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Eugene Yarmash
Asked: 2010-09-15 06:15:56 +0800 CST

What emulator should I use to run Windows as a guest OS on FreeBSD?

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What's the best emulator for running windows on FreeBSD as a guest OS?
Any references would be appreciated.

windows freebsd

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    If you need to run the whole OS VirtualBox (OSE) would be my first suggestion, Qemu is also a good choice but I think there is less active development there at this point (VirtualBox seems to have won the desktop-virtualization-on-*NIX war).
    Both of these are available in the ports collection under emulators/

    If you just need one or two applications WINE may be a better option (less overhead) - this is also in the emulators/ section of the ports tree...

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  2. VirtualBox is great; works well, is stable, easy to setup

    Qemu may have an edge in speed and may require some reading to get going, particularly if you want acceleration.

    WINE will work well if you only want to run applications on the supported list. Outside of that, YMMV. I don't think it is possible to join a domain or workgroup - none of MSRPC functionality is emulated.

    Personally, I use VMWare at the office (we have licences and a SAN for the images) and VirtualBox at home.

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  3. There is a bit of development going on for Virtual Box on FreeBSD here. I'm sure if there are other or better platforms that you could use though.

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