Free Virtualization Software

Virtualization is one of the most radical innovations in software, allowing users to create virtual computing machines that can be used for a wide variety of purposes. If you have a Windows machine, but want to create a program in Linux, you can create a Linux Guest machine on your computer, thus avoiding the requirement of buying a new computer or installing Linux.

In this article we talk about free Virtualization software for different kind of platforms. We cover the solution depending on the make and the operating system installed on the Host Machine.

Windows and Linux Host Machine

? VMware Player: VMware provides the most popular virtualization solution in the market, and by a margin. VMware Player can run all the virtual machines that have been created on paid VMware products such as VMware Workstation and VMware Server.

? QEMU: This software by Fabrice Ballard and others is one of the most popular completely free virtualization software available. It can be used with Windows as well as a Linux host. Apart from running a Guest Operating system, it can also be used for process emulation, where it will run only a single process within an emulation bubble. One major feature of Qemu is it portability - you can carry virtual machines in your USB, and do not require administrator rights on a Host machine to run them.

Linux Host Machine

? OpenVZ: This is an open-source solution by Parallels Inc, and allows you to create isolated virtual machines running their own operating systems, called Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and Virtual Environments (VE). The one limitation with OpenVZ is that it supports only Linux - you can only have a Linux as a Guest OS, and that too only on a Linux machine.

? Qemu: We have already described Qemu. It works on Linux machines too.

iMac Host Machine

? VirtualBox: This virtualization software is supported by Sun Microsystems, which is now owned by Oracle. It works on Intel x86 and x86-64 architecture, and with Mac OS as well as a number of other OS's such as Windows, and different flavors of GNU Linux. It is released under GPL 2.0.

? VMware Fusion: Developed by VMware for Intel Macs, this software allows you to run all popular x86, x86-64 based operating systems such as Windows and flavors of Linux.

? QEMU: Again, Qemu can run on Mac too.

All of these software are free, and as of now, and are in continuous development. If you need support, you will also find active user communities on the internet where you can ask for help. They also come with manuals etc which tell you how to effectively use them.