Microsoft has made available for download both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions of the Virtual Machine Additions for Linux, a set of offerings that are compatible with Virtual Server 2005 R2 Service Pack 1. Last week, Jamie Cannon OSS/Community Manager over at Microsoft, informed of the availability of the new release of the Virtual Machine Additions for Linux. The additions will enable users of Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 to increase the usability and interoperability of supported copies of the open source operating system running as[ADMNARK=1] guest or as virtual machines.

"Virtual Machine Additions for Linux 2.0 has been released - bringing the version number up to 2.0. For those unfamiliar with Virtual Machine Additions for Linux, it is technology layer designed to improve the usability and interoperability of running Linux operating systems as guests or virtual machines inside of Virtual Server. From the release notes, it looks like this version adds support for SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10. You can find additional information on running Linux as a guest operating system with Virtual Server on TechNet," Cannon explained.

"To improve the interoperability between virtual machines running Linux guest operating systems and Virtual Server 2005 R2, Virtual Machine Additions are available for Linux guest operating systems. You can install these Virtual Machine Additions components in your Linux guest operating systems to improve the following operating system capabilities: guest and host synchronization for time synchronization, for heartbeat generation, and for coordinated shutdown operations; mouse driver; display driver and SCSI hard disk emulation," reads a fragment of the Microsoft description of the Virtual Machine Additions.

According to the Redmond company, there is a limited number of Linux distributions supported as qualified operating systems, belonging to open source developers Red Hat and Novell. Red Hat Enterprise Linux 2.1 (update 7); Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 (update 8); Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4.0 (update 4); Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0; SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9.0 and SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10.0 are the enterprise distributions of the Qualified Linux guests. At the same time, Red Hat Linux 9.0; SuSE Linux 9.3; SuSE Linux 10.0; SuSE Linux 10.1 and SuSE Linux 10.2 are the standard distributions.

Virtual Machine Additions for Linux 2.0 can be downloaded from here.