What's the best "virtualizer" (Virtual Box, vmware etc) to install FreeBSD under Windows on an ASUS laptop?

Zagzigger

Zagzigger

I need to install FreeBSD on an ASUS laptop (Vivobook D1502YA Ryzen) which "automatically" installs Windows.
Among other issues with the laptop, FreeBSD has long time driver problems such as the 802.11ac WiFi, which could be bypassed by a VM approach. What's the best approach here? Thanks.
 
None of the choices support DRM/KMS (yet) so if you are planning on using X don't expect great performance (and don't expect wayland to run at all).

hyper-v - free (comes with OS), runs stable, X driver is very limited (xf86-video-scfb)
vmware workstation - paid (didn't try vmware player), runs stable, X driver is a bit better (xf86-video-vmware)
virtualbox - free, seems to run stable (however vbox VMs always had problems in my experience), don't use it much so didn't try to run X
 
yuripv79 said:
None of the choices support DRM/KMS (yet) so if you are planning on using X don't expect great performance (and don't expect wayland to run at all).

hyper-v - free (comes with OS), runs stable, X driver is very limited (xf86-video-scfb)
vmware workstation - paid (didn't try vmware player), runs stable, X driver is a bit better (xf86-video-vmware)
virtualbox - free, seems to run stable (however vbox VMs always had problems in my experience), don't use it much so didn't try to run X
Click to expand...
Can I ask what kind of problems you get running the X driver- say with KDE? Is it usable for videos (not games) etc. Thanks.
 
No problems, it just does not offer any kind of acceleration (at least, scfb), the vmware one is a bit better, but still does not fully use the "accelerated graphics" option provided in VM configuration. Other than that it's fine (I even watched 4k video from youtube using the scfb driver in hyper-v VM).
 
MS Hyper-V is freeware, if you install just that component.
It is cmd line driven, and responds very well to Powershell commands.

This is strictly a bare metal hypervisor, and not a GUI version of windows.
I run VMware ESXi on a dedicated i7 platform, not a laptop.
One of my VMs is FBSD 13 running dnsmasq for my LAN.
 
yuripv79 said:
No problems, it just does not offer any kind of acceleration (at least, scfb), the vmware one is a bit better, but still does not fully use the "accelerated graphics" option provided in VM configuration. Other than that it's fine (I even watched 4k video from youtube using the scfb driver in hyper-v VM).
Click to expand...
Last question (probably). What version of vmware do you recommend, and is there a how-to anywhere? (I don't usually rush these things, but I have to set something up before I travel). Thanks.
 
agreed with bgavin , VMware ESXi that runs on bare metal , I have a little much power(intel xeon,300GB of ram) but it run FreeBSD with x11 just fine
the only thing is that I cant use directly from the web interface of wmware because of mouse..dont work
I have to open a vnc connection and run from there
 
I would choose a VirtualBox for MSWindows, because it's free and easy.
In Handbook there is a chapter on how to use FreeBSD under VirtualBox.
docs.freebsd.org

Chapter 24. Virtualization

Virtualization software allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on the same computer
docs.freebsd.org docs.freebsd.org

P.S
With VirtualBox you shouldn't have any graphics problems.
 
I've used both VMWare Player (free) and VirtualBox. VMWare Player takes a little more manual setup, but in the end I think works a bit better than VirtualBox. With VirtualBox, you absolutely should download and install the extension pack, which is only free for personal use.
 
I can't speak to the other options, but I used VirtualBox under Windows 8.x for more than a decade to run FreeBSD and Debian virtual machines for personal use.

Yes, you must install the "Guest Additions" on the VM to get decent screen resolution for X11, plus a variety of other functions.

And all I worried about was "function". There may have been "faster" ways to run a VM.

But, with the very occasional glitch (usually fixed by updating or reverting), VirtualBox worked.
 
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