Windows 7 has been very robust for the last several weeks that I feel confident enough to push the performance boundary a little. I want to see how well Linux virtual machines (VM) runs on top of Win 7.
There are three popular choices to run VM on Windows 7: Virtual PC, VirtualBox and VMware Server.
Virtual PC is a free Windows update for Windows 7. It is intended to supply a Windows XP VM for legacy programs. I was able to boot and install Linux (Ubuntu 8.04) on it but couldn’t boot into the finished install at all.
VirtualBox (VBox) is an open source VM acquired by Sun. It is cross platform (OS X, Linux or Windows). VMWare Server(VMS) is the entry-level VM (freeware) from the virtualization powerhouse VMWare.
Both VBox and VMS install and run Linux VM successfully. Of the two, I feel VBox is more suitable for a desktop/laptop host environment because of its small memory footprint, nice “seamless mode” when guest and host apps run side by side and full snapshot capabilities. VMS is probably more suited for a server environment for its web-based remote management GUI. In my test VMS also has slightly better device drivers such as video that works more smoothly out of the box.
Some of the features VBox has are included in the VMWare Workstation version (or the VMWare Fusion for Mac OS X). It is not free though.