The bug fix version Bochs 2.0.2 has been released. This release is the last planned bugfix release for the 2.0.x series. On other dev news, multiplatform GUI toolkit wxWindows 2.4.0 was recently released.
Bochs 2.0.2 Released
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Eugenia Loli
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How is the performance of this thing? Is it fast enough to be usable? I’m looking for a free alternative to VMWare.
Bochs is an emulator. It can be used for OS development and playing old games that would run way too fast on modern HW, but it’s not a fully fledged alternative to VMWare.
I’ve been using Bochs for a few years now. The performance is pretty good. VMWare is faster, but Bochs works quite well. The 2.x versions are faster than the older versions by a long shot. I’ve used Bochs to run DOS, Linux, and RetroForth on the same computer (600MHZ Celeron, 256MB RAM, WinXP Home) and it works quite well. I havn’t tried the Linux versions yet, though they should be good as well.
will depend a lot on how fast your actual system is
my old machine (p166 with 32 meg) practically would choke on installing win95 in bochs… (the machine is dead now so i cant test the difference the 2.x versions make on it)
while my new one (1.3ghz athlon with 256 meg) doesnt have much trouble running anything ive tried… performance on it is vaguely in the same league as running things natively on the old one was…. 2.x is definitely noticeably faster…
if you want an alternative to vmware look at virtual pc for windows at http://www.connectix.com (no ‘nix version that i know of, however) or go to savannah.gnu.org and look for plex86 for an open source alternative (not sure what your experiences with that will be like)
bochs 2 is something like twice the speed of 1.x and from what i remember, bochs 1.x was quite usable(not blazing fast).
On a fast machine and the new 2.02 version it is quite fast. If you have an older P1 or P2 it will be pokey.
As Bochs is a true emulator could it be compiled to run on an WINCE device?
Of course given the processor/memory constraints the speed would be truly glacial.
i’ve tried running virtual pc on linux and freebsd with wine to no avail..
it’s too bad, from what i’ve seen virtual pc is much faster than vmware
i’ll have to give bochs and plex86 a go now, thanks for the info!