Comments on: VirtualBox vs. VMware on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

By: richfreedman

richfreedman — Sun, 16 May 2010 21:42:05 +0000

fritzelshitszl – I share your frustration with the operating system from Redmond.
However, VirtualBox and VMWare are not just better ways to run applications written for that OS.

I use VMWare and VirtualBox on my Linux machines primarily to run additional Linux VMs.

I personally don’t care that folks spend their time writing applications for the most commercially successful operating system.
What I do mind is when they write applications that only work on that operating system.
As I may have mentioned elsewhere, my wife runs a small business, and uses QuickBooks – there’s really no viable alternative. Consequently, there’s a copy of Windows XP running on VirtualBox on my Linux server at all times :-(

By: fritzelshitszl

fritzelshitszl — Sun, 16 May 2010 15:55:05 +0000

no directx or opengl stuff works on virtualbox from my machine,but crossover runs most things. virtualbox is good for say.. filemanager. why dont the coders just stop making windows programs and ditch that crap for ever.

By: richfreedman

richfreedman — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:28:28 +0000

Not sure how to solve your VMWare problem – I haven’t installed it recently, and have never run into that problem.

For desktop use, VirtualBox pretty much does everything that VMWare does. I have, in general, found it easier to use and manage.

I’ve only run it on Linux, but I do know folks who are running on OS X, and it seems to work fine for them, with both Windows XP and Ubuntu guests.

Both VMWare and VirtualBox virtualize the hardware, allowing you to install a “guest” operating system.

Codeweaver’s “crossover” product attempts to emulate the Windows API in your “real” operating system. It is the commercial version of the open-source Linux project called Wine (“Wine Is Not an Emulator”), that has since been ported to BSD, Solaris, and OS X. This allows you to run some Windows applications – I use it in Linux to run XMLSpy. It’s a useful tool, but certainly no replacement for running Windows on either VMWare or VirtualBox.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and System V was still shiny, I was a system admin for about a year. Had to install it from tapes…

By: Linda Kingsley

Linda Kingsley — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:04:03 +0000

I have a Macbook Pro 2.6 ghz intel core 2 duo 4gb 667 mhz ddr2 sdram on which I have OS X 10.5.8 no plans yet on upgrading to snow leopard. I have a copy of vmware fusion v3.0.2 so I can run win-xp …. I also have a copy of ubuntu 9.10 which I am considering installling. Ubuntu prompts me to install vmware tools which I have tried to do but have not been successful. To get ubuntu to boot at I have to send a vulcan neck pinch :-P as I was getting hung with a vmware easy install terminal screen. How does one nuke that critter?

Next question …. is there a difference between virtualbox vs vmware?

http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/ has crossover …. ditto on the difference question?

Your opinion on the superiority of these products would be gladly accepted.

On a personal note, I cut my computer teeth on a Unix System V system, then I went PC then I went Mac (never to go back to PC).

thanks for listening.

By: richfreedman

richfreedman — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:21:33 +0000

There are two versions of VirtualBox.
The Open Source Edition (OSE) does not have support for the USB port.
The “Personal Use and Evaluation License” (PUEL) version does support the USB port, including USB over RDP.
For more info, see http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Editions

By: Don

Don — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 04:23:41 +0000

I have a quick question about Virtualbox… since I usually move files around on usb sticks regularly, does virtualbox allow windows to see a usb flashdrive? If not I guess I could drop things in dropbox… buut would really like the usb option to work.