vmwarez.com
           -Where Virtualization is a Reality!

Last week I posted my "LiveCD Virtual Machine" which allows people to run LiveCDs on their PCs without having to reboot. While this is nicer than having to reboot to play with a new operating system, it doesn't give a REAL view to the user of what that OS is like. There are limitations, you can't save your files or your settings between reboots, you can't persistently install new software and on some live cds you can't even install any new software.

Live CDs are not only imperfect from an end user's point of view, but they are also a lot of work for the developers. Imagine how much time and effort is put into making an OS boot and run from a CD. All this could be avoided if developers moved from making live cds to runnable virtual machines. The tools are now free. They are available for windows or Linux. And they work! Users can run an OS on their PC without interrupting their normal work, they can save files in their VMs, when they reboot their virtual machine, their settings are saved... and the developer can put out a new virtual machine with little or no effort.

VMware is listing lots of these pre-built virtual machines for people to download on their community virtual machine site. Check them out... learn about other OS's without having to reboot!
If you find some of these Virtual Machines useful, let the developers know. Let them know how you prefer to download a VM over a LiveCD. Let the world know how cool virtualization is!

PS: This does not apply to all LiveCDs, so please don't flame me. There are some whose reason for existence is that they run off a CD... Like disaster recovery stuff, etc.