6 software Virtual Machine
Virtual Machine Applications
A virtual machine is an application that emulates a physical machine inside your operating system. This can be used to run another OS in parallel with your currently running operating system. So you can have a Windows, Linux and MacOS running all at once. Thanks to the huge processing power and RAM available for today’s home computers, pretty much everything imaginable can be done on these machines.There are a good number of virtual machine solutions available to the general user. We have a look at the most popular and best virtual machines that are available.
VirtualBox
This is the most popular virtual machine application – primarily due to its ease of use and a free price tag. VirtualBox works well on Windows, Linux, Mac systems and also any other system OS that you can think of. VirtualBox has a large number of features that are regularly backed by a strong community effort.
It has features like the Open Virtualization Format that let you easily import and export virtual machines. Allowing you to easily work with virtual machines created on another application. Also, guest additions let you enhance your virtual machine and let you work seamlessly with the host system. We have also covered installation and creation of a virtual system in VirtualBox in our posts here. For more detailed information, check the VirtualBox site.
Works with (as Host OS): Windows / Mac / Linux
VMware
VMware Player is the free virtual machine offering from VMware. It is primarily designed for the basic home user. It has driverless printing which makes your printers automatically accessible to your Windows and Linux virtual machines. The VMware Player lets you easily and quickly, create and run a virtual machine.
However, if you are looking for powerful features like Teams, multiple Snapshots and Clones, or Virtual Rights Management, you may have to look at their paid options like the VMware Workstation. However, as a casual home user, the VMware Player covers a good deal. Other than the Player, VMware also has these other products available for free
These have more advanced features and are not targeted at the casual home user.
Works with (as Host OS): Windows / Linux
Parallels
The Parallels Desktop is primarily designed for the Mac. However, it also has a Parallels Workstation that is targeted at the Windows and Linux machines. This is the only virtual machine application that does not have a free solution. Even then, this is quite popular among Mac users that want to run a Windows or Linux environment inside their Mac systems.
Also, you can easily convert a physical machine to a virtual machine using the Parallels Transporter, an in-built feature of the Parallels Workstation that greatly simplifies virtual machine creation.
Works with (as Host OS): Windows / Mac / Linux
QEMU
QEMU is an open source emulator and virtualization machine that allows you to run a complete operating system on your desktop. It can be very useful for trying out different operating systems, testing software, and running applications that won’t run on your desktop’s native platform.
QEMU offers excellent performance for a virtual machine since it executes the guest requests directly on the host CPU. This virtual machine gives the advantage of being able to run either as a pure emulator or as a native virtual machine, that is, on a x86 / x86-64 hardware, without the need for hardware virtualization support.
Works with (as Host OS): Linux
Windows Virtual PC
The Windows Virtual PC is the oddball among all other virtual machines. This is due to the fact that the Windows Virtual PC only works on Windows hosts and it is used to run others Windows versions as guests. No other OS are supported. However, if you have a Windows system – which majority of us do – with the need to run an older version of Windows, then this is the perfect choice to go in for.
Works with (as Host OS): Windows
Bochs
Bochs is a relatively unknown, but an decent virtual machine application for x86 virtual hardware. It runs well on Windows, Linux, Mac systems. However, this is more used by testers to test out behavior on older systems. This may not be suitable for a home user, variety of modes, some which are still in development. However, an expert user should have no problems figuring this out. More information on Bochs can be found here.
Works with (as Host OS): Windows / Mac / Linux
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