Best free hardware virtualization tool?

[Alex Franke]

(I promise this is the last techie question for the day, but I y'all always give me some great techie advice here! )

I've only ever used vmware, so I have blinders on, I guess. Anyone tried out MS Virtual PC or VirtualBox (or some other that I haven't heard of)? Any favorites? Anything to look out for when trying something new?

Right now I just need XP as the host and Linux on the virtual.

Thanks!

[Sam Conder]

I use Windows XP loaded in a MS Virtual PC for a few apps that just aren't happy on Vista Business. It works as advertised with no problems.

As an aside, I am quite enamored with my Windows 2008 Enterprise server running Core Services only and Hyper-V. I am so sold on it for providing servers for our schools that I just bought 2 more physical servers to run identical configurations with the goal of virtualizing all of our school's servers.

[crokett]

I like VirtualBox. I ran it for a while at work to run XP under Linux, until I realized I had duplicated more or less all the Linux apps in the Virtual XP machine to do work stuff.

[Alex Franke]

Thanks, guys. I tried out VirtualBox and I like it a lot for far -- it even passes through graphics card capabilities, which I don't believe VMware did. The only problem I had with it so far is that the color depth comes up low, but that may just be a memory issue.

[cgallery]

Another Virtual Box vote here.

[vaking]

I run Vista 64 as a host with VMWare server on it. In VMware I have images of XP 32, Vista 32 and Windows 7 - all running just fine. So far I have one beef with this arrangement. If I start multiple OSs on this computer and then let the computer go to sleep - waking up all those numerous virtual computers take a long time. It is no linear, if waking up 1 OS takes 1 min, waking up host OS first, then VMware and then another OS in VMware may easily take 15 minutes. Main differences between VMware workstation, VMWare server, Virtual PC and VirtualBox is ability to use multiple monitors, ability to use multiple processors, USB devices, etc within virtual environments.
For instance you can use dual-display for virtual computer using VMWare workstation but not VMware server, you can use only a single processor in Virtual PC but dual-processor in VMWare.
Also,
VMWare includes something called "VMWare tools". Part of these tools are VMware drivers for video and network. After installing VMware tools you should have no problems with color depth, etc.