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VirtualBox is an open source desktop virtualization package which allows you to run various ‘guest’ operation systems on top of our usual desktop, much like VMWare Workstation (only free).

I heard about VirtualBox a while back, but I didn’t have enough time or a good reason to give it a go. However, this week I found myself needing to open some MS Word documents, and OpenOffice was having none of it*. I’m not a big fan of WINE, so I decided to dust off my copies of Windows XP and MS Office and give VirtualBox a go.

Installing VirtualBox was dead easy under Gentoo, simply ‘emerge virtualbox’ (assuming you have the required packages unmasked). I had the Windows XP installer in front of me within minutes. I’m impressed. In the past I played with Qemu, and found it to be complex to setup (no GUI). VirtualBox can be completely controlled through the GUI, making it much easier to get to grips with (there’s a command line tool for more advanced tasks).

Windows installed without a hitch. I may be wrong, but it felt like installed a lot faster than it does on ‘real’ machine… Since the host PC’s CD drive can be access from the guest OS switching to the Office install CD was nice and simple.

While Office installed (again, quicker than I remember..) I attempted to get networking up and running. I’m impressed even more when I discover that it works already! Oh how I love it when things ‘just work’ :)

Inside 20 minutes I’m doing the work I needed to with the Word documents, so VirtualBox certainly did what I needed it to do. It might just be my new best friend.

* This was because the documents contained embedded MS Visio objects.