In Virualization enviroment there are two types of systems - host is a system that runs a guest virtual machine in it. For example a Windows host can run a Linux guest. There are several types of virtual enviromets.They differ in performance characteristics and possible host/guest combinations.

VMware

VMware virtual machines can be hosted on Windows, Linux and dedicated VMware servers. List of guest is very impressive http://www.vmware.com/support/guestnotes/doc/

VMware maintains a list of community built virtual machines. Among them there are several VoIP system images http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/community.html

Matthew1471's VMware Tips & Hints

- Use a box of at least 1Ghz of power (if your to be running Windows XP as well)
- Look at the FREE VMWare Server to make the OS load in the background
- Make VMWares' priority higher than the default
- Asterisk@Home seems to make a good choice
- Install SAMBA so you can remotely view files and connect using SSH
- Be careful as not to give the guest too much RAM as Linux by default uses up more than it needs by cacheing disk clusters (seemingly even ones it is not reading)

See also:

• Choppy IVR sounds problem solved on asterisk 1.4.17 on VmWare server 1.4 (a la trixbox) with HP Pavilion a1450n computer (nvidia chip set)