If you are looking to try out a few operating systems, I can’t recommend Virtual Box by Sun.
I own a Macbook pro and have started delving in to web design/development. I thought it would be good to run Windows and hated Boot Camp. Having to reboot to use an OS sucked, and with virtualization you can just boot the VM and switch between active windows right in OSX. The school I attend allows students to use VMWare’s product, but it’s only good for 180 days before you have to buy it or enter another key. I think. Virtual Box is free, with no restrictions.
The installation of Virtual Box was smooth and the XP installation on a virtual machine went great. I was quite surprised. The screen size/resolution was a bit off at first, but you run the tools app for Virtual Box and it takes care of the issue allowing the host window to resize the vm’s window on the fly by just dragging. Nice. You can even get sound and network to pass through the host and vm with very little fuss. No headaches = good for me and good for you.
I was stoked on how it worked that I downloaded Windows7 beta to install on a VM just because I could.
Hell, I haven’t posted to the blog for a while so you can tell how this product has impressed me.