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I need to create lab contains Windows 2008R2 domain controller with Linux servers and workstations with different roles installed. Hence I need a hypervisor (type 2) for the same.

My laptop does not have VT enabled hence Type-1 hypervisors (like KVM or XEN) will not help me. :(

NOTE: I have already tried VirtualBox; downloaded from their website. However that (virtualbox) has become unresponsive and often bug checking in Windows guest. I have uninstalled that and installed it back again from Ubuntu Software Center. But it continues to blue screened on me.

I am using Ubuntu 14.04 x32.

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  • Sorry everyone for changing the question. I did not know what is type1 or type2 hypervisor is. During installation of KVM & XEN I got to learn about that. My laptop does not support VT. However thank you all for helping. Jul 19, 2014 at 11:17

3 Answers 3

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Your question title is about which hypervisor is best in Ubuntu, yet the body of your question mentions a specific Virtualbox step-by-step guide. I'm suggesting an alternative to Virtualbox here.

KVM (or QEMU-KVM) is a native Linux virtualization technology, built-in to the kernel. This means you already have it installed just by running Linux!

Check first if you can use KVM, as it requires some hardware acceleration to be able to run. Be sure to enable VT-x "Virtualization support" in your BIOS to get it to work (which is a good idea to enable for either which hypervisor you're going to use!).

$ kvm-ok 
INFO: /dev/kvm exists
KVM acceleration can be used

To get started quickly, I would suggest to install the GUI front-end first: Virtual Machine Manager Install virt-manager

The Virtual Machine Manager pretty self-explanatory. My suggestions when using Windows as a guest:

  • Install the VirtIO Windows drivers for network and disks. See Installing VirtIO drivers in Windows Server 2008 on how to do that. This is similar to what "Guest tools" are in VirtualBox terms.

  • Don't use the built-in console. It's rather slow and sluggish unless you move to SPICE (which I wouldn't recommend for server installations). Use RDP instead (remote desktop) via the network.

As a big bonus, you can just use SSH to manage other hypervisors in your network or via the internet.


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Xen may be your choice.

Note: I am not a server user. As you were looking for a alternative hypervisor for ubuntu, so thought of sharing it.

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  • I am using 32 bit desktop not the server version. Thank you for your help. Jan 20, 2013 at 0:23
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I have used VirtualBox on Linux on-and-off for many years, and with few complaints. I would recommend it over VMware Player. And in recent years, VirtualBox has seen great improvements; most notably in supporting hardware acceleration for graphics.

If you need the latest, .debs for Ubuntu can be downloaded from Virtualbox's download page. However, you haven't mentioned any details of the issues you're experiencing in the guests - so I don't know whether using a more recent version will help.

VMware makes available VMware Player which can run on Linux: instructions are here. Unless you have cause to do so, I would stick with VirtualBox; but I know some prefer Player...

To comment on Xen; it's a solid option. As a T1 hypervisor, you get superior performance, at the cost of more complex setup configuration. My experiences with it have been mixed, but then I have been trying to accomplish more troublesome tasks than most. I've yet to try Xen 4.2.

It really depends on the requirements of your "lab". Generally speaking, the more control and performance you need, the greater the argument for migrating to a T1 solution. For simpler and/or quicker projects, VirtualBox is the way to go.

However, I see your Ubuntu installations are 32-bit... so Xen isn't going to be viable in that configuration with 64-bit guests.

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