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Review Of Serenity Virtual Station

Posted by timothy on from the one-should-be-calm dept.

JigSaw writes "Here's some serious competition for VMWare and Virtual PC: OSNews reviews a new OS emulator, the Serenity Virtual Station, which can run as a host on FreeBSD, Linux and OS/2 and supports as guests a slew of OSes. It is based on the twoOStwo virtual operating engine (which additonally runs on top of Windows as well)."

7 of 166 comments (clear)

  1. Why people stay on Windows by rdsmith4 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    There was a discussion here recently about why so many haven't given Windows up. There were various reasons presented but the main one seemed to be Adobe Photoshop - I don't know what other OS emulators had been available, but if Serenity Virtual Station does what it says it does, now I can delete my Windows partition completely!

  2. Two Questions by Rick+and+Roll · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I like to use virtualized computers for software development and testing. There are two questions I have before I will seriously consider this.

    1. How much does it cost?
    2. What will be the basic terms of the licensing?

    3. VMWare pricing is a little steep. It is a fantastic product. I don't, however, use all of its features. One that provided the basic functionality, which is a fast, easy-to-use virtual machine at a fraction of the cost would be useful.

      Also, I would want to be sure that the licensing is per-user, and you can install it on any number of host computers you like, provided only you use it. I would not want to have to pay for a separate copy to use under Windows or Linux, because sometimes I will be on my Windows box emulating Linux, and sometimes on my Linux box emulating windows. I myself might use them concurrently, but I will be the user.

      Just two thoughts before giving this serious consideration as an alternative to VMWare.

  3. Free? by tyler_larson · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I didn't see anything on their site about licensing cost, but it doesn't look like it's free.

    Does anyone know about a free alternative to VMWare etc.? It sure would be nice to be able to run "the other OS" in a virtual machine while I'm on Linux or Windows... but not nice enought to warrant paying for it.

    --
    "With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not necessarily a good idea...."
    RFC 1925
  4. VMWare Price Drop by Sunlighter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    VMWare just chopped $100 off the price of VMWare Workstation. You can now buy version 4.5 for $199 (boxed) or $189 (download).

    At the lower price, Im considering buying it myself. (I would buy only one copy for only one host OS.) Maybe theyre feeling the heat from all that open source competition.

    --
    Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
  5. Unless it offers... by Trolling4Dollars · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...spectacularly better performance or a lower price compared to VMware, it's of no value to me. Actually, I'm quite sorry to see the direction plex86 has gone in becuse they could have offered a nice alternative to VMware. Oddly, there doesn't seem to be any company who has hit on the idea of an OS specifically GEARED towards virtualization. I think they'd steal the show. VMware on Linux is about the closest you can get to that right now. But the perfect solution would be a thin OS with no GUI that just allows you to install and run multiple OSes simultaneously.

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    Un-news
    1. Re:Unless it offers... by isj · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually IBM z/VM is geared toward virtualization. Everything you run on it is running inside its own VM. The instruction set is also virtualized - it is changed on-the-fly to whatever the CPU supports. That is how old programs from the sixties can still run on modern hardware.

      More information at http://www.vm.ibm.com/

      But z/VM will not be the "new virtual machine" for desktops because: (a) the virtual instruction set is s390, (b) all I/O is done through "channels", (c) you need big iron to run it.

  6. Re:Denial of OS by naasking · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes, we can. It's called a microkernel.

    True.

    The most popular one is Mach

    Barf. Not to sound rude, but Mach is a horrid base for an operating system. I'm sorry Apple went with it.

    If you mean popular as in "most widely used", then yes, Mach is the most popular "microkernel" (though it doesn't really fit the definition).

    Mach is far from the most popular in hacker or academic circles (ie. those who know any better). L4 and EROS are far more suitable hosts for a guest operating system. L4 already has Linux 2.2 and 2.4 running as hosts in fact.

    --
    Higher Logics: where programming meets science.