Windows top guest OS choice, duh - what else do you run?

[rcardona2k]

InformationWeek has a good story on what OS's users install in their virtual machines.

Windows Predominates On Virtual Machines

Sage Research said 96% of the respondents use Windows on their virtual servers and 52% are running Linux.

Many sites use more than one brand of operating system to run virtual machines. The runner-up was Linux, with 52% of the respondents using the open source operating system. Unix was third at 30% and Solaris fourth at 29%. The figures do not add up to 100% because sites in some cases are using multiple brands of operating system in their virtual machines. The Mac OS was used by 12% of respondents and NetWare by 6%.

Does this match your guest VM inventory? Interestingly, Mac OS is not clearly defined (OpenStep? darwin? OS X? OS X Server?) is run twice as often as Netware even though virtualization vendors do not officially any variants, yet.

I have five permanent Windows VMs in my inventory (Windows 2000 - Windows Server 2008 w/Hyper-V). I also have about 20+ machines of various Linux distros and versions, bsd variants (open, free, net, darwin) but no OS X VMs (working on getting a copy of Leopard Server) and no Netware (gag!)

[Yaztromo]

Here's my list of what I have available and installed under Fusion:

• Windows Vista x64

• Windows 98

• Ubuntu 7.10 x64

• Solaris 10 x64

• OS/2 WARP v4

• BeOS R5

• FreeDOS 1.1.27

Admittedly, I don't do much with a lot of these VMs -- some of them are just part of my own personal OS museum (and a bit of nostalgia, and just because I can do it). I have a Windows 3.0 with MMX CD kicking around somewhere, so that might be one of my next projects (if I can find a suitable era version of DOS to go with it).

Yaz.

[scottishwildcat]

In approximate usage order (highest to lowest), my portfolio looks like:

Solaris Nevada

Windows XP

OpenSolaris (Indiana)

Ubuntu Gutsy

Outside of VMware, I run Commodore Amiga and Sinclair Spectrum emulators a lot too

[Technogeezer]

In no particular order, I run:

Windows XP

Windows 2003 Server (32-bit)

Ubuntu Gutsy (32-bit)

Solaris 10 U4 x64

RHEL 4 x86

SLES 10-based "soft-appliance"

Most of my stuff is work related - we use a lot of VMware Workstation for customer demo and self-education purposes. Fusion has worked out great for transportability to/from the VMware Server and Workstation environments I use at work.