Virtually impossible to ignore
Categories: Webtools
Written By: James
Being in the lucky position that I find myself in at my place of employment, where because we have Microsoft sponsorship [which basically means we have a huge amount of the latest Microsoft products at our disposal - and ALL for FREE] you may wonder why I would ever go looking for an open source alternative. Well, there are several reasons actually, but without digressing too far from the main point here, sometimes open source is simply thrust upon you. And anyway, I am a big fan of open source.
Take the example of VirtualBox. I use more virtual servers than physical these days and the thing is, once you start using virtual systems, you really do wonder how you ever coped without. They are quicker [when configured correctly] and they are so easy to backup and to restore in times of disaster. I use Virtual PC 2007 for many of my personal experiments and this allows me to use whatever operating system I need without the need for extra hardware, and I use Virtual Server 2005 for some of the more demanding tasks which require server capability. Both of these products are free and readily available - a fact that I often find gets lost when working with die-hard anti-Windows protagonists.
So why would something like VirtualBox interest me you ask? Well, the answer is very simple. The sheer fact it is open source means that there are developers who, dare I say it, think outside the box. And even more significantly, the overall development takes notice and continues to develop this out of the box thinking even further. Powerful stuff! And the main reason - whereas Virtual PC is only for Windows, VirtualBox can be installed on nearly all systems.
The only concern here is that Sun Microsystems have recently acquired [such a useful word isn't it] the company that have developed VirtualBox, and I just hope that things do not start to go downhill as a result. Maybe you should go grab the current version of VirtualBox right this minute, just in case…
A clear guide on how to set up VirtualBox is found at OpenComputer.net
