Can you run a machine emulator (Bochs) inside a virtual machine?

Is it possible to, say, run VirtualBox on Windows 7 with a Linux guest, and inside that Linux machine run Bochs?

The reason is that I'm interested in starting OS development, and I've found that all the tutorials and stuff are much easier to follow on *nix machines. I tried using Cygwin, but I think it's adding another layer of complexity and not necessarily making things easier.

Solution 1:

Long story short: yes.

Each virtual machine is technically "independent" of one another, and with VirtualBox, you could easily do this, since it is supported on both Windows and Linux host operating systems (emulated or not). You could simply use Windows as your "base-host" OS, run Linux in a VM, and then use that operating system as the new base-host for Bochs.

Do note that your only limitation here is your hardware. Depending on the requirements of your development, you may require more memory, or an upgrade to a 64-bit "base-host" operating system. That being said, if you choose your Linux distros wisely, any modern system should be capable of arbitrary nesting like this.

You will see improved performance if you enable x86 virtualization support on your computer (if your motherboard and CPU support it), and AFAIK, you can "pass through" this feature to multiple nested virtual machines. If we have n virtual machines nested in eachother, this is supported so long as the 1^st to the n-1^th nested guest OS has support for x86 virtualization (the base host must also support it). Do note that there are still some security issues to be aware of if you do this, so take the appropriate precautions.

Solution 2:

I sometimes run a whole VMware vSphere virtual infrastructure within VMware Workstation, along with virtual Cisco routers and switches and EMC Celerra Virtualized Storage Appliance, for self-learning and testing purposes.

I call it 'Inception Computing', and it can get pretty confusing. It is however somewhat cheaper than using the real gear.