Ever since Oracle bought Sun, a lot has been written about the future of Java. However, many programs have not deserved much attention. Such as VirtualBox, a x86 virtualization platform. This seems to indicate a low number of users, although VirtualBox is a program you should not overlook. This free and open source program is certainly just as powerful as many of its commercial counterparts. There are many uses for it, certainly for developers.
One use I have found is setting up workspaces. For instance, when I experimented with Drupal, I created a VirtualBox virtual machine. I installed Ubuntu and the other parts of the LAMP stack.
I can easily make a backup of that virtual machine and keep it entirely seperate from any other programs. Now I’ll always have a machine ready when I want to do some more Drupal work and I don’t have to worry about loading too much server programs on one PC.
You could compare VirtualBox to others, like Parallels and VMWare, but overall, the features, user friendliness and speed are about the same. So unless you’re really looking for something particular, I believe VirtualBox will be your best choice. It’s certainly the cheapest.
I have no idea what Oracle’s plans are for VirtualBox, but I see no reason why they would drop such a mature product that is useful to all developers out there. And even if they don’t think it’s profitable, I believe the Open Source community will chip in and take over.
So try VirtualBox today and be amazed at the increase in your productivity.