Re: [Qemu-devel] What can qemu do that vmware/virtual pc

[Roger Lathrop]

> Soo, do you have any more ideas what qemu can what the (free) alternatives
> from M$/VMWare can't?

 

I use both QEMU and VMWare (commercial version), but for very different reasons. Both are excellent tools that make my job easier.

I'm primarily a Windows developer, but I do have some Linux tools I support. VMWare works well when I need to switch to Linux to write code. It virtualizes a generic PC, which is all I need. It's time tested, reliable and predictable.

 

But I work for  a company that sells HW/SW. Our HW is your basic PC, but with some additional non-standard devices. Our SW won't run without these devices (no way, no matter how clever you are with the preprocessor, you won't make it run). So it won't run under VMWare, or VPC. They aren't extensible. QEMU is. Just grab the source code.

 

Fabrice et.el. did an amazing thing with QEMU. Adding emulation for our hardware wasn't tough to do. Moving from the edit...compile...download...reboot...debug...repeat cycle to edit...compile...debug...repeat cycle is a BIG advantage for us. You just can't do that with the commercial products.

 

And QEMU is so light weight...I can throw the whole thing on a pen drive, plug into any managers/sales/marketing/tech writers/etc. machine, and just run it. Installing VMWare player is a bit more heavy handed. Not sure, but I suspect you need admin priv. to do it? I live in corp. America. Our tech writers don't HAVE admin privileges.