VirtualBox 1.6: new features
May 4, 2008 — liquidat
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.
May 5, 2008 at 0:25
1.6 adds a QT4 frontend. I can’t believe you missed that.
May 5, 2008 at 6:04
Well, it’s not in the changelog. Could you provide a link?
May 5, 2008 at 9:31
http://www.virtualbox.org/browser/trunk/src/VBox/Frontends/VirtualBox4
May 5, 2008 at 9:34
I’m running it now with windows xp as guest on ubuntu 8.04. The speed is great. It feels quite a bit faster than native XP even though the guest can only use one of the four cpu cores.
Seamless mode works rather well. You do see some painting problems now and then.
On thing I’d like to get working is to let the windows guest use both of the monitors. This is possible by extending the desktop window over two monitors. But seamless mode and fullscreen mode do not support this. Best would be if the virtualbox graphics drivers would report the multimonitor setup to the guest.
May 5, 2008 at 9:49
[...] VirtualBox 1.6: new features [...]
May 5, 2008 at 12:07
@Jos: “It feels quite a bit faster than native XP” - you are imagining things. I love virtualbox, but with heavy loads it still suffer for me (doing development and graphics stuff), a virtual machine is nowhere near the native imho.
May 5, 2008 at 14:07
@deadcabbit: “you are imagining things” - it seems like file access is faster. This is probably due to a better layout of the file or a better driver for my RAID card under linux. I was running Windows x64 natively and now I run the 32 bit version. This may also make a difference.
Where the difference comes from exactly is not so important as the observation that even with single core in virtualbox it feels faster than when running natively on the quadcore.
May 5, 2008 at 20:42
Now I just can’t wait for multiple-CPU support. That will be when I can finally, completely, and irreversably, ditch having to have a “real” windows box.
May 5, 2008 at 21:12
chet, to me the changes of the GUI itself were rather small - despite of the new toolkit version used in the background.
May 5, 2008 at 21:55
Well, my first impressiong is holy |@#~! Didn’t the deb size triplicate from 1.5.6 ?
May 10, 2008 at 0:25
Maybe there is a qt4 frontend in development, but 1.6 doesn’t include it. Qt4 is neither in the dependencies of the package, nor is it loaded at runtime (gexmap shows it loading qt3)
May 10, 2008 at 2:21
hey guys,
i tried the new version..and it’s really good a lot of improvements…but i had this problem.. i want to run my built in webcam in my windows xp guest … how can i do that?..
May 10, 2008 at 11:38
linux-newbie, I’m not sure that this is actually possible. In general you have to activate the USB controller in the virtual machine and see if the webcam is passed through.
May 10, 2008 at 20:25
thanx liquidat for the replay,
what about vmware ..i ran win xp as a guest under ubuntu i found the usb device for my build in webcam..but whenever i open the webcam with the skype it just freezes on one pic after a few seconds maybe 1 or 2 ?….is there a solution for that?
May 11, 2008 at 16:02
Sorry, no idea there. Try to ask at a forum or something. Or update the drivers of your windows in VMware.
May 15, 2008 at 8:14
Hey thanks for this useful information. Can you focus some light on what exactly is provided with A webservice API in Virtual Box. Can I control my remote Virtual machines through any http interface an like xen?
May 15, 2008 at 8:50
Amol, have a look at the manual: section 10.1 documents the web API’s. The basic idea is that you can communicate using http and xml. That does not mean however that there is already a web-page set up to control your VirtualBox (yet).