12 ms·

VirtualBox 3.0 Released

102 points by JshWright 17y ago

JshWright 17y ago
New features include guest SMP support, OpenGL 2.0, and experimental Direct3D 8/9 support (for windows guests, obviously...)
- marcocampos 17y ago
  Warning: Guest SMP only works if you have a cpu with Intel VT-x or AMD-V. Damn, why did I buy a Pentium Dual-Core instead of a regular Core 2 Duo? :/
jdbeast00 17y ago
hope it means this bug is fixed now.... http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/2978 http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/2978
- jdbeast00 17y ago
  i tested it on my computer, it didn't seem to occur, yay!
sant0sk1 17y ago
I didn't know other HNers were such VirtualBox fans! I use it daily and love it. This release looks great.
jacquesm 17y ago
I've just finished comparing virtualbox and vmware, and not of my own volition. I needed to compare a bunch of different file system solutions for clustering (see post elsewhere) and after working with vmware for several days finally gave up (vmware server 2.0), and tried the same under virtualbox. Virtualbox did the job quietly without fuss or license keys, where vmware was nothing but a pita and eventually refused to work. The host os on the test machine is Ubuntu, the guest of was CentOs 4.7.
- Bjoern 17y ago
  I can confirm this, had a similar experience. Though the VMWare Player is a nice piece of easy software for people who don't need all the features. On a side note, did you ever install MS Windows iso with a system running on a CPU with SSE3 extension? Wuuuahhh thats fast :)
  - sp332 17y ago
    This is why I'm happy that MS might be distributing Win7 on USB drives - install will finally take a reasonable amount of time.
- gcv 17y ago
  Have you (or anyone) compared VirtualBox to a desktop virtualization package, such as VMware Fusion? How does it stack up?
  - jacquesm 17y ago
    I've only used it for servers.
  - hyperbovine 17y ago
    I have used VMWare Fusion for a couple of years now and have no complaints whatsoever. It's stable and not noticeably slower than using Boot Camp. USB pass-through and networking just work. You can even launch a Windows program directly from Finder. My one gripe--slow access times for the host-client file sharing interface--was fixed with 2.0. I have never used any other VMWare product, or Virtual Box, but I thought I would add my $.02 since my experience seems to differ from most others here.
- jsz0 17y ago
  Since this thread is becoming a VMWare hate session I'll add my gripes: -No native VMWare infrastructure client for Linux (or OSX) -Very limited hardware support for ESX -Stupid restrictions on the free version of ESX to up-sell. (ie, no jumbo frames on iSCSI?) It's no surprise to me VMWare has completely squandered their lead in virtualization. The actual end user experience of VMWare products has gone steadily down while the free/OSS and commercial competition has raised the bar. I don't have any major problems with VMWare's products from a technical standpoint but I'm seeing less reason to use them and deal with a lot of arbitrary marketing/licensing restrictions that just ends up making my life harder.
Bjoern 17y ago
3.0 Already? Wasn't just sometime ago 2.3 the newest? While VirtualBox is really great I like OSE (OpenSourceEdition) better. Unfortunately if one needs e.g. usbhotplug then you have to use the commercial branch :/ Does anyone know when OSE will have that feature?
- gaius 17y ago
  Probably when the developers are so rich they don't need money for food or rent.
  - jeduan 17y ago
    Wont they be working at Oracle soon?
    - gaius 17y ago
      Maybe. Or maybe Oracle will stick with its own Xen-derived OracleVM.
    - ciupicri 17y ago
      And you think that uncle Larry will make them rich?
  - w1ntermute 17y ago
    Not to mention that there's nothing preventing a 3rd party from developing an open source patch implementing support for this very feature.
    - fatdog789 17y ago
      Sure there is: lack of expertise. Also, unfamiliarity with the code base. For people without programming experience, there's also the opportunity cost of learning a programming language. The reason open source hasn't taken off with the general public is b/c every time a non-programmer suggests a genuinely useful feature (to non-programmers), the response is: "it's open source, program it yourself." Most often, the easier and cheaper path is to just buy the competing commercial program.
berntb 17y ago
Excuse a newbie... is it worth trying Ubuntu on Mac with VirtualBox? What should I know? (-: Please don't flame me. I might like ports as much as apt, if I knew it better. :-)
- jodrellblank 17y ago
  VirtualBox on the Mac is very nice. A respectably small download, an easy install, a pleasant GUI, it feels very polished and in my light use, both featureful and stable. Yes, try it.
  - neilc 17y ago
    Does anyone have any experience with how VirtualBox performance compares with VMWare?
    - gsergrtbnhrts 17y ago
      There is a review here http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/virtualization-showdown-vmware-workstation-vs-sun-xvm-virtualbox-735 http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/virtualization-sho... Basically they are all pretty similar, if you use it in a serious environment there are probably more tools and consultants that will tune Vmware server for you, but for ordinary use it's probably a wash.
- papaf 17y ago
  I recently made the change from Macports to Ubuntu on VirtualBox. Things are much nicer now. My one tip would be to have any datafiles separate (ie not read/write files on the Mac filesystem directly - even though you can) and communicate between the two "machines" using version control.
- ZeroGravitas 17y ago
  I think this is the way to go for everyone newbie or not. If you're not going to be deploying on OS X then why develop under it. VirtualBox with your deployment system on Mac OS X gives you the best of all possible worlds.
jli 17y ago
but how is it for mac uses? it seems not as nice compared to parallels?
- gaius 17y ago
  It's fine. I use it to run Solaris 10 and Windows XP on my MBP.
- JeremyChase 17y ago
  I ran VirtualBox on my MPB for nearly a year. It was a fantastic platform to run XP under for web development testing. It works very seamlessly.
- deimos 17y ago
  Works pretty well on 10.5.7 with WinXP SP3 as guest. I couldn't install a firewall for testing (Comodo CIS, it'll hang WinXP on reboot) on the guest w/o VT-X/AMD-V off. I hope they fixed it in this new version.
pasbesoin 17y ago
At the moment, the page's "MD5 sum" link is not resolving. http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.0/MD5SUMS http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.0/MD5SUMS
johng 17y ago
It's important if you install windows in a VM to install the "guest tools" with Virtual box.. it makes it 100x more responsive. Don't forget this step.
- kirubakaran 17y ago
  This is true even if the guest OS is something other than Windows. Automatic mouse capture is a very convenient.
fno 17y ago
I love VirtualBox so much. Thanks to Innotek for the free and open-source distribution. I do use the closed source version though. If only they would support branching snapshopts. For example a main VM and then you could have one work tree and one webbrowsing tree. This would make using it for daily work even more appealing. Well, some day, I am sure.
- scorpioxy 17y ago
  I'd like to echo your wish. I also would like to have that feature. I'd like to use when I am debugging a configuration issue on the OS with a certain application. Not a show-stopper by any means, but a would like to have.
sfphotoarts 17y ago
Did anyone get this to work on OSX? I installed it on my MBP, put Ubuntu 9.04 and it always locks up within a few minutes after booting, usually while its running the updater. Just wondered if others see this or its just me.

102 points by JshWright 17y ago

New features include guest SMP support, OpenGL 2.0, and experimental Direct3D 8/9 support (for windows guests, obviously...)

marcocampos 17y ago
Warning: Guest SMP only works if you have a cpu with Intel VT-x or AMD-V. Damn, why did I buy a Pentium Dual-Core instead of a regular Core 2 Duo? :/

jdbeast00 17y ago

hope it means this bug is fixed now.... http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/2978 http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/2978

jdbeast00 17y ago
i tested it on my computer, it didn't seem to occur, yay!

sant0sk1 17y ago

I didn't know other HNers were such VirtualBox fans! I use it daily and love it. This release looks great.

jacquesm 17y ago

I've just finished comparing virtualbox and vmware, and not of my own volition. I needed to compare a bunch of different file system solutions for clustering (see post elsewhere) and after working with vmware for several days finally gave up (vmware server 2.0), and tried the same under virtualbox. Virtualbox did the job quietly without fuss or license keys, where vmware was nothing but a pita and eventually refused to work. The host os on the test machine is Ubuntu, the guest of was CentOs 4.7.

Bjoern 17y ago
I can confirm this, had a similar experience. Though the VMWare Player is a nice piece of easy software for people who don't need all the features. On a side note, did you ever install MS Windows iso with a system running on a CPU with SSE3 extension? Wuuuahhh thats fast :)
- sp332 17y ago
  This is why I'm happy that MS might be distributing Win7 on USB drives - install will finally take a reasonable amount of time.
gcv 17y ago
Have you (or anyone) compared VirtualBox to a desktop virtualization package, such as VMware Fusion? How does it stack up?
- jacquesm 17y ago
  I've only used it for servers.
- hyperbovine 17y ago
  I have used VMWare Fusion for a couple of years now and have no complaints whatsoever. It's stable and not noticeably slower than using Boot Camp. USB pass-through and networking just work. You can even launch a Windows program directly from Finder. My one gripe--slow access times for the host-client file sharing interface--was fixed with 2.0. I have never used any other VMWare product, or Virtual Box, but I thought I would add my $.02 since my experience seems to differ from most others here.
jsz0 17y ago
Since this thread is becoming a VMWare hate session I'll add my gripes: -No native VMWare infrastructure client for Linux (or OSX) -Very limited hardware support for ESX -Stupid restrictions on the free version of ESX to up-sell. (ie, no jumbo frames on iSCSI?) It's no surprise to me VMWare has completely squandered their lead in virtualization. The actual end user experience of VMWare products has gone steadily down while the free/OSS and commercial competition has raised the bar. I don't have any major problems with VMWare's products from a technical standpoint but I'm seeing less reason to use them and deal with a lot of arbitrary marketing/licensing restrictions that just ends up making my life harder.

Bjoern 17y ago

3.0 Already? Wasn't just sometime ago 2.3 the newest? While VirtualBox is really great I like OSE (OpenSourceEdition) better. Unfortunately if one needs e.g. usbhotplug then you have to use the commercial branch :/ Does anyone know when OSE will have that feature?

gaius 17y ago
Probably when the developers are so rich they don't need money for food or rent.
- jeduan 17y ago
  Wont they be working at Oracle soon?
  - gaius 17y ago
    Maybe. Or maybe Oracle will stick with its own Xen-derived OracleVM.
  - ciupicri 17y ago
    And you think that uncle Larry will make them rich?
- w1ntermute 17y ago
  Not to mention that there's nothing preventing a 3rd party from developing an open source patch implementing support for this very feature.
  - fatdog789 17y ago
    Sure there is: lack of expertise. Also, unfamiliarity with the code base. For people without programming experience, there's also the opportunity cost of learning a programming language. The reason open source hasn't taken off with the general public is b/c every time a non-programmer suggests a genuinely useful feature (to non-programmers), the response is: "it's open source, program it yourself." Most often, the easier and cheaper path is to just buy the competing commercial program.

berntb 17y ago

Excuse a newbie... is it worth trying Ubuntu on Mac with VirtualBox? What should I know? (-: Please don't flame me. I might like ports as much as apt, if I knew it better. :-)

jodrellblank 17y ago
VirtualBox on the Mac is very nice. A respectably small download, an easy install, a pleasant GUI, it feels very polished and in my light use, both featureful and stable. Yes, try it.
- neilc 17y ago
  Does anyone have any experience with how VirtualBox performance compares with VMWare?
  - gsergrtbnhrts 17y ago
    There is a review here http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/virtualization-showdown-vmware-workstation-vs-sun-xvm-virtualbox-735 http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/virtualization-sho... Basically they are all pretty similar, if you use it in a serious environment there are probably more tools and consultants that will tune Vmware server for you, but for ordinary use it's probably a wash.
papaf 17y ago
I recently made the change from Macports to Ubuntu on VirtualBox. Things are much nicer now. My one tip would be to have any datafiles separate (ie not read/write files on the Mac filesystem directly - even though you can) and communicate between the two "machines" using version control.
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
I think this is the way to go for everyone newbie or not. If you're not going to be deploying on OS X then why develop under it. VirtualBox with your deployment system on Mac OS X gives you the best of all possible worlds.

jli 17y ago

but how is it for mac uses? it seems not as nice compared to parallels?

gaius 17y ago
It's fine. I use it to run Solaris 10 and Windows XP on my MBP.
JeremyChase 17y ago
I ran VirtualBox on my MPB for nearly a year. It was a fantastic platform to run XP under for web development testing. It works very seamlessly.
deimos 17y ago
Works pretty well on 10.5.7 with WinXP SP3 as guest. I couldn't install a firewall for testing (Comodo CIS, it'll hang WinXP on reboot) on the guest w/o VT-X/AMD-V off. I hope they fixed it in this new version.

pasbesoin 17y ago

At the moment, the page's "MD5 sum" link is not resolving. http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.0/MD5SUMS http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.0/MD5SUMS

johng 17y ago

It's important if you install windows in a VM to install the "guest tools" with Virtual box.. it makes it 100x more responsive. Don't forget this step.

kirubakaran 17y ago
This is true even if the guest OS is something other than Windows. Automatic mouse capture is a very convenient.

fno 17y ago

I love VirtualBox so much. Thanks to Innotek for the free and open-source distribution. I do use the closed source version though. If only they would support branching snapshopts. For example a main VM and then you could have one work tree and one webbrowsing tree. This would make using it for daily work even more appealing. Well, some day, I am sure.

scorpioxy 17y ago
I'd like to echo your wish. I also would like to have that feature. I'd like to use when I am debugging a configuration issue on the OS with a certain application. Not a show-stopper by any means, but a would like to have.

sfphotoarts 17y ago

Did anyone get this to work on OSX? I installed it on my MBP, put Ubuntu 9.04 and it always locks up within a few minutes after booting, usually while its running the updater. Just wondered if others see this or its just me.