I’d like some recommendations as a beginner in the virtualization space for good GUI software for running vms for both experimentation and server use.

I’ve used virtualbox on Windows before but are there any better alternatives on Linux? I hear a lot of praise of QEMU but this seems to be only terminal based like what you do with containers.

VMware workstation is free but again, I’d like to know your thoughts on other good beginner options.

Thank you advance and have a good day/afternoon/night

  • BaumGeist
    2·
    3 months ago

    I use virt-manager. Works better than virtualbox did at the time (back while v6.1 was still the main release branch), it’s easier, and it doesn’t involve hitching yourself to Oracle.

    VMWare may be “free,” but it ain’t free. And if you don’t care about software freedom, why choose Linux over Windows or MacOS? Also, Workstation Player lacks a lot of functionality that makes it not good as a hypervisor. Only one VM can be powered at a time, and all the configuration is severely limited. Plus the documentation is mediocre compared to the official virt-manager docs.