what is bochs??

[Okan Soyyilmaz]

Heyy... what is that boshs?? Every OS'er is using it ha? And where can I found it??

[Pype.Clicker]

no os uses bochs . Bochs is a PC emulator, it would be like asking why every SNES game uses ZSNESW

many OS designer uses BOCHS as a reference virtual PC (they could use VMWARE but it isn't free and more complicated to install on Linux, imho)

it has the advantage that you may test your OS directly from your development environment and that it won't harm your hardware (corrupt hard disk, for instance

[_mark]

VMWARE (www.vmware.com) is targeted at running OS and the applications for OSes. Bochs seems to be more friendly for the OS developer as it has some limited debugging caps and much more useful panic messages as compared to VMWARE. Bochs is also open source so you can see what is expected when something goes wrong. VMWARE on the other hand is a supported product, and seems to run a little faster then bochs (but then again) they provide special video drivers for the supported OSs. VMWARE has (IMHO) a better user interface, and a wide range of hardware support including USB, sound and a few other nice features like non-persistant disks. These features however are really ment for basic users and not the OS developer. Plus at like 300 bucks, it is a little pricey.

Now - of course opinions vary - but I think VMWARE is far easier to install and get running.

_mark().