Virtualization on the Cheap

It looks like the focus of my blog is turning out to be doing technology on the cheap.  Which, I guess makes sense, because I am cheap, and I do love technology. Let's face it, the cheaper technology is, the more of it you can have, and as the old saying goes, "Quantity has a quality all it's own."

All joking aside, for the last few years I've had an interest in Virtualization.  The idea that I can run any operating system on any computer hardware is pretty fascinating to me.  I've always had an interest in different operating systems, and the "barriers to entry" are certainly a lot lower when you can setup your OS in a safe sandbox, and create a backup by copying a single file.

So, what are the options?  For us Mac users, there is VMWare Fusion, Parallels, and Oracle's VirtualBox.  For people on Windows there is Microsoft Virtual PC software (which used to be a Mac product back in the day), and VMWare Workstation, as well as the free VMWare Player.  Those running Windows 7 Pro or higher have a special version of Microsoft Virtual PC available to them at no charge, it is known as Windows XP Mode.  Please note, I know these are not exhaustive lists, pardon me if I'm not mentioning your favorite.

Of these options, I've tried all of the free products, starting out with Microsoft Virtual PC and VMWare player.   These both work well.  Lately, I tried VirtualBox for the first time.  I was attracted to it because I have both a Mac and a Windows 7 Home PC at home.  Using VirtualBox, I was able to set up a Windows XP system on the Mac...

Then move the file over to the PC and run it there, too...

I hope you learn as much about Operating Systems and Programming Tools from the low-consequence environment of Virtualization as I have.

Next stop for me is loading up Ubuntu Linux 11 into VirtualBox. Happy Computing.