14 DAY TRIAL // Oracle released a new stable version of its open-source and cross-platform VirtualBox virtualization software for all supported platforms adding support for Linux kernel 4.15 for Linux guests, as well as numerous other improvements.
VirtualBox 5.2.8 is now available to download, finally bringing support for the latest Linux 4.15 kernel series for Linux-based guest operating systems you might want to run on your virtual machines. Also, this means that various of VirtualBox's modules can now be compiled against Linux kernel 4.15.
Also, VirtualBox 5.2.8 finally addresses that annoying black screen issue that occurred when 3D was enabled in some Linux guests, and adds support for suppressing setuid and setgid in shared folders. For Windows guests, the update fixes an incorrect function error that occurred when using shared folders with certain apps.
Frontend, audio, storage, and networking improvements
Another interesting improvement implemented by Oracle's engineers in the latest VirtualBox release is support for the PCID, FSGSBASE, and INVPCID CPU features for Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, Solaris, and Windows guests. Additionally, the update fixes an EMM386 issue when detecting a suitable page frame base.
Oracle updated the application's frontend to use secure HTTPS downloads when updating the app or other components, fixes a seamless regression caused the by the wm_class functionality on Linux systems, and a crash that occurred when trying to open the New machine wizard on all supported platforms.
On the audio front, VirtualBox 5.2.8 adds support for identifying recording sources in the PulseAudio sound mixer on the host operating system when using multiple virtual machines at the same time, improves the DirectSound backend, HDA emulation, and surround setups for Windows guests.
A couple of networking fixes are present as well in this new VirtualBox release, improving PXE boot for E1000 cards and adding a workaround for older guests not capable of enabling bus mastering for the virtio PCI device. VirtualBox 5.2.8 is available for download on GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows platforms right now.