VirtualBox 1.6: new features

VirtualBox has released the newest version of its virtual machine software. Among the features is seamless window support for Linux guests and MacOS and Solaris host support.

The new version is the first majoer release of VirtualBox since the company behind, Innotek, was acquired by SUN. And this release comes along with a set of new features:

• Solaris and Mac OS X host support
• Seamless windowing for Linux and Solaris guests
• Guest Additions for Solaris
• A webservice API
• SATA hard disk (AHCI) controller
• Experimental Physical Address Extension (PAE) support
• GUI: added accessibility support (50
• VMM: many fixes for VT-x/SVM hardware-supported virtualization
• Linux installer: support DKMS for compiling the kernel module
• Linux additions: several fixes, experimental support for RandR 1.2
• Linux host: compatibility fixes with Linux 2.6.25

The changelog lists numerous additional changes. Among them are notes that the general system has been improved speed and power wise. This is reflected by a new file format: after the update VirtualBox asks to update the file system from linux-1.2 to linux-1.3.
Additionally the download section now has precompiled binaries for more distribution versions. There are even rpms available for the fugure Fedora 9.

The new release is again an evolutionary improvement which again introduces a set of new supported machines. The new ownvership of SUN can only be seen by numerous improvements in the Solaris support. Otherwise, the development of VirtualBox seems to be just like usual: evolving, stable but always with a set of new features.