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Best host
Posted: 4. Feb 2014, 19:02
by mrdata
I've searched here and via search engines and have not found any good discussion as to the "best" platform to setup as a VMBOX host.
I've some folks swear by (or at) Linux (Versions may vary) Windows (Versions vary) Solaris, etc. I realize the hardware has a lot to do with performance. Today I can load any OS on any modern motherboard/disk/etc. So all hardware being equal, is there a better OS to setup as a VMBOX host?
All comments will be appreciated.
Mike
Re: Best host
Posted: 4. Feb 2014, 20:11
by mpack
There is no absolute "best" host OS. It depends on your needs. Any host OS capable of decent performance will do fine. Go with whatever you're comfortable with.
Re: Best host
Posted: 4. Feb 2014, 21:38
by Brutalizer
What are your needs? How are you going to use it? For instance, if you are going to do HPC calculations, you should run bare metal and scrap virtualization. If you are going to casually use one VM at a time, any OS will do. How are you going to use it?
Re: Best host
Posted: 5. Feb 2014, 18:03
by mrdata
Its a planned development machine. We have deployed systems that date to the 1990's. The OS's range from Windows XP thru Windows 8.1 and on OS/2. We have deployments that include Linux (versions vary) servers DHCP, DNS and Apache. Rather that have a wall full of boxes preserved for perpetuity we plan in building a VM machine that we can populate with these systems and maintain support and development.
Re: Best host
Posted: 5. Feb 2014, 19:10
by noteirak
You should go with a UNIX-based OS then. The choice is up to you.
Re: Best host
Posted: 6. Feb 2014, 00:03
by mrdata
Thanks - will do.
And thanks for taking the time.
Mike
Re: Best host
Posted: 8. Feb 2014, 15:45
by Brutalizer
FreeBSD is a good choice because it promotes stability. Linux promotes adding new features, which makes it less stable. The code churn over is very high in Linux, which means there are lot of new bugs introduced. In fact, there are talks in the mail lists of Linux v4.0 being a bug fix release only, and cleaning up the code. FreeBSD does not need a bug fix release, but Linux does. On the other hand, FreeBSD is not really supported by VirtualBox, so you need to download external VB binaries by the BSD team. Solaris is a very stable Unix. There are free open source versions of Solaris, called OmniOS (minimal OS for file serving?) or SmartOs (targeted for cloud computing and hosting lot of VMs) or OpenIndiana.