Virtual Machines / Emulators

The software packages listed in this section are able to run one operating system inside another OS, or execute software created for one operating system inside another OS. For instance, if you have a MAC, you can run Windows or Linux as a 'guest operating system'inside MacOS. In this case, MacOS is the 'host operating system', and Linux is the 'guest operating system'. Alternatively, if you have a PC which has Windows installed, you can use e.g. Linux, FreeBSD or another edition of Windows as guest OS. Or when you have Linux installed, you can run e.g. Windows as 'guest operating system'.
Bochs	Bochs is a highly portable open source IA-32 (x86) PC emulator written in C++, that runs on most popular platforms. It includes emulation of the Intel x86 CPU, common I/O devices, and a custom BIOS. Bochs is capable of running Linux, Windows, DOS and possibly other operating systems as well.
CP/M Emulator	Freeware application to emulate CP/M-80 ver2.2 on the Macintosh.
CrossOver	CrossOver enables you to run Windows software on Linux, MAC OS X and Solaris without needing to have a license for Windows (legally). This is an improved version of wine which offers enhanced compatibility with Windows. CrossOver is not freeware like wine though, it costs around 40$ which is not much if you compare it with a Windows license. For wine, please see below.
DosBox	An open source DOS emulator. It emulates an Intel x86 PC, complete with sound, graphics, mouse, modem, etc., for running many old DOS games that are not compatible with modern Windows PC's. You can download versions for Linux, Windows, MAC, Risc OS, Solaris, OS/2, BeOS, Zeta.
DosEMU	Emulates DOS on Linux. Freeware.
EasyVMX	Free online program to create virtual machines for VMWare Player.
Emulators and MAC	Emulators for running Windows and other operating systems on MAC OS.
Guest PC	A low-cost emulator for MAC / Power-PC which allows you to install and run Windows inside your MAC. Intel-based MAC's are not yet supported. Price: $ 69.99.
Hercules	An open source software implementation of the IBM mainframe System/370 and ESA/390 architectures, in addition to the new IBM 64-bit z/Architecture. Hercules runs on Linux, Windows, Solaris, FreeBSD, and Mac OS X.
Parallels	Low-cost emulator for Windows and MAC. Supported guest operating systems: Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, OS/2, DOS. Price: $ 79.99.
Plex86	Very lightweight Virtual Machine (VM) for running Linux/x86. Rather than implement a full and heavyweight VM which can run all guest Operating Systems (OSes), the new approach is designed to run only Linux VMs, making the new plex86 architecture on the order of 10x or 100x more simplistic.
VirtualBox	Freeware, open-source virtual Machine for Windows, Linux, MAC. It supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD. We noticed that the installation program of VirtualBox replaced the standard operating system network drivers on our Windows test PC with Virtual box network drivers, which is not a good thing...
VMWare for MAC	Runs Windows, Linux, FreeBSD or other x86 operating systems side-by-side with Intel-based Mac OS X. Not freeware.
VMWare Player	Freeware player which runs virtual machines. You cannot create virtual machines using this player, but you can create them using VMWare Workstation or EasyVMX (both listed directly below) . Many pre-built freeware virtual machines are available for download here. Note from the editor: we found it very difficult to download almost any free appliance due to server-timeout and other connection problems.
VMWare Workstation	Commercial (non-freeware), high-quality PC emulator. Emulates a PC with Bios and hardware. Virtual platform which enables running more than one operating system simultaneously on one xxx86 computer. Currently one can run DOS, Linux, Solaris, Free BSD, Windows 7, XP, Vista, 200x, NT, 9x, 3.x and all Windows 64 bit editions. Up to four virtual Ethernet cards (having different network addresses) can each be assigned to each running virtual machine. Each operating system runs in its own protected sandbox. Each operating system is executed directly by the processor, which gives a fast performance. Three versions available of this VM, one which sits on top of Linux, one which runs on MAC, and one which runs on Windows. VMWare is used at Freebyte.com and we can recommend it as solid and stable.
Wine	Wine allows you to run quite a number of Windows applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris and MAC OS x (without the need to pay for a Windows license - it is fully legal). If you run a Unix-like operating system, then it is likely that Wine is already installed on your system. Otherwise the package manager (built into your Linux distribution) will be able to download/install wine for you.
Xen	A free virtual machine for IA-32, x86-64, IA-64 and PowerPC. It supports various guest operating systems, including Windows, Linux, Solaris, BSD.