This page lists emulators and virtualizers of the x86 machines. These software can work, say on a notebook computer and then emulate your desktop PC. Similarly, the emulator can work on your desktop PC and emulate your notebook computer, which both do not have the same type of processsor. Normally your PC has either an Intel® or Athlon® processor, although some of you might have other types of processor. The job of the emulator software is to act as if it is running on another type of processor. This means that the host computer (the one on which the emulator is running) has to emulate all the processor's instructions and this can be very slow if you are emulating a processor more powerful than yours.
On the other hand, if you just want to emulate a set of hardware, all of them having the same processor, you can then run a virtualization software, which will only imitate a specific set of hardware. You can also emulate different operating systems.
I hear you ask where would you use these software. Well, you can use it to test a software on different platforms like Windows, Linux or MAC OS X without having to change different machines or installing the different OSes each at a time on your computer.
Bochs
This software can emulate x86 processors. You can emulate 386, 486, Pentium, Pentium Pro, AMD64 processors. Bochs can also emulate several hardware along with a specified BIOS. You can have Windows DOS, 95/NT and Linux as guest Operating Systems
DOSBox
This software allows you to emulate a x86 machine and has DOS built-in. This software's aim is to run DOS games and applications. You can use as host Operating System, the followings: Windows, Linux,Amiga68k, FreeBSD, MorphOS and finally BeOs. It is similar to DOSEMU.
DOSEMU
This software allows you to emulate DOS and even Windows 3.x on the Linux Operating System. This might be useful if you want to runs some DOS applications or games under Linux.
Microsoft Virtual PC for Windows
This previously commercial software from Microsoft is now availble free of charge for you to dwnload. You can run a Windows installation in the emulator, but you also need a license for that virtualized Operating System. Since Windows can be loaded on Virtual PC, Linux distros also work, but with reduced speed since Microsoft do not provide some required drivers(Virtual Machine Add-ons) to make them run normally. This emulator works only on Windows.
Minde
This is a DOS emulator which allows you to run DOS applications, games and other stuffs under Linux.
OpenVZ
OpenVZ is a software which allows you to create Virtual Private Servers (VPS) for you to use. You might have noticed, if you are a webmaster, that some web host companies provide you with a web hosting package, which is running on a VPS software. Well, the software creates several virtual servers on one single server, which are running a specified Operating System and this result in the creation of a totally secure and independant environment for you to host your website, and this seems to you as a normal standalone server. (Recommended Virtual Private Server Software!)
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