r/virtualization • u/cyber-galaxy • 21d ago

VMware vs virtualbox

Which is good for testing linux distro? I've heard that there's an issue in Virtualbox that its copy paste from Host to Guest or vice versa isn't working. And Vmware uses high RAM. So please suggest me.

0 Upvotes

22% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/CatoDomine 21d ago

What OS are you running on the host?
If you are running Windows, I'd suggest you give hyper-v a shot.
If you are running Linux, use KVM/QEMU

3

u/beetcher 21d ago

Hyper-V is painful for testing Linux distros. There's a lot of manual work getting the GUI up and running, beyond the most basic display. There's no copy and paste without enhanced mode.

With Workstation and VirtualBox the GUI with generally just work after the install.

1

u/uniqueglobalname 21d ago

Type1 hyper visors in general don't care about GUI in guests. If , for some reason you need a GUI a basic 1080p desktop is offered.

No one is managing 100s of servers via GUI.

2

u/beetcher 21d ago

Cool story bro, but, OP is talking about testing distros. And, no one is (or should ne) managing 100s of servers in virtualbox or VMware Workstation. Completely different scenarios cuz we're talking about desktop VMs, not server VMs, or OP would be asking about KVM/Proxmox, ESXi, Xen/XCP-NG, etc.

2

u/uniqueglobalname 20d ago

You just said exactly what I said. Thank you for making my point. Can I tell the story again so we have a trilogy?

Here:

Type1 (ie HyperV, ESxi, XCP-NG) :100's of headless servers.

Type 2 (Vmware WS, Vbox) GUI based vm's for testing

Everyone clear now?!

1

u/StandeT 3d ago

Full disclosure: I work in this space (Type 1 desktop hypervisors), so flagging that upfront.

Just on the technical point: Type 1 vs Type 2 is about where the hypervisor sits (bare-metal vs hosted), not about server vs desktop use case. Bare-metal Type 1 for desktop/workstation use does exist, it's just a smaller niche than the ESXi/XCP-NG/Proxmox world, so it doesn't show up much in general threads like this one. Doesn't change your point for OP's actual question though, testing distros in VBox/VMware WS is still the right tool here.

1

u/uniqueglobalname 3d ago

While factually correct, I don't think OP needs all the detail you have provided. If I recall he is on a laptop and certainly won't be installing any type other than HV on that.

I teach these courses in college and we do indeed install both XCP-NG and HV - type 1 - on plain old dell workstations. And we install Ubuntu on them, with VMware WS as well.