14 DAY TRIAL // A few minutes ago, Oracle announced the availability of two new maintenance updates for its popular, open-source and cross-platform VirtualBox virtualization software, versions 5.1.8 and 5.0.28.
The VirtualBox 5.1.8 point release is the most advanced Oracle VM VirtualBox version you can get right now, and it promises a month's worth of bug fixes and improvements to further stabilize the application for all supported platforms, including GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows.
There are numerous changes implemented in VirtualBox, and among the most interesting ones we can mention support for using Audio Queues on Mac OS X hosts, the ability to parse port-forwarding rules that contain slashes, better keyboard handling for Windows and Mac OS X hosts, as well as improved support for deleting snapshots.
Linux kernel 4.7 and 4.8 improvements land in VirtualBox 5.0.28
While VirtualBox 5.1.8 also fixes the initialization of SAS controllers and adds Python 3 build support, Oracle brought improved support for the Linux 4.8 and 4.7 kernels to the long-term supported VirtualBox 5.0 branch with the VirtualBox 5.0.28 maintenance update, also released today and available for download from the project's website.
You can download the VirtualBox 5.1.8 binaries for GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems right now via our website, along with the source code if you want to compile the OSS version. If you're running VirtualBox 5.1.6 or a previous release, we recommend updating your VirtualBox installations as soon as possible.
Also, we urge those who are running a release from the VirtualBox 5.0 series to update to today's VirtualBox 5.0.28 maintenance version immediately, especially if they use a GNU/Linux operating system powered by a kernel from either Linux 4.7 or Linux 4.8 branches. More details about the VirtualBox 5.0.28 changes can be found here.