14 DAY TRIAL // Over the course of this weekend, Sun Microsystems released VirtualBox 3.0.2, a maintenance update to its cross-platform virtualization software. The changelog lists various tweaks and fixes, although no Mac-specific changes have been spotted. The new version is available for both Mac and Linux users, as well as Windows PC owners.
According to the release notes, general (VMM) improvements include:
- fixed network regressions (guest hangs during network IO); - guest SMP performance improvements; - fixed hangs and poor performance with Kaspersky Internet Security (VT-x/AMD-V only); - fixed crashes when executing certain Linux guests (software virtualization only).
Sun was also able to improve 3D support in VirtualBox by fixing dynamic linking on Solaris/OpenSolaris guests, and addressing issues with incorrect context/window tracking for multithreaded apps. For the X11 host and guest clipboard, developers have fixed a number of issues, including some with seamless windows in X11 guests.
On the Windows side only, Sun reveals, VirtualBox now adds VBoxServiceNT for NT4 guests (for time synchronization and guest properties). As for Linux fans, a workaround has been found for buggy graphics drivers showing a black VM window on recent distributions. Other fixes and improvements are listed as follows:
Installer: support Pardus Linux; Solaris hosts: several installer fixes; Solaris host: fixed a preemption issue causing VMs to never start on Solaris; Solaris guest: fixed mouse integration for OpenSolaris 2009.06; Windows hosts: fixed high CPU usage after resuming the host; OVF: accept ovf:/disk/ specifiers with a single slash in addition to ovf://disk/; Fixed: a settings file conversion bug which sometimes caused hardware acceleration to be enabled for virtual machines that had no explicit configuration in the XML.
Sun Microsystems' VirtualBox lets users create virtual machines in which they can install their operating system of choice. The solution is similar to those advertised and sold by VMWare (VMware Fusion), or Parallels (Parallels Desktop). VirtualBox, however, is free to download and use for anyone packing the necessary hardware. The software is a feature-rich, high-performance product for enterprise customers. Available as Open Source Software, VirtualBox is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).
At the moment, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and OpenSolaris hosts, while supporting a large number of guest operating systems including, but not being limited to, Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.