The Linux I will setup to boot natively or as a VM and the windows will be 100% VM (either running under MacOS at home or under Linux when on the work laptop). I plan on getting some external hard drive enclosures for my two laptop hard drives and hook them to my iMac via USB or FireWire and then when I go to the office, I'll just swap the hard drives into the 2 bays on my laptop and be good-to-go. I will likely be installing a Windows XP and a Linux image on my new iMac so I can do my work from my iMac when working at home rather than my work laptop.

If you're on a tight budget, VirtualBox will more than suffice. Note that VMware also offers deep-discounts to students, if that applies to you. If you have the time, try downloading each product, install a VM and give it a try, since both VMware and Parallels over a trial period. I would wait for 10.6.2 to be released if you can, so that you can give VMware a chance to perhaps improve its product's performance on the Mac. In summary, each product has it's own strengths and weaknesses. Both Fusion and Parallels Desktop also offer DirectX 9 support under Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, which suffices for a limited selection of games. I've heard from others that Fusion is generally more stable than Parallels Desktop, but I can't personally comment on that nor can I offer any comparison with VirtualBox. Both Fusion 3 and the new Parallels Desktop 5 both support Aero under Windows Vista and 7 guests, and Parallels introduces 'skinning' to Windows applications and dialogs, making them appear Mac-like, whereas Fusion and VirtualBox do not offer such a high-level of integration. If you choose to go the free route, and install VirtualBox, you will get roughly the same experience as you would with Fusion or Parallels Desktop.

With 10.6.2 seemingly close to release, I would hold-off buying any virtualization product until the verdict is in as to it's performance impacts. That said, a VMware employee has referred to the latest OS X 10.6.2 patch as potentially resolving some of the performance issues that Fusion 3 currently suffers from. The current release suffers from some performance issues and as a result has created some disgruntled users over on the VMware forums. To a lesser extent, VMware Fusion 3 is as well.

VMware Fusion 2 was an excellent product.

Vmware vs virtualbox windows xp