VirtualBox .. Any Success stories?

Hi
I am looking at using virtualisation (is that a real word?) to seperate my programming software.

I had to install Eurotherm Suite which ended up 'killing' my Mitsubishi PLC software, when, of course, I was up againt a deadline.

I have seen Virtualbox mentioned here before so was wondering if it was worth a new thread to list what 'works' under VirtualBox

Cheers

I think the only issues you will get with Virtualbox or any other virtualising software, are hardware driver problems. Not all USB to RS232 converters work, I had an external hard drive that failed when formatted with FAT32 but worked fine when re-formatted to NTFS. Microsofts Virtual PC2007 doesn't even have USB support.

In terms of the software it just sees the operating system running on a computer. So any software that doesn't need special hardware will be OK but anything that uses dongles or special comms card will probably be a problem. If the software needs 3D graphics that will also be a problem.

Bryan

I have used VMWare to talk to S7s and AB computers.

I have never had problems with any device that uses Ethernet. It has always just simply worked without hassle. The USB to MPI adapter used on the S7 is a different story. I did get it to work though.

The machine I am writing this on is a Mac Pro with Fusion, a polished VMWare for the Mac. So far no problems except running two operating systems at once requires a lot of memory. Fusion easily detects all the USB devices with standard drivers and even our controllers with the special FTDI driver. I run WinXP and Ubuntu as virtual machines. The Ubuntu VM is just for goofing around.

What is really cool us 'unity mode'. In this mode it looks like the windows applicaitons are running on the Mac OS X. I can put the common MS tools I use like Mathcad and RMCTools in the doc and start them form there. If WinXP isn't running then WinXP will be started automatically for me but I still must login.

I haven't tried using Step7 with my MacPro yet. I should do that. I just hate the frustration.

cjd, I just want to add that if you find someone who has VMware Workstation, they can create a virtual machine for you to your specifications, and then you can use it without the need to buy any software.

The VMware player required to run virtual machines is free. Of course that means that every time you want to make a change to your virtual system, you need to bug the guy who created it for you. Though VMware workstation wasn't all that expensive iirc, about $150 or so.

Alaskan said:

cjd, I just want to add that if you find someone who has VMware Workstation, they can create a virtual machine for you to your specifications, and then you can use it without the need to buy any software.

The VMware player required to run virtual machines is free. Of course that means that every time you want to make a change to your virtual system, you need to bug the guy who created it for you. Though VMware workstation wasn't all that expensive iirc, about $150 or so.

Click to expand...

http://www.easyvmx.com/
^^^ That is a website I ran across that lets you spec a VM and download it; no VMWare Workstation needed. I haven't used it (using pre-built images currently,) but it should work with VMWare Player.

As far as changing the virtual system, the only changes you wouldn't be able to make with Player are things like virtual hard drive size. You can manage the Windows installation (if that is what you are using) just like any other Windows computer. And, if you need to increase your virtual harddrive size, a workaround is to generate a virtual machine with a larger harddrive (see the website above); take a ghost image (acronis, etc..) of the old Virtual computer and restore it to the new Virtual computer.

Brian

I have installes Virtual Box on my Dell Vostrro laptop and it works quite well with the one program I have to run inside XP Pro.

Installed it on my desktop and have had all sorts of problems with USB devices and it does not like bluetooth mice - they do not work properly.

Bot computers running Vista.

Thanks everyone. Seems a bit of a mixed bag. I was thinking of trying it on an XP machine with a real serial port


Cheers

Virtual Box vs VMware

Hi,

My experience with VirtualBox isn't satisfactory:
1) Connecting directly to the network isn't done by VirtualBox you have to configure XP (host).
2) I wasn't able to configure RS232 (XP as host and virtual).

VMware does everything for you.


Regards, Kelkoon

Hi Kelkoon, thanks for your input. You recommend VMWare as the best solution?, due to the comms issues you stated in your post.


Cheers

VMware

Yes, I've just bougth VMware 6.

Kelkoon

That is the problem, you must buy VMWare (except the VMWare Player). I've had no problem with any ethernet comms and VirtualBox. Hardly have to do serial these days, so I can't say about that.

I'm using extensively VMWare server 1.06. I can't complain. We have one VMWorkstation to create the first running VMachines, and then everybody uses the free server.
In here, we are 20 people, working in several areas. The nice thing with the server, is that you can log on any VM that is running in any PC. I need to see what someone else is doing, I just log into his server and we can work together.
Also, we use it like server where we install SQL and some other software that is a service for the hole office. Everyone can log in to it, and use it.

In my laptop, I made a VM only for Siemens, Step7, and like I said in other posts, a lot of machines, for software that you can not have installed several times in one PC, for example, virtual machines with Cimplicity 6.0, 6.1sp5, 7.0, Machine Edition 4.0 etc ...

I almost no problem with usb devices, network connections. I did found some problems trying to work with PCMCIA. We have serial ports through PCMCIA, and I didn't manage to get them running in the VM.

Thanks again, looks like VMWare wins the day. I will look into VMWare this week.



Cheers