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David Brown
karthikbalaguru said:A very big list is present in the below link-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_virtual_machines
It contains GPL versions also.
Lot of flavours :-(,
But, which is the best freely available platform
virtual machine ?
It all depends on your needs.
For general use, I'd recommend Virtual Box. It's easy to install and
use, cross-platform, pretty fast for most uses, has reasonably
successful support for USB devices, and has useful guest drivers and
additions. It is very close to "free" - most of it is available open
source, and the even the closed-source bits are free cost.
If you are using a Linux host, kvm is it the other main choice. It
takes a bit more work (such as reading how-tos) to use it, but it is
solid and flexible. It is a good choice for more serious work on a
Linux host.
QEMU is the choice if you are emulating different processors.
Free versions of VMWare are a good choice if you need compatibility with
existing VMWare virtual machines - otherwise you are better off with
Virtual Box (the paid-for versions of WMWare have other features that
might make them worth the cost).
For DOS emulation, use DOSBOX.
And for multiple linux virtual servers on a linux host, something like
openvz is often a better choice, being so lightweight.
So in summary, choose Virtual Box unless you have more specialist needs.