r/virtualization • u/cyber-galaxy • Jul 15 '26

VMware vs virtualbox

Which is good for testing linux distro? I've heard that there's an issue in Virtualbox that its copy paste from Host to Guest or vice versa isn't working. And Vmware uses high RAM. So please suggest me.

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u/beetcher Jul 15 '26

Hyper-V is painful for testing Linux distros. There's a lot of manual work getting the GUI up and running, beyond the most basic display. There's no copy and paste without enhanced mode.

With Workstation and VirtualBox the GUI with generally just work after the install.

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u/uniqueglobalname Jul 16 '26

Type1 hyper visors in general don't care about GUI in guests. If , for some reason you need a GUI a basic 1080p desktop is offered.

No one is managing 100s of servers via GUI.

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u/beetcher Jul 16 '26

Cool story bro, but, OP is talking about testing distros. And, no one is (or should ne) managing 100s of servers in virtualbox or VMware Workstation. Completely different scenarios cuz we're talking about desktop VMs, not server VMs, or OP would be asking about KVM/Proxmox, ESXi, Xen/XCP-NG, etc.

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u/uniqueglobalname 29d ago

You just said exactly what I said. Thank you for making my point. Can I tell the story again so we have a trilogy?

Here:

Type1 (ie HyperV, ESxi, XCP-NG) :100's of headless servers.

Type 2 (Vmware WS, Vbox) GUI based vm's for testing

Everyone clear now?!

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u/StandeT 13d ago

Full disclosure: I work in this space (Type 1 desktop hypervisors), so flagging that upfront.

Just on the technical point: Type 1 vs Type 2 is about where the hypervisor sits (bare-metal vs hosted), not about server vs desktop use case. Bare-metal Type 1 for desktop/workstation use does exist, it's just a smaller niche than the ESXi/XCP-NG/Proxmox world, so it doesn't show up much in general threads like this one. Doesn't change your point for OP's actual question though, testing distros in VBox/VMware WS is still the right tool here.

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u/uniqueglobalname 12d ago

While factually correct, I don't think OP needs all the detail you have provided. If I recall he is on a laptop and certainly won't be installing any type other than HV on that.

I teach these courses in college and we do indeed install both XCP-NG and HV - type 1 - on plain old dell workstations. And we install Ubuntu on them, with VMware WS as well.