vbox VirtualBox or bhyve

Both work.

If You prefer to do everything in GUI choose VirtualBox.

If CLI and/or command line is OK for you - both have CLI interfaces.
 
Just be aware that FreeBSD is not an officially supported platform for VirtualBox, so the closed source extension doesn't exist, and VirtualBox on FreeBSD has not been updated to 7.0 yet.
 
As to USB, bhyve requires passing thru the entire xhci pci controller. Passthru separate USB ports is not achievable. That's the right decision. But it's not convenient for everyone, for example, if you need USB ports for work (for connecting readers, smart card emulators) and the computer does not have a dedicated usb xhci pci controller (as is the case with a laptop). But I myself use bhyve due to stability.
 
_al said:
As to USB, bhyve requires passing thru the entire xhci pci controller. Passthru separate USB ports is not achievable. That's the right decision. But it's not convenient for everyone, for example, if you need USB ports for work (for connecting readers, smart card emulators) and the computer does not have a dedicated usb xhci pci controller (as is the case with a laptop). But I myself use bhyve due to stability.
Click to expand...
There is a FreeBSD source fork where passthru for single USB devices is possible.

Details here:

https://github.com/FreeBSD-UPB/free...virtual-machines-in-bhyve-for-USB-passthrough

... also when passthru entire PCI USB controller keep in mind that they MUST support MSI/MSI-X interrupts. Without it your VM will stop in error.

Details here:

https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2023/08/18/freebsd-bhyve-virtualization/#comment-26156
 
scottro said:
I think it's harder to get sound working in bhyve (I've never tried, I use it for some things where I need Windows for work, and some RHEL servers for experimenting--neither requires sound). Bhyve seems to me (never measured it, so this is subjective), faster than VirtualBox on my system.
If running a system using uefi on bhyve, see vermaden's post in https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/starting-bhyve-am-greeted-with.90227/#post-621370
Click to expand...

It was harder in the past. Now its just another bhyve(8) argument to get sound. You can also use rdesktop for RDP connections to get other way of getting sound.

Details (from here https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2023/08/18/freebsd-bhyve-virtualization/):

The last one option -r sound:local specifies that the audio will be realized on the guest VM – this will only work if you added the bhyve_options="-s 8,hda,play=/dev/dsp,rec=/dev/dsp" to the Windows 7 Bhyve config. Alternatively without that hda(4) emulation you can use -r sound:remote option – this would use RDP protocol to transfer audio events from the guest machine to your host machine and then audio will be played then locally on your host machine.
 
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