一日一题: Have you ever virtualized?

rj45rt

你用过虚拟机吗? 今天先容一个很好的VM的替换品, 而且是免费的
    VirtualBox -- professional, flexible, openVirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizerfor x86 hardware. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it isnow the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is alsoOpen Source Software.
Some of the features of VirtualBox are:

• Modularity. VirtualBox has an extremelymodular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and aclient/server design. This makes it easy to control it from severalinterfaces at once: for example, you can start a virtual machine in atypical virtual machine GUI and then control that machine from thecommand line, or possibly remotely. VirtualBox also comes with a fullSoftware Development Kit: even though it is Open Source Software, youdon't have to hack the source to write a new interface for VirtualBox.

• Virtual machine descriptions in XML.The configuration settings of virtual machines are stored entirely inXML and are independent of the local machines. Virtual machinedefinitions can therefore easily be ported to other computers.

• Guest Additions for Windows and Linux.VirtualBox has special software that can be installed inside Windowsand Linux virtual machines to improve performance and make integrationmuch more seamless. Among the features provided by these GuestAdditions are mouse pointer integration and arbitrary screen solutions(e.g. by resizing the guest window).

• Shared folders. Like many othervirtualization solutions, for easy data exchange between hosts andguests, VirtualBox allows for declaring certain host directories as"shared folders", which can then be accessed from within virtualmachines.

A number of extra features are available with the full VirtualBox release only (see the "Editions" page for details):

• Virtual USB Controllers. VirtualBox implementsa virtual USB controller and allows you to connect arbitrary USBdevices to your virtual machines without having to install devicespecific drivers on the host.

• Remote Desktop Protocol. Unlikeany other virtualization software, VirtualBox fully supports thestandard Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). A virtual machine can act as anRDP server, allowing you to "run" the virtual machine remotely on somethin client that merely displays the RDP data.

• USB over RDP. With this uniquefeature, a virtual machine that acts as an RDP server can still accessarbitrary USB devices that are connected on the RDP client. This way, apowerful server machine can virtualize a lot of thin clients thatmerely need to display RDP data and have USB devices plugged in.

http://www.virtualbox.org/