Move over VMWare

I just found out that I will need Visual Studio for my next project. That means I need Windows. In the past when I needed windows I installed it as a virtual machine and keep Ubuntu as my host OS. VMWare worked great, but setup and maintenance were a hassle because it wasn't installed with the package manager, and any time I got a kernel upgrade I would have to recompile the VMWare kernel module. Fortunately InnoTek, a competitor of VMWare, has recently GPL'd their virtuilization software called VirtualBox. Installation is as simple as

apt-get install virtualbox-ose

I had XP up and running atop Ubuntu in 20 minutes. After a couple weeks of use I can say it is fast, stable, and network configuration is much easier than VMWare. Bring on the kernel updates! Also you will note from my screenshot that individual windows apps run in their own windows, which is much nicer than having to interact with all your windows apps in one window. Now I'm not claiming virtualbox is the greatest, but in my experience, it is waaaay better than virtual PC, and for ubuntu users and many other GNU/Linux users it is superior to VMWare. Dig it.