What Program To Use To Virtualize?
Continuing with last week's question, there are times when we do not want to have a GNU/Linux distribution as the main system, so we need virtualization software. Here I will tell you which are the best programs to install your favorite operating systems without endangering the information on our PC.
6/20/20242 min read
Photo by Josh Sorenson: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-flat-screen-computer-monitor-1714208/
VirtualBox
We start with one of the best-known virtualization programs: VirtualBox. It is one of the most popular programs since it is developed by Oracle (one of the best-known free software companies), owner of other well-known programs, such as Oracle Solaris, Java, among others. This virtualization software became quite well known for several reasons. One of the advantages is that it is open source, which means you can view the code whenever you want. Another advantage is that you do not need to pay under any circumstances, since it does not have a payment plan, so you can enjoy the complete experience at no cost. If you want to download this software, you can do so here.
VMware
This is VirtualBox's biggest competitor. There is no clear winner between these two virtualization programs, but I can tell you their pros and cons. For example, the pros of VMware are that recently the paid version became free, which was great news. This makes VMware an attractive option, although remember that VirtualBox has always been free. Another pro is that it has a more modern interface than VirtualBox.
As for the cons of using VMware, one is that it is proprietary software, which means that we cannot access the code to know what is actually being installed on our PC, which could result in the installation of unwanted components. Another con is that it is not available in any official Linux package manager, which makes the installation process a little slower. A final con is that, if you want to emulate systems like macOS, you need to install additional plugins. If you want to download this software, you can do so here.
Qemu
There is not much information about Qemu on the internet. For example, if you do a search on YouTube, without an account, the second video already appears in English. However, there are relatively important people in the world of Linux and hacking in Spanish who use it. For example, you could mention Code Christ or Locos por Linux. Still, there are few people who use it as their main virtualization software, so I didn't find much information on the topic. What I did find is that it has been open source since 2013, but it wasn't before. If you want to download this software, you can do so here.
Others
There are other virtualization programs that I did not mention, but these are the best known. The bad thing about using a not very well-known virtualization program is that there is not much information about them. If you want to use Qemu(for example), it will be much more difficult for you to find the solution to an error by searching for it on the internet than by searching for a VirtualBox error. In the end, as in the previous blog, I can't tell you which is the best, I can only recommend the best, so the choice is yours. Thank you for your attention, don't forget to follow us on our networks if you haven't, and... see you on Thursday!