Posts Tagged ‘Virutalbox’
Sun VirtualBox 3.0!!! July 5th, 2009
Sun announced last week the availability of VirtualBox 3, the latest version of its open source virtualization solution. The new version offers high performance graphics for desktop applications and the ability to expose multiple CPUs to guest operating systems. VirtualBox will go down in its history as one of the most popular programs distributed by Sun Microsystems just ahead of its $5.6bn takeover by software giant and hardware wan(not)abe Oracle a few weeks from now.
VirtualBox was originally developed by InnoTek, which was acquired by Sun last year. InnoTek launched an open source edition of VirtualBox in 2007, releasing most of the program’s code under the GPL. Alongside the open source version, the company has continued to sell a commercial version that has additional features, such as a built-in RDP server and full USB support. VirtualBox is cross-platform compatible and is available for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS.
The software has matured quickly and is beginning to outpace its rival VMware Workstation in many ways. It is also becoming popular on the Linux platform because its open source licensing makes it easy for Linux distributors to package and deploy—and it generally performs better than Linux’s kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM), the native virtualization solution of the Linux kernel. It also has an excellent user-friendly configuration and VM management interface.
VMware still offers a few advantages, such as better support for snapshots. One of the key differentiators of VMware was its support for virtualized SMP, but this feature was finally introduced in the latest version of VirtualBox. In VirtualBox 3, you can expose up to 32 CPUs or CPU cores to a guest environment (this requires chips that support Intel’s VT-x extension or AMD-V).
VirtualBox is currently my preferred desktop virtualization solution. I made the jump from VMware Server last year after losing patience with VMware’s lousy Linux support. I use VirtualBox nearly every day for distro testing and it has made virtualization an integral part of my workflow.
For a complete overview of bugfixes and other improvements in VirtualBox 3.0, see the official changelog.
Tags: Virutalbox
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Virtualbox – A bridge between Windows and Linux!!!
May 11th, 2009
This post is not for someone who has a fair amount of experience. It’s for someone who is either looking to convert to Linux and is stuck with Windows or someone new to Linux but not quite familiar with it yet. VirtualBox is a virtualization software. In layman’s language if you’re running an operating system, you can run another operating system independently and at the same time as the host operating system.
For example: If i’m running Ubuntu 8.0. I needed to run Microsoft Publisher. Now Scribus is an alternative but maybe not be quite as smoothly as I’d like. So what to do?
I google “download virtual box”. I download and gdebi it. Start it up. Put in an XP Pro disk/Windows Vista etc.. I start the virtual machine and I’m off. In about half an hour I’ve got a fully functioning XP installation running within my Linux install: 
As you can see here I’ve got VirtualBox running which is loading Windows XP on Ubuntu 8.10. It’s not a very powerful machine either, any computer with at least 2 GB RAM and any 128MB higher graphics card can run it.
This is a great solution if you’re trying to bridge that gap between the two or if you just want to run some windows applications….
Tags: Linux, Ubuntu, Virutalbox, Windows
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Windows 7!!!
May 10th, 2009
The first question that strikes me is What is Windows 7?
Windows 7 (formerly codenamed Blackcomb and Vienna) is slated as the next release of Microsoft Windows. Unlike its predecessor, Windows 7 is intended to be an incremental upgrade with the goal of being fully compatible with existing device drivers, applications, and hardware. Presentations given by the company in 2008 have focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, most notably Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are no longer included with the operating system, they are instead offered separately as part of the Windows Live Essentials suite.
What does this mean to the general user? Well, probably the biggest fault in Vista was that it was released under the flag of “Vista Ready”. In the end, this wound up being a huge PR flop for Microsoft as many of the products being pushed weren’t ready or were ready with limited quality. Now Apple and the Linux world have both taken full advantage of this slip-up and have truly profited by it. So this could be a very big step, not only in terms of quality but market share. Ultimately though, MS has such stronghold on the market that it’s hard to imaging that there was any sort of a real dent made by either Apple or Linux. Will Apple and Linux take over? I don’t think so, not any time soon at least.
Review
When I heard that Windows 7 beta was “out in the wild”, I had to try it. Since I had no intentions of messing up my laptop with an install gone wrong, I created a new Virtual Machine (VM) to install it in. The “machine” I’ve installed it on has a 10GB “dynamic disk” (which starts small and grows as is needed), and is limited to 512MB of RAM. Apparently Win7 is supposed to run on Vista’s requirements, which state 512MB, a 1GHz processor, and 15GB HD for the Home basic version, and it seems to do pretty well.
A couple of other things I noticed: During the install, and even starting up normally, the VM experiences several “window resets”. I notice this because I run Compiz with the desktop cube plugin, and I normally have the VM loading on a side face of the cube, whenever it changes the “screen”, the window pops up on the active cube face. This happened several times during the install process (it even rebooted about halfway through, and finished the install from the files copied to the hard disk), and I believe it happens three times during bootup, though putting it into fullscreen mode keeps it from popping between cube faces.
Windows networking, for some reason or other, wouldn’t connect with \\vboxsvr (used for virtualbox shared folders). Audio does not work in the VM — I was unable to even “add new hardware” so as to install the driver form the Additions disc, as Windows insists on trying to auto-detect any new hardware. I especially like the new photo-realistic device icons, and the overhaul of the way Windows handles and ejects USB storage devices.
Overall and so far, it seems pretty nice, gives a signal that Microsoft has spent a lot of effort with Windows 7 on delivering a solid operating system.
Is Windows 7 enough to kill Linux on the desktop?
For the past three years I have been a Linux fan-boy using Ubuntu most of the time and Windows XP/Vista when I needed to play games. But my experience with Windows 7 was pretty good. If I am right Windows 7, would result in the move away from Voleware to Linux and OSX being stopped in in its tracks.
Personally, though, I am sticking to Linux. 
Tags: Apple, Linux, Ubuntu, Virutalbox, Windows, Windows 7
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