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It's not only handy but crucial to test applications in different environments and VirtualBox is perfect for this.
Also when a new system comes out that interests me I put it on a VM first.
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I used to use VirtualBox, but that totally messed my Windows host up, I tried using the "Host-only feature", and the drivers pretty much made Windows take on average 10 minutes from logging in to displaying the desktop. A Message box would also appear saying that "A timeout has occured." I have no clue as to where that message was coming from, however, I assume it was coming from Windows Explorer, as usually at least half the icons in the system tray would fail to appear, and I had to restart Explorer. When it finally displayed the dekstop, I would be greeted with New Hardware wizard every single time I logged on, and no matter what I did to remove the drivers it still didn't make any difference. Also, depending on how long I waited after Windows had booted and the login window appear, would also affect whether or not the desktop would ever even appear (eg, I had to wait usually about 5 minutes before I logged in otherwise the whole system would just freeze). So I had to re-image my machine. QEMU is mind-numbingly slow, so I don't use that.
I just stick with real machines for using different Operating Systems now.
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One of the biggest challenges for us is maintianing web servers on disparate hardware and OSs. We try and keep OS's consistent but it's not always practical, especially when something is working perfectly, day after day, and there's no immediate need to touch anything.
This has created a bit of a nightmare for us due to Microsoft continually changing the way web apps are deployed. Between IIS 6, 7, 7.5 there has been change after change, and so everytime we need to setup a new box there's always that time spent in juggling and tweaking the config files and getting all the IIS settings right (why oh why did they remove the ability to load a site from a file???)
So: VMs provide the ability to just stick to a single OS and IIS version, and then, should an upgrade be necessary or desirable, it can be done once and then the VM snapshot deployed.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: VMs provide the ability to just stick to a single OS and IIS version
And what's stopping you from having same OS and IIS version across different machines on raw hardware?
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Practicality.
We install on a server, then a new server comes out, and we have to ask whether we upgrade *all* servers or just roll out the new OS on new servers.
We'd rather be programming than flipping disks.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
The Code Project | Co-founder
Microsoft C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: We'd rather be programming than flipping disks.
Amen! 1/3 of my time is spent just on that sheer craziness 
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It's very helpful but sometimes no other way to solve the problem than working on a real machine ! I was working on communications with bluetooth in a project, and had a problem with version 6 of VMWare, but the problem has gone when I tried with version 7.
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Yes indeed - they are a good idea under many circumstances. 
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I use a VM almost daily on linux and on windows. No matter what the host OS is or what the guest os is or who's VM (xen, vmware, kvm, virtualbox, virtualpc ) the biggest problem to me is the loss of disk, video and memory performance when using SMP guests and guests that use 3+ GB of ram. Under a VM it feels like I am running on a PC from 2005 even though I have a 3 GHz or better i7s.
John
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John M. Drescher wrote: Under a VM it feels like I am running on a PC from 2005 even though I have a 3 GHz or better i7s.
The biggest secret is don't use MS Virtual PC, don't make big disks, etc.  Virtual box and Vmware have gotten a LOT better over time. Virtual PC has gotten friendlier (integration with windows 7) but not much better quality.
I keep one disk for OS, and one disk for data, etc to keep the size of disks down. large disks mean large slow-downs. Right now I run 3D applications inside of Virtual-box at 60hz, including 32 gig's of paged terrain. Once you get the tricks down, you can speed it up a lot.  I even test OpenMP apps now too.
_________________________
John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
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I am splitting up the guest OS and data disks already. On the most used VM my OS disk is 20 to 30GB (almost full) with the data being 60 to 100GB (again almost full).
John
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John M. Drescher wrote: I am splitting up the guest OS and data disks already. On the most used VM my OS disk is 20 to 30GB (almost full) with the data being 60 to 100GB (again almost full).
My OS's are half that, and the data is several under 30gig. That and I defrag the host nightly when I leave.
_________________________
John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
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What do Virtual box and Vmware's free versions look like? I've been using Virtual PC by default since it was preinstalled and the XP VM mostly setup by corporate IT when they made my image.
3x12=36
2x12=24
1x12=12
0x12=18
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Dan Neely wrote: What do Virtual box and Vmware's free versions look like?
Lets see.... hardware accelerated Direct3D and OpenGL.... faster disks, faster apps... what do else do you want to know?
_________________________
John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
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IIRC the last time I looked (years ago) IIRC VMwares's free version could only open VMs created by someone else; and didn't allow you to create your own. I assume this is no longer the case. I don't recall if I ever tried virtual box or not.
3x12=36
2x12=24
1x12=12
0x12=18
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Dan Neely wrote: VMwares's free version could only open VMs created by someone else; and didn't allow you to create your own.
This is still true, however, there are googlable solutions to this. I still use an old VMware copy, so I don't know for sure. Basically, you can copy any existing system to VMware using free tools. I copied several of my systems as they died to become VM versions. After a while you start to collect images of machines no longer in use. What do you do? Boot a disk, reformat the VM and viola your own VM.
_________________________
John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
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actually the latest version of vmware player will allow you to create a new virtual machine. (at least on a linux host).
-Sean
----
Fire Nuts
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One more question. Would either of them let me go multi-monitor with two different resolution LCDs?
3x12=36
2x12=24
1x12=12
0x12=18
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Dan Neely wrote: One more question. Would either of them let me go multi-monitor with two different resolution LCDs?
I am running dual monitor "windows" using Virtual Box right now. But I don't use integration for multiple monitors, so I don't know.
_________________________
John Andrew Holmes "It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others."
Shhhhh.... I am not really here. I am a figment of your imagination.... I am still in my cave so this must be an illusion....
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Use hardware that has support for virtualization (any modern cpu), virtualization software that can utilize it (all recent vmware, virtualbox and virtualpc/server releases) and modern guest os (vista+, recent linux releases, preferably with paravirtualized kernels).
We're using a lot of virtual machines for testing and whatnot and when all the requirements are met, there's almost no drop in performance. Otherwise, yes, you can experience a tremendous loss of horsepower.
Just to give you an example, for my last project we had three virtual machines which were running integration tests: with winxp, vista32 and vista64 guests, all with 1 GB of RAM, all on the same server (win2008). Both Vistas ran all the tests in 4 minutes (the same time they ran on my development machine). XP ran all the same tests in 3 HOURS.
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13xforever wrote: Use hardware that has support for virtualization (any modern cpu), virtualization software that can utilize it
I am in all cases. A high end i7 system with kvm, virtualbox or vmware (all with proper drivers) does not fix the issue.
13xforever wrote: winxp, vista32 and vista64 guests, all with 1 GB of RAM
My guests would not begin to work on 1GB of ram. They actually need to be 64 bit. Also SMP on the guests is essential.
John
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Your not giving very many details to what your doing, what your doing it on and barely defending your argument. If you hate VM(s) so much then just go buy more real computers.
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I have come to the conclusion that it is not only faster but also cheaper in my case to buy more machines.
John
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I code in a virtual machine, I think it's better, I have few problems like in the GAC and all that stuff because I need to have more than one version.
luisnike19
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I once worked on a contract where they mandated all development be done on a VM, I quit. To be fair, I did try it out for a few weeks but the loss of my dual monitor and fact that 30 developers where using one VM became too much. I.T. should not interfere in development.
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