How many of you are into or would use a virtual machine?

[West Bromwich Holme]

I'm on a Mac, and I'd probably do so for some web server testing on Linux via VirtualBox or Parallels, but with 458.44 GB out of 500 left not that much space for a virtual machine alongside everything else.

Running a Mac on Windows would be against the terms of their license agreement, but not a Mac VM on a Mac OSX.

How many of you on here are into virtual machines, be it for testing software, or just other things?

I've only recently re-got back into this, last time I did so was 4 years ago on a full-size Mac mini, this time I'm on MacBook Pro and it'd probably affect the battery running a VM so I'm a bit cautious here.

Interested to hear from any other VM enthusiasts here, no matter what OS you run on it or why!

Sure, this may be a niche topic for here, but it's worth it!

[Drongonia]

I've been using them since the days of Virutal PC 2007 on Windows XP. My current collection has at least one VM for all of the versions of Windows (yes, every version and an x86 and x64 version of each SKU because I am THAT much of a nerd) I'm able to get working with VMware.

I've also got Mac and Linux distros working, although I prefer to use MacOS on real hardware and I've got a couple of iMacs for that purpose (Late 2008 and Early 2015).

It helps that my job gives me access to both old hardware and near-unlimited software licensing .

[Antipatros]

I use them all of the time, they're awesome. For all kinds of purposes too: testing, throwaway machines, production machines, etc.

I've used bhyve, Xen, KVM, VirtualBox, VMWare, Hyper-V... probably others that I can't remember. If you count containers, I've used Docker and FreeBSD Jails too.

[Neon Lunar Eclipse]

They are great for trolling Indian tech support scammers. Kitboga is a fucking legend!