Introduces several new features and improvements

Dec 12, 2019 03:00 GMT  ·  By

Oracle released today the final version of the VirtualBox 6.1 open-source and cross-platform virtualization software for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows operating systems.

VirtualBox 6.1 is the first major release in the VirtualBox 6 series of the popular virtualization platform and promises some exciting new features, such as support for the latest and greatest Linux 5.4 kernel series, the ability to import virtual machines from the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, as well as enhanced support for nested virtualization.

"Support for nested virtualization enables you to install a hypervisor, such as Oracle VM VirtualBox or KVM, on an Oracle VM VirtualBox guest. You can then create and run virtual machines in the guest VM. Support for nested virtualization allows Oracle VM VirtualBox to create a more flexible and sophisticated development and testing environment," said Oracle.

Improved 3D support, updated firmware, and GUI enhancements

VirtualBox 6.1 also introduces extended support for exporting VMs to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, allowing users to create multiple virtual machines without re-uploading, as well as to export a VM to the cloud using a more efficient "paravirtialized" variant and specify free-form tags for cloud images. It also improves 3D support and removes older 3D technologies.

It also brings various enhancements to the user interface, including embedded editors, enhanced Storage Settings, mouse pointer improvements, as well as improved Virtual Machine Groups, and on the hardware side it adds support for Apple's APFS file system, NVRAM support, support for Legacy OS X releases, support for non-standard SATA/NVMe devices, and updated firmware.

Among other changes, we can mention a tech preview of Shared Clipboard, an experimental feature for file transfers that currently only available for Windows hosts/guests. Also, VirtualBox 6.1 drops the recompiler, which means that running virtual machines now need a CPU supporting hardware virtualization. You can download VirtualBox 6.1 for GNU/Linux, macOS, and Windows right now and study the full changelog below for more details.

VirtualBox 6.1 Changelog