[CLOSED] Which virtualization to use: VMware, VirtualBox or QEMU?

[Pepper-Mint-Patty]

Coming from a dual boot W10 + LM 19.2 i have just been explained VM is much more convenient. The switching between os can be done without restart. That is realy appealing.
But now i am facing there are 3, maybe even more, VM programs.

I've decided to move on to LM 20 Cinn. Because i guess that will be more suited with VM. So which one to choose on base of LM20 as host: VMware, VirtualBox or QEMU?
Windows will primarly be used for Photoshop + CameraRaw, some heavy duty programs.

[Moonstone Man]

Windows will primarly be used for Photoshop + CameraRaw, some heavy duty programs.

Being able to run a virtual machine on your machine depends entirely on the specifications of your machine. There's not much point in trying to run a VM if your machine doesn't provide VT-x or similar x86 virtualisation, and the same applies if there is insufficient RAM, or an under-powered CPU but since you don't say anything at all about your system, not much more can be said on that part of the topic.

As for the virtual machine manager to use, that's entirely up to you, your tastes, your preferences and your expertise. On that latter point, you would certainly want to give Qemu a very wide berth. If you need to know why, read the docs. I suggest that VirtualBox is your safest bet.

[Pepper-Mint-Patty]

Hi Kadaitcha Man, i like your new facelift. No doubt evolution is coming at a high pace to you.

About the specs, i thought the machine already being able to run these 2 apps i didn't need to mention.
There is a 8 RAM, M2 500gb and cpu says

Code: Select all

$  inxi -Fxxxrz
  Topology: Dual Core model: Intel Core i3-7100U bits: 64 type: MT MCP 
  arch: Kaby Lake rev: 9 L2 cache: 3072 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 19200 
  Speed: 600 MHz min/max: 400/2400 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 600 2: 600 
  3: 601 4: 600

Hope that will do.

[SomeDudeInAZ]

While I can't speak to vmware (yet) it really depends upon what you want to do with your VMs.

VBox is generally easier, KVM/QEMU is harder. Both have their limitations.

For example neither handles 3d "hardware acceleration" especially well. But for vbox they're removed those tools from the windows xp capabilities (so you have to go to an older version - as I'm battling with right now).

If you mostly want to run office style programs whichever you prefer.

[AndyMH]

You will get more support on this forum with virtualbox. I run win7 in a VM mainly for office and coreldraw, performance is adequate on a laptop with a less capable processor than yours, also 8GB RAM. An SSD is essential, but you've got one (it used to take ages to load running from an HDD).

One nice feature of virtualbox is its ability to run "seamless" - you get the windows taskbar above the mint panel, rest of the desktop is linux. Windows programs open in their own windows just like linux programs.

[msseufert]

+1 for the VBox support comment.
As far as vmware goes, I've found that it runs better on a windows host than virtualbox and open-vm-tools/vmware gfx drivers are pretty standard in Linux repos these days.

I'm not sure if you want a Windows host, or a Linux host, but if you choose Windows as your host I'd say vmware. As far as vmare on a Linux host, I've found that there is sometimes a lag between kernel releases and kernel support in vmware. So I'd say virtualbox. KVM/Qemu is good too with virt-manager, but it's not as user friendly as the other 2.

Just my $0.02, please keep the change.

[wallyUSA]

@Patty,
I have tries both VBox and VMware. I find VMware easier to install (from VMware.org) and it uses less resources on my system. (VMWare Workstation 15 Player)

If your main reason for using Windows is Photoshop, you might want to look at GIMP. Very similar to PS, it is free to use and is cross-platform (Windows & Linux). It is much improved in recent years. Found this comment on Google:

“Is gimp the best free Photoshop?
The best free photo editor is GIMP – a powerful and feature-packed open source program that's the closest thing you'll get to a free version of Photoshop. It offers more tools than some paid-for photo editors, supports layers, masks and plugins, and even lets you work with Photoshop PSD documents.Oct 26, 2020”

www.techradar.com › best › free-photo-editor

[Pepper-Mint-Patty]

Spent many an hour to get this working. Useless, i'll stick to dualboot!
so NOT solved, but closed.

[SomeDudeInAZ]

Just curious, have you been able to get ANY virtual machine working? Say Freedos or mx linux?