What should I use to virtualize my desktop, vmx, xen, or vmware?
Needs to work on a linux or windows host, sorry virtual pc.
@Derek Park: Free as in speech, not beer. I want to be able to make a new virtual machine from my own licensed copies of windows, for that vmware is kind of expensive.
I've been using vmware for about 8 years or so. Currently I'm using it on a mac and am very happy with it. I still have my old windows 95 in suspended animation, I boot it up every once in a while to show my kids the awesomeness of 32M and 256 colors.
That being said, you should probably try them out with the particular environment and apps you will be using, and see which one is best for you.
One feature of vmware I really like is the ability to snapshot the system. I do this before every software install, and when one of them goes awry I just revert the virtual box back to the pre-install state. It's great!
I've only had experience with VMware ESX, and while it's a fairly expensive product, it is also very powerful. I would definitely recommend it if you have the resources. Depending on your needs, they also have a more basic (and free) version, VMware Server.
Try VirtualBox. It's free, open source, and it runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris.
@ChanChan, I don't think you can claim to be only interested in freedom when you ask if you should "Pay for vmware." I'm forced to assume you are talking about money there, not about freedom. :p
Nonetheless, I gave you a poor link. VMware Server is free (as in beer) and will run Windows VMs just fine.
For what it's worth, I've also used Xen, and it's perfectly good, too.
Edit: I reread this and it sounds really obnoxious and rude. So, I'd just like to apologize, ChanChan, for not taking more care with my reply. (I would have apologized in a private message, but we don't have those yet.)
We have been using VMWare Server in production for 2 years now, and are migrating to ESX next year. For your desktop the free VMWare version will work well for you. There is also a utility to convert an existing machine to a VM slice.
I've tried VirtualBox, VMWare Server (free) and Virtual PC. Of the three, VMWare seems to be the fastest. The other two were just too slow for me. The one thing I don't like about VMWare is that you only get one snapshot per vm. Of course, I could get more if I bought the VMWorkstation product but, at $200, it's more than I can afford right now.