I Downloaded and installed Genymotion yesterday it also have virtualBox I followed the Genymotion Tutorial and successfully created a device to test android apps. I also tested 2 of my apps in it successfully But I want to know
virtualBox is ?VM is? and
VM if it is not necessary then Why Genymotion have this option. I want to know what's their purpose is because these apps can be tested without these as I mentioned above.Thanks
a VM is a virtual machine. In simple words, it is virtual hardware(emulator) to run your virtual devices.
from Wikipedia:
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is an emulation of a particular computer system. Virtual machines operate based on the computer architecture and functions of a real or hypothetical computer, and their implementations may involve specialized hardware, software, or a combination of both.
one more reference
A virtual machine (VM) is an operating system OS or application environment that is installed on software which imitates dedicated hardware. The end user has the same experience on a virtual machine as they would have on dedicated hardware.
Virtual box is tool provided by Oracle to create virtual machines:
Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox) is a hypervisor for x86 computers from Oracle Corporation. Developed initially by Innotek GmbH, it was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008 which was in turn acquired by Oracle in 2010.
VirtualBox may be installed on a number of host operating systems, including: Linux, OS X, Windows Vista, Solaris, and OpenSolaris. There are also ports to FreeBSD and Genode.
It supports the creation and management of guest virtual machines running versions and derivations of Windows, Linux, BSD, OS/2, Solaris, Haiku, OSx86 and others, and limited virtualization of OS X guests on Apple hardware.
and finally they are used to emulate the virtual devices you need.