Which virtualization software for windows to virtualize a linux distro for small web server etc ?

Question

I've bought a new notebook yet I'm not sure whether Linux fully supports it or not, so I decided to use a VM for the time being. The only virtualization software I've used so far is VirtualBox on linux, but I think it's a bit overkill for my needs.

All I need is to use it like a vps hosted on my machine. Command line access would be enough. It'd be nice if it's free/opensource and it's easy to configure.

Thanks.

Answer 1

VirtualBox + VBoxHeadless + Ubuntu Server edition works for me, I access it with winSCP/Putty and I don't have performance issue on notebook.

Answer 2

The Vagrant utility seems to be specifically designed to make it easy to do this. It requires you to have VirtualBox installed, but manages the configuration etc. You also could use the free VMWare Player and one of the ready-made VM images for it.