VirtualBox 3.2.0 Beta 1 released

April 28th, 2010

VirtualBox 3.2.0 Beta 1 is available. Being that Sun was aquired by Oracle, it's now called Oracle VM VirtualBox

Changelog below-

   Information

VirtualBox Version 3.2.0 is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• Following the acquisition of Sun Microsystems by Oracle Corporation, the product is now called Oracle VM VirtualBox and all references were changed without impacting compatibility.
• Experimental support for Mac OS X guests
• Memory ballooning to dynamically in- or decrease the amount of RAM used by a VM (64-bit hosts only) (see the manual for more information)
• CPU hot-plugging for Linux (hot-add and hot-remove) and certain Windows guests (hot-add only) (see the manual for more information)
• New Hypervisor features: with both VT-x/AMD-V on 64-bit hosts, using large pages can improve performance (see the manual for more information); also, on VT-x, unrestricted guest execution is now supported (if nested paging is enabled with VT-x, real mode and protected mode without paging code runs faster, which mainly speeds up guest OS booting)
• Support for deleting snapshots while the VM is running
• Support for multi-monitor guest setups in the GUI (see the manual for more information)
• USB tablet/keyboard emulation for improved user experience if no Guest Additions are available
• LsiLogic SAS controller emulation
• RDP video acceleration
• NAT engine configuration via API and VBoxManage
• Guest Additions: added support for executing guest applications from the host system
• OVF: enhanced OVF support with custom namespace to preserve settings that are not part of the base OVF standard

In addition, the following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed crash with the OpenSUSE 11.3 milestone kernel during early boot (software virtualization only)
• VMM: fixed OS/2 guest crash with nested paging enabled
• VMM: fixed Windows 2000 guest crash when configured with a large amount of RAM (bug 5800)
• VMM: fixed massive display performance loss (AMD-V with nested paging only)
• Linux/Solaris guests: PAM module for automatic logons added
• GUI: guess the OS type from the OS name when creating a new VM
• GUI: added VM setting for passing the time in UTC instead of passing the local host time to the guest (bug 1310)
• GUI: fixed seamless mode on secondary monitors (bugs 1322 and 1669)
• GUI: added --seamless and --fullscreen command line switches (bug 4220)
• Settings: be more robust when saving the XML settings files
• Mac OS X: rewrite of the CoreAudio driver and added support for audio input (bug 5869)
• Mac OS X: external VRDP authentication module support (bug 3106)
• Mac OS X: Moved the realtime dock preview settings to the VM settings (no global option anymore). Use the dock menu to configure it.
• Mac OS X: added the VM menu to the dock menu
• VBoxManage: iSCSI disks do not support adding a comment (bug 4460)
• 3D support: fixed corrupted surface rendering (bug 5695)
• 3D support: fixed VM crashes when using ARB_IMAGING (bug 6014)
• 3D support: fixed assertion when guest applications uses several windows with single OpenGL context (bug 4598)
• 3D support: added GL_ARB_pixel_buffer_object support
• 3D support: added OpenGL 2.1 support
• 3D support: fixed Final frame of Compiz animation not updated to the screen (Mac OS X only) (bug 4653)
• Added support for virtual high precision event timer (HPET)
• LsiLogic: Fixed detection of hard disks attached to port 0 when using the drivers from LSI
• NAT: fixed ICMP latency (non-Windows hosts only; bug 6427)
• Keyboard/Mouse emulation: fixed handling of simultaneous mouse/keyboard events under certain circumstances (bug 5375)
• Shared folders: fixed issue with copying read-only files (Linux guests only; bug 4890)
• OVF: fixed mapping between two IDE channels in OVF and the one IDE controller in VirtualBox

Please do NOT use this VirtualBox Beta release on production machines. A VirtualBox Beta release should be considered a bleeding-edge release meant for early evaluation and testing purposes.

VirtualBox 3.2.0 Beta 1 released

Nice....there are a couple of features in that list that certainly get my attention. I will be testing this out soon on a box.

any 3-D acceleration for linux guests yet?

If anybody sees any info on trying to run an OS X guest within virtualbox 3.2.0...please let me know or post it here. I actually own a retail copy of 10.5.6 sitting here at home with me that is useless to me unless I could fire it up virtually somehow.

I tried it tonight, but it just dumped out right at the start of the install...so there must be tricks, but I don't see anything yet on the forums.

pparks1 said:

If anybody sees any info on trying to run an OS X guest within virtualbox 3.2.0...please let me know or post it here. I actually own a retail copy of 10.5.6 sitting here at home with me that is useless to me unless I could fire it up virtually somehow.

I tried it tonight, but it just dumped out right at the start of the install...so there must be tricks, but I don't see anything yet on the forums.

OS X can work in VMWare and Virtualbox with certain .iso files, but, its really pointless since you cannot use QE/CI in either of them (QE/CI is essentially 2D/3D Graphic Acceleration).

If you still wish to have the information please PM me. :)

DarkNovaGamer said:

OS X can work in VMWare and Virtualbox with certain .iso files, but, its really pointless since you cannot use QE/CI in either of them (QE/CI is essentially 2D/3D Graphic Acceleration).

If you still wish to have the information please PM me. :)

Thanks. I'm not interested in running any type of hacked installation disk. Like I said, I have a legit legal copy sitting on my desk and if I can use that one...that is what I would use. Either way, I've had a few mac computers that I have borrowed over time..the most recent being a MacBook Pro and OS X really never did much for me. I doubt much has really changed there. So, if it doesn't work, I'm not hard broken in the least.

pparks1 said:

DarkNovaGamer said:

OS X can work in VMWare and Virtualbox with certain .iso files, but, its really pointless since you cannot use QE/CI in either of them (QE/CI is essentially 2D/3D Graphic Acceleration).

If you still wish to have the information please PM me. :)

Thanks. I'm not interested in running any type of hacked installation disk. Like I said, I have a legit legal copy sitting on my desk and if I can use that one...that is what I would use. Either way, I've had a few mac computers that I have borrowed over time..the most recent being a MacBook Pro and OS X really never did much for me. I doubt much has really changed there. So, if it doesn't work, I'm not hard broken in the least.

Well whether you installed a modified version of OS X or a retail copy, either way your breaking the EULA.

At any rate I know there are a few methods to get it working just by loading an ISO before the Retail image. Like I said, if you want the information just let me know.

DarkNovaGamer said:

Well whether you installed a modified version of OS X or a retail copy, either way your breaking the EULA.

Breaking the EULA is not my concern. I bought this outright and don't own a MAC and won't be buying one. I'm concerned about what somebody might have baked into a hacked copy. I just don't trust 'em.

pparks1 said:

DarkNovaGamer said:

Well whether you installed a modified version of OS X or a retail copy, either way your breaking the EULA.

Breaking the EULA is not my concern. I bought this outright and don't own a MAC and won't be buying one. I'm concerned about what somebody might have baked into a hacked copy. I just don't trust 'em.

Hack and modified are two separate things. You feel uncomfortable using a modified version of OS X used by thousands with no ill effects?