VirtualBox 3.2.0 Final Released for Mac OS X - Free Download

The final, stable version of VirtualBox 3.2.0 is now available for free download. Following the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation, the virtualization solution originally developed by the former is now called Oracle VM VirtualBox. All references to Sun had been changed without impacting compatibility, Oracle said. This version is a major update.

VirtualBox is a virtualization program for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. The application allows users to install additional operating systems over an existing one as guests. These operating systems run inside what is called “a virtual machine.”

According to the release notes made public by the Redwood City computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing enterprise software products, VirtualBox 3.2.0 brings experimental support for Mac OS X guests. Oracle advises users to carefully review the manual for more information on this new addition.

Softpedia readers may remember that, earlier this month, a report by Mac geek site OS X Daily claimed that VirtualBox could run Mac OS X in a virtual machine on Intel PCs. The report offered a link to a guide explaining how to get the job done.

Other changes documented by Oracle yesterday included the addition of memory ballooning, in order to dynamically increase, or decrease the amount of RAM used by a VM (64-bit hosts only). Page Fusion is also mentioned, with a new ability – to automatically de-duplicate RAM when running similar VMs thereby increasing capacity. The function is currently supported only for Windows guests on 64-bit hosts. A Linux-specific change is mentioned as well – CPU hot-plugging. The rest of the enhancements delivered in VirtualBox 3.2.0 are listed below:

- New Hypervisor features: with both VT-x/AMD-V on 64-bit hosts, using large pages can improve performance […]; also, on VT-x, unrestricted guest execution is now supported (if nested paging is enabled with VT-x, real mode and protected mode without paging code runs faster, which mainly speeds up guest OS booting);
- Support for deleting snapshots while the VM is running;
- Support for multi-monitor guest setups in the GUI for Windows guests;
- USB tablet/keyboard emulation for improved user experience if no Guest Additions are available;
- LsiLogic SAS controller emulation;
- RDP video acceleration;
- NAT engine configuration via API and VBoxManage;
- Use of host I/O cache is now configurable;
- Guest Additions: added support for executing guest applications from the host system;
- OVF: enhanced OVF support with custom namespace to preserve settings that are not part of the base OVF standard.

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