My colleague and friend Alex Garrett has just blogged about the remarkable Cooperative Linux.
This has prompted me to give Microsoft’s VirtualPC 2007 a plug. I know it isn’t trendy to say this, but the product is really very good (it’s actually a brought-in product, so all you Microsoft haters out there can cut me some slack). It’s reliable, fast (makes good use of the real underlying silicon), is very faithful in its virtualization and (unlike most of its competitors) doesn’t litter the system with virtual adaptors, etc.
It’ll run a lot of stuff and there are some nice tools and blogs out there, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
It’s free, just like it’s slightly bigger brother.
I have used this extensively while developing several products, notably BABI, where I had it running the QNX Neutrino Real-Time OS.
As with all virtualization products, VirtualPC is truly excellent for assisting with testing and learning–situations where it is important to be able to “roll back the clock and start again.” VirtualPC makes it possible to do this with a few clicks; it’s a lot more difficult with a tool like CoLinux (or Wubi, say).
At this point in time, I still prefer VirtualPC to the competitors.
The Virtualization Interoperability Pact between Microsoft and Redhat also keeps life interesting in this space.
