build a whole environment of networked computers on a physical platform which comprises an abitrary number of CPU's, switches, NICs and disks. There is a complete virtualization layer between your logical machines and the physical hardware. The configuration options are endless, and you can move logical hardware around while it is running from one physical machine to another, without interruption, even if the hardware is thousands of miles separated. You'd use this typically if you host multiple virtual servers.

Although VMware is built on a Linux platform, it does not provide a Linux client for system administration. (Don't tell me it does, it does not), while VBox does, both graphical and command line.

jlinkels

Didn't know about LXC, definitely something I will try. Short research about that showed that ponce has already done it: http://slackware.ponce.cc/blog/2011/...xc-containers/