Fedora10 as host Virtual machine

[blueagle78]

Hello everyone. I'm new to Fedora and fairly new to Linux world. I had Ubuntu running previously on my old PC. But now I've build a new PC and have installed Fedora 10 64bit (want to learn Redhat for career progression). Now I want to install few virtual machines on it. At least 3, Windows XP and 2 Windows Servers as my home lab. I've got quad core Q8200 CPU and got 6GB Ram on it.
What's the best way of going about it?
I haven't got Windows installed as dual boot so Fedora is going to be my main OS. Could you suggest some nice and handy applications which I would look at?

[b2bwild]

There are many options for Virtualization..
You can select which one is best suitable for you.

VMware Workstation
VMware Server
Virtual Box
Xen
QEMU
KVM

If you want something to work out of the box, try
Virtual Box / VMware Server/Workstation

If you are looking for some faster option, try
Xen / QEMU

[blinky]

Try KVM, Fedora comes with it.

You don't need a Q8200 CPU for doing this sort of stuff, send it to me

[blueagle78]

Try KVM, Fedora comes with it.

You don't need a Q8200 CPU for doing this sort of stuff, send it to me

Trust me it'll come handy in the future!
What would be best Virtual product for my needs?
Hosting at least 4 virutal machines.
Running probably 2 or 3 max at a time.
Host to Guest sharing folder is a must for software install!
Good management of networking. So I could have one guest machine as DHCP server and other guest machines getting IP address from it.

I've used VMWare Server and Workstation previously on Windows.

[blinky]

The processor has hardware virt support, so KVM will work fine.

The host can supply the dhcp/dns services using dnsmasq. The trick is to not have libvirt deamon start dnsmasq but to start it seperately, that way you can use /etc/ethers and /etc/hosts to tie the IP addresses of the guests. libvirtd also does some daft stuff with iptables when it starts, you can either remove the rules after it starts or patch the deamon .

You could run samba on the host to share folders .

Just remember to enable remote desktop on the Windows guest and use rdesktop from the host, the performance between a virtual (s)vga display and remote desktop is huge IMO.

[blueagle78]

I installed VirtualBox last night and I've created my first virutal machine in it "Win XP". I haven't really played a lot with it yet but one thing I couldn't get to work and need some assistance.
I wanted to save all my virtual harddisks on a seperate NTFS partition but the only place VirtualBox was letting me browse was the root / directory. How could I sort this out? Thanks

A note: Those who are new to Fedora or Linux world, google "Fedora10 perfect desktop". This chap would talk you through setting up your Fedora perfectly with all the required applications.