looking for virtual machine for testing booting ISO images

[Jeremy C. Reed]

I am looking for a method where I can boot ISO images in a chroot-like
environment. (I understand that VMware and Virtual PC may be able to do
this, but I'd prefer to use an open source product.)

I was told on the plex86 list to look at bochs. I did look at some bochs
documentation that mentioned making and using an ISO image for Windows
(which I don't use). But my guest operating system will be Linux or
NetBSD. I didn't find any bochs documentation on using FreeBSD as the host
system and booting Linux or NetBSD ISO images.

I asked the bochs-developers list (because I didn't see a "general" bochs
discussion forum) but didn't get any feedback.

For example, I make bootable NetBSD and Linux CDs, and I can test the
executables and environment by mounting the ISO image and chrooting to it.
(But this doesn't test the boot and init.)

I want to test the entire bootup starting with the ISO image's embedded
bootable 2.88 floppy image, booting kernel, running /sbin/init, et cetera
(without wasting time having to physically burn a CD and rebooting using
that new CD on a test system each time).

Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas on what I can use to boot a
bootable ISO image?

I see ports/emulators/bochs ... does anyone know how to get it to boot a
bootable ISO image (where host is FreeBSD and ISO is Linux or NetBSD)?

Thank you for any advice,

   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://bsd.reedmedia.net/