Re: [boost] [Windows developers] Linux virtual machine for Boost developers

Subject: Re: [boost] [Windows developers] Linux virtual machine for Boost developers
From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2008-09-26 15:17:24

on Fri Sep 26 2008, "Emil Dotchevski" <emil-AT-revergestudios.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 6:41 AM, Beman Dawes <bdawes_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>> In another thread, Anthony Williams wrote:
>>
>>> ... I'll open a trac
>>> ticket, and fix it when I'm next using my linux box.
>>
>> I develop on Windows, and used keep a Linux box around for developing Linux
>> specific code. But lately I've switched to using VirtualBox
>> (www.virtualbox.org) for Linux development. It's free, open source, is a lot
>> easier to use and maintain than separate machines or dual boot
>> configurations, It is also easier to use than other virtualization
>> approaches I've tried, which tended to be fragile.
>
> I second what Beman said, VirtualBox is the way to go. I would add
> that it also lets you directly mount windows foldes, so once you get
> it up and running, you can edit the source code in Windows and just
> build/test in Linux. Finally, saving the current state of the box
> works great, so it takes no time to bring it up when you need it and
> close it when you don't.
>
> I am pretty sure however that VirtualBox doesn't expose the multiple
> cores of the CPU. So in terms of testing multi-threading code, which
> is what Antony typically does I suppose, it's use is rather limited.

For multicore VMs, you can get VMWare Server free from
http://www.vmware.com/download/server/

As the industry's leading VM technology, you can expect support for most
of the same things that VirtualBox supports.  Snapshots, for sure.

-- 
Dave Abrahams
BoostPro Computing
http://www.boostpro.com