VirtualBox Relevance
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I'm generally curious. Is there still a need for Virtualbox in a world where type 1 hypervisors are already included in every major OS?
All new versions of Windows 8 and up include the newest version of Hyper-V. Many Linux distros (if not all) include either Xen of KVM. The only one I can think of that doesn't is OS X.
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Yes, for MAC we still need Virtualbox!
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@coliver said:
I'm generally curious. Is there still a need for Virtualbox in a world where type 1 hypervisors are already included in every major OS?
VirtualBox is the leading Type 2 hypervisor. When you need a Type 2, it's the go to choice. Type 1 does not replace Type 2, they are two different things with two different use cases.
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@coliver said:
All new versions of Windows 8 and up include the newest version of Hyper-V. Many Linux distros (if not all) include either Xen of KVM. The only one I can think of that doesn't is OS X.
None of these behave the same as a Type 2. Including a Type 1 with an OS means nothing as all four enterprise Type 1s (ESXi, HyperV, Xen and KVM) are and always have been free. That they are "included" with an OS is purely a marketing move, nothing more. You have always had the option to use them with any OS.
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None of the BSDs have a built in hypervisor that can run other operating systems. They have Jails. Solaris has Zones. But those are different than what Linux or Windows has.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
All new versions of Windows 8 and up include the newest version of Hyper-V. Many Linux distros (if not all) include either Xen of KVM. The only one I can think of that doesn't is OS X.
None of these behave the same as a Type 2. Including a Type 1 with an OS means nothing as all four enterprise Type 1s (ESXi, HyperV, Xen and KVM) are and always have been free. That they are "included" with an OS is purely a marketing move, nothing more. You have always had the option to use them with any OS.
Can you give me a use case where a Type 2 hypervisor would be preferable to type 1. I understand the difference but it seems from a speed / security / utilization standpoint type 1 would almost always be the preferred method.
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@Reid-Cooper said:
None of the BSDs have a built in hypervisor that can run other operating systems. They have Jails. Solaris has Zones. But those are different than what Linux or Windows has.
I didn't know BSD couldn't run KVM (or Xen) thanks for that information.
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@coliver said:
Can you give me a use case where a Type 2 hypervisor would be preferable to type 1. I understand the difference but it seems from a speed / security / utilization standpoint type 1 would almost always be the preferred method.
When you have a desktop and the guests need to be temporary - you want them to be turned off and actually stop taking resources from the local machine. Few people want their local desktop to be a view of a local virtual machine. So that is why the vast majority of desktop virtualization is type 2. The only type 1 that can even be used is HyperV and your local console becomes a VM and loses performance even if no VMs are running. With a Type 2 you can actually turn off the hypervisor and the local instance goes to 100% raw hardware performance.
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@coliver said:
I didn't know BSD couldn't run KVM (or Xen) thanks for that information.
KVM isn't a "thing" but is an aspect of Linux. KVM is just part of the Linux kernel, not an add on.
Xen is separate from Linux and can use FreeBSD as it's Dom0 but this is flaky and unsupported. It's not important at all to do that so no one focuses on it and no BSD distro includes it as it has no real value. So Xen is tied to Linux just out of defacto use. Nothing in Xen is directly tied to Linux and you are free to use NetBSD, FreeBSD or even Solaris in the Dom0 but anything other than Linux isn't considered production ready and no vendor will support it.
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Type 1 requires separate hardware to play with. Type 2 can be used by anyone with pretty much any OS. Also, is Hyper-V included in the consumer edition (non-Pro or Enterprise) of Windows 8/8.1?
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@thanksaj said:
Type 1 requires separate hardware to play with. Type 2 can be used by anyone with pretty much any OS. Also, is Hyper-V included in the consumer edition (non-Pro or Enterprise) of Windows 8/8.1?
HyperV is included in all non-RT versions of Windows. And does not require separate hardware if used that way. Acts like Windows 8.x is still the local desktop. You can't tell that it is virtual except for the drop in performance.
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@thanksaj said:
Type 1 requires separate hardware to play with. Type 2 can be used by anyone with pretty much any OS. Also, is Hyper-V included in the consumer edition (non-Pro or Enterprise) of Windows 8/8.1?
Recent Type 1s are starting to offer local console redirection. That is what HyperV does to make its main VM appear to be a physical instance rather than running in a VM like it actually is.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
Can you give me a use case where a Type 2 hypervisor would be preferable to type 1. I understand the difference but it seems from a speed / security / utilization standpoint type 1 would almost always be the preferred method.
When you have a desktop and the guests need to be temporary - you want them to be turned off and actually stop taking resources from the local machine. Few people want their local desktop to be a view of a local virtual machine. So that is why the vast majority of desktop virtualization is type 2. The only type 1 that can even be used is HyperV and your local console becomes a VM and loses performance even if no VMs are running. With a Type 2 you can actually turn off the hypervisor and the local instance goes to 100% raw hardware performance.
Thanks, that was what I was looking for. As I said this was a general curiosity question.
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This is why I use VirtualBox at home on my desktop. I don't use those VMs all the time, they are not production servers. At most they are demo servers just to test something out and more likely they are alternative desktops, like when I test the latest Mint build, so I don't want them running very often. I want them off 95% of the time. And when they are off, I want 100% of my system performance - especially because I play games on my desktop and virtualizing my main Windows instance would be noticeable in a gaming setting.
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How about for building a system image that you intend to deploy later using SmartDeploy, etc.? We use VMWare Player to build and make edits to the image, and that is about all we do with type 2 hypervisors.
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@NetworkNerd said:
How about for building a system image that you intend to deploy later using SmartDeploy, etc.? We use VMWare Player to build and make edits to the image, and that is about all we do with type 2 hypervisors.
Good example.
