Great session today, Jason. Back on the issue of HyperV vs. Oracle Box, can someone share their preference and why?
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Linux+ Train the Trainer session 2025-09-09
- Thread starter Prof. Alex O Akpodiete
- Start date
Is there a TTT for Linux going on and if so can you share the link please.
I could see using Hyper-V because for a student that may be more likely to use a Windows environment, Hyper-V would be easier to set up and get going. In fact, one command in an Admin PowerShell window and you're there:
Enable-WindowsOptionalFeature -Online -FeatureName Microsoft-Hyper-V -All
/r
I primarily use Oracle VirtualBox. I just like it better.
Overall, I like them both. I've used both and both are great platforms for different reasons. Also, KVM is a good tool for long-term virtualization projects.
For me, the choice of hypervisor depends on the cohort:
If the student is new to virtualization, I prefer to use Oracle VirtualBox
If the cohorts are professionals:
If the student is new to virtualization, I prefer to use Oracle VirtualBox
If the cohorts are professionals:
- Hyper-V if the client is using Microsoft-based products, or KVM if they are into Linux
- I've used VMware workstation and/or VMWare ESXi before, until it was bought by Broadcom
- for Type-1 virtualization, I prefer Proxmox
Hyper-V is a Type 1 (bare-metal) hypervisor that comes with Windows Pro and higher editions (though it can be installed on Home if you look up how). Being Type 1 means Hyper-V runs directly on the hardware, with a lightweight virtualization layer in between. This allows near-native performance.
In contrast, Oracle VirtualBox is a Type 2 (hosted) hypervisor by default—it runs as a regular application on top of Windows. As a result, all VM hardware access must go through the Windows OS first, which adds overhead and reduces performance compared to Type 1 hypervisors.
So, in general, Hyper-V is faster than VirtualBox by default.
However, there’s a neat trick: if you have both Hyper-V and VirtualBox installed, you can configure VirtualBox to use Hyper-V as its backend. To do this:
- Open the settings for your VirtualBox VM,
- Go to System > Acceleration,
- Set Paravirtualization Interface to Hyper-V.
Why is this useful? In cybersecurity, many pre-built VM targets and OS images are packaged specifically for VirtualBox. So for students taking a cybersecurity course, it makes sense to use VirtualBox—but enabling Hyper-V paravirtualization gives the best of both worlds: broad compatibility and improved performance.
If you're not teaching a cybersecurity course, however, it makes sense to have a simpler setup where you just stick with Hyper-V for faster, cleaner VM performance on Windows.
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I always debated this point en principio - of whether Hyper-V was a true type 1 hypervisor, because it requires Windows to be loaded as the OS before the hypervisor runs. Now, other folks would say, "Hyper-V is part of the Windows OS", so by extension, makes it Type 1, etc etc. I know MSFT claims that when Hyper-V is loaded, it adds a hypervisor layer to run on bare-metal and the "host" Windows OS becomes 'virtualized'.
Hurts my head, sometimes...