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VMware Alternative Now Available On FreeBSD

Posted by timothy on from the what-to-wear-today dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Serenity Systems International has announced a public beta (costing 50 USD) of 'Serenity Virtual Station' running for the first time on FreeBSD. While existing VMware owners are able to run the version 2 or 3 under Linux binary compatibility and the ports of the Linux kernel modules to FreeBSD 4.x and 5.x respectively, there is no working port of the currently available VMware 4 kernel module; this may provide an alternative to those wishing to purchase a VM today." Here is the full announcement, including a link to the online store.

11 of 41 comments (clear)

  1. Free as in Beer? by JabberWokky · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Ignoring the BSD aspect, is there a Free as in Beer system to run Win98 on a *nix style OS? Similar to VMWare?

    --
    Evan "Haven't found one, don't need it enough to shell out money"

    --
    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
    1. Re:Free as in Beer? by Goyuix · · Score: 3, Informative

      Bochs is known to run Win95, I would imagine it would run other Windows flavors as well, perhaps with varying degrees of success.

    2. Re:Free as in Beer? by dan_bethe · · Score: 4, Informative

      Look up qemu.

    3. Re:Free as in Beer? by Goyuix · · Score: 4, Informative

      Well, as the author was asking for a free as in beer way of running a windows environment on *nix systems, bochs satisfies his request. Particularly if he is trying to run wincode on a SPARC or PPC chip.

      However, in an attempt to feed the Troll, there is a project called plex86 which attempts to virtualize the hardware, as well as a forked version that is much faster and lighter but only designed to run linux variants. Obligatory links:

    4. Re:Free as in Beer? by RevAaron · · Score: 4, Informative

      Bochs will run a bunch of Windows releases, as well as Linux/x86 and other OSes. But for the most part, it isn't really worth using it- it is slow. As hell. Or, as we say in Minnesota, slow as molasses in January. It's not bad to use Bochs for running old DOS apps- but then again, most people had a computer that was 4-33 MHz or so in the DOS days, so Bochs keeps up well there. But Windows or Linux... Painful.

      --

      Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
  2. Slashdotting from the BSD section?!? by pschmied · · Score: 4, Funny

    Wow, this must be a first. Their website appears to be down and this was linked from the BSD section.

    BSD trolls can put that in their respective pipes and smoke it.

    -Peter

    P.S. Did anyone download this? Does it work? Is it even remotely as good as VMWare?

    --
    . Penguins Surely Ca
    1. Re:Slashdotting from the BSD section?!? by Tezkah · · Score: 5, Funny

      I thought this was a troll on *BSD, seeing how the webside was /.'d from the *BSD section...

      ...but it turns out that they're running Linux!

    2. Re:Slashdotting from the BSD section?!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      So I guess that Netcraft has confirmed that Li... oh, never mind.

  3. Qemu by ebcdic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As far as I can tell, the only reasonably fast and complete free emulator is qemu. It's quite portable, and can emulate several processors, including x86 and PPC. You can then install the operating system of your choice.

    I had no problem emulating an x86 on my Mac, and installing FreeBSD.

  4. Bochs isnt practical by nurb432 · · Score: 2

    Its not practical for application usage due to its speed. ( or rather lack of )

    Its strength is the complete emulation for testing of OS's, not for creating a 'useable' virtual environment..

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  5. Voted with my $$. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I talked to the staff via phone and e-mail.

    1) The product was orginally developed on FreeBSD, then ported to Linux because 'that is where the money was'
    2) I told them and VMWare I'd buy a product supported on FreeBSD.

    Now I get to send a photocopy of the invoice to the VMWare office....perhaps the CEO's home address and explain how I was happy to BUY thier product - but it seems VMWare didn't wanna sell me a working product.