This document provides information on using Ubuntu with virtual machine software.
Popular virtual machine applications
This section lists the most commonly-used virtual machine applications which support Ubuntu.
Xen
Xen is a popular, open-source virtual machine application that is officially supported by Ubuntu. It provides high performance, but only supports a small number of host and guest operating systems. Ubuntu is supported as both a host and guest operating system, and Xen is available in the universe software channel.
Xen - instructions on getting Xen up and running on Ubuntu
Xen wiki - more information about how Xen works
VirtualBox
* VirtualBox - Open-source virtual machine from Oracle. Easy to install and use and not to mention very popular.
VMWare
VMware is a non-free virtual machine application, which supports Ubuntu as both a host and guest operating system. Several versions of VMware are available at no cost and can be installed on Ubuntu. One, vmware-player, is available from the multiverse software channel in Ubuntu. VMWare is the virtual machine solution that has been in use the longest and is the most widely used.
VMware - General instructions on installing and using VMWare with Ubuntu
Full listing of VMWare documentation available from the community support pages
Qemu
Qemu is a processor emulator and virtual machine. Qemu supports Ubuntu as both a host and guest operating system, and is capable of emulating arm, powerpc, sparc and x86 processors. Qemu is available from the universe software channel in Ubuntu as the package qemu.
Installation/QemuEmulator - Instructions for installing Ubuntu as a guest in Qemu
WindowsXPUnderQemuHowTo - Instructions for running Windows XP as a guest on Ubuntu
FrQemuInstallHowTo - Instructions pour l'installation de Qemu (en Français)
WindowsXPUnderQemuHowTo - Instructions for installing KQemu accelerator on Ubuntu.
Note: KQEMU will not work under Ubuntu 10.04. See KQEMU page for more info |
Microsoft Virtual PC
Microsoft Virtual PC is a proprietary virtual machine application for Microsoft Windows. It is capable of running Ubuntu as a guest operating system.
- XFree86 needs to be configured for either 16 bpp or 32 bpp. 24 bpp does not work.
- All Virtual PC network configurations work: direct, shared, and local (loopback).
- There is a bug with PS/2 emulation in the kernel 7.04. Since Virtual PC 2007 emulates a PS/2 mouse, the mouse doesn't work.
Parallels
Parallels - Commercial virtual machine for Macintosh computers.
Other virtual machines
This section provides a short list of alternative virtual machines which are capable of running Ubuntu as either a host or guest operating system.
UserModeLinux - Alternative open-source virtual machine
For a Virtualization technologies that runs with Ubuntu as a Host or a Guest, please see Virtualisation.
External Links
Virtual Machine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - General information on virtual machines.
CategoryCommercialSoftware CategoryHardware CategoryVirtualization