VirtualBox 4.0.8 released 5-16-2011

This is a maintenance release: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

The following items were fixed and/or added:

• Mac OS X hosts: fixed incompatibility with recent Mac OS X versions in 64-bit mode (bug #8474)
• Mac OS X hosts: fixed incompatibility with hosts with more than 16 cores (bug #8389)
• Mac OS X hosts: fixed painting corruptions on a second monitor in 64-bit mode (bug #7606)
• GUI: restored functionality to set an empty host key to disallow any host key combination (4.0.6 regression; bug #8793)
• VBoxManage: added controlvm screenshotpng subcommand for saving the screenshot of a running VM in PNG format
• VBoxHeadless: fixed potential crash during shutdown (Windows hosts only)
• NAT: built-in services use the correct Ethernet addresses in Ethernet header and in ARP requests
• Host-only networking: fixed adapter reference counting
• E1000: fixed rare guest crashes with Linux SMP guests (bug #8755)
• SATA: fixed guest disk corruption under rare circumstances (only relevant for guests with more than 2GB RAM; bug #8826)
• Storage: fixed data corruption after a snapshot was taken with asynchronous I/O enabled (bug #8498)
• Floppy: several improvement
• HPET: another fix for time jumps (bug #8707)
• USB: removed assumption that string descriptors are null-terminated (Windows hosts only)
• 3D support: fixed a potential crash when resizing the guest window
• 3D support: fixed GNOME 3 rendering under Ubuntu 11.04 and Fedora 15
• Snapshots: fixed another bug which could lose entries in the media registry when restoring a snapshot (bug #8363)
• Shared Folders: don’t stop mounting the other valid folders if one host folder is inaccessible (4.0.6 regression)
• Linux Additions: check whether gcc and make are installed before building kernel modules (bug #8795)
• Solaris Additions: added support for X.Org Server 1.10
• Guest Additions: fixed inappropriate Guest Additions update notification when using vendor-specific version suffixes (bug #8844)

Oracle VirtualBox 4.0.6 release

This is a maintenance release:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed incorrect handling of ballooned pages when restoring a VMM from a saved state
• VMM: don’t crash on hosts with more than 64 cores / hyperthreads; implemented support for up to 256 host cores (except Windows hosts; bug #8489)
• VMM: fixed guru meditation for PAE guests running on hosts without PAE (bug #8006)
• VMM: fixed slow Linux guests with raw mode and recent guest kernels (bug #8726)
• GUI: support host key combinations (bug #979)
• GUI: fixed progress indicator (bug #7814)
• GUI: show the mouse pointer while the VM is paused if the USB tablet mouse emulation is used (bug #6799)
• GUI: adapt the snapshot folder as well when renaming a VM (bug #8469)
• GUI: persistently remember the last folders of the disk/DVD/floppy selectors
• GUI: never allow to start a VM with USB-2.0 activated if the proper extension pack is missing (bug #8182)
• GUI: fixed hang/crash when opening a file dialog in an non-existing folder (bug #8673)
• Snapshots: fixed a bug which could lose entries in the media registry when restoring a snapshot (bug #8363)
• Snapshots: allow snapshots to be stored in the VM directory
• 3D support: fixed a crash if a VM was forced to terminate (Windows hosts only; bug #7133)
• Storage: fixed memory leak (4.0 regression; bug #7966)
• Storage: fixed access to iSCSI targets over internal network
• Storage: fixed reading from disks with more than one snapshot for VHD and VMDK images with disabled host cache (bug #8408)
• Storage: fixed a possible hang during VM suspend after an I/O error occurred
• Storage: fixed a possible hang during VM suspend / reset (bug #8276, #8294)
• Storage: automatically create a diff image when attaching a streamOptimized VMDK image to a VM
• ATA/SATA: fixed automounting of virtual CD/DVD mediums with recent Linux distributions by correctly reporting the current profile as ‘none’ if no medium is present
• Buslogic: fixed emulation for certain guests (e.g. jRockit VE)
• Host-Only Networking: fixed interface creation failure on Windows hosts (4.0.4 regression; bug #8362)
• Host-Only & Bridged & Internal Networking: fix for processing promiscuous mode requests by VMs, defaulting to switch behaviour
• Host-Only Networking: fixed connectivity issue after resuming the host from sleep (bug #3625)
• Bridged Networking: support for interface bonding on Mac OS X hosts (bug #8731)
• NAT: fixed processing of ARP announcements for guests with static assigned IPs (bug #8609)
• VRDP: backward compatibility with VRDPAuth external authentication library (bug #8063)
• Shared Folders: don’t fail to start a VM if a path is not absolute, for example when importing an OVF from a different host (bug #7941)
• Audio: fixed crash under certain conditions (bug #8527)
• USB: fixed a crash when plugging certain USB devices (bug #8699)
• HPET: fixed time jumps when reading the counter (bug #8707)
• OVF/OVA: automatically adjust disk paths if the VM name is changed on import
• OVF/OVA: fix export to slow medias
• OVF/OVA: automatically repair inconsistent appliances with multiple disks (bug #8253)
• rdesktop-vrdp: fixed an assertion triggered under certain conditions (bug #8593)
• Windows hosts: fixed occasional hangs during VM shutdown because sometimes COM was not properly uninitialized
• Mac OS X hosts: prevent the mouse from leaving the VM window while captured
• Mac OS X hosts: keep aspect ratio while resizing in scale mode (shift for old behaviour) (part of bug #7822)
• X11 hosts: fixed Yen key support (bug #8438)
• X11 hosts: fixed a regression which caused Host+F1 to pop up help instead of sending Ctrl+Alt+F1
• Linux hosts / Linux Additions: mangle IPRT symbols to allow installing VirtualBox inside a VM while the Guest Additions are active (bug #5686)
• Linux hosts / Linux guests: workaround for a bug in GLIBC older than version 1.11 leading to crashes under certain conditions (signed/unsigned problem with memchr on 64-bit machines)
• Solaris hosts: fixed a deadlock in event semaphores that could lead to unkillable VM processes
• Windows Additions: fixed Sysprep parameter handling
• Windows Additions: fixed spontaneous guest reboots under certain circumstances (4.0.2 regression; bugs #8406, #8429)
• Windows Additions: added auto logon support for locked workstations on legacy Windows versions
• Windows Additions: fixed driver bugcheck error when handling PnP messages (4.0 regression; bug #8367)
• Windows Additions: fixed memory leak in VBoxVideo
• X11 Additions: added support for X.Org Server 1.10 final
• Linux Additions: Linux kernel 2.6.39-rc1 fixes
• Linux Additions: improved auto-run support (bug #5509)
• Linux Additions: fix mouse support on SUSE 11 SP 1 guests (bug #7946)
• Solaris Additions: added support for X.Org Server 1.9
• Guest Additions: various bugfixes for guest control execution
• Webservice: use own log file, with log rotation to limit size

Virtual Box 4.0 Released

Download

From the change log:

VirtualBox 4.0.0 (released 2010-12-22)

This version is a major update. The following major new features were added:

• Reorganization of VirtualBox into a base package and Extension Packs; see chapter 1.5, Installing VirtualBox and extension packs, see the manual for more information
• New settings/disk file layout for VM portability; see chapter 10.1, Where VirtualBox stores its files, see the manual for more information
• Major rework of the GUI (now called “VirtualBox Manager”):
  • Redesigned user interface with guest window preview (also for screenshots)
  • New “scale” display mode with scaled guest display; see chapter 1.8.5, Resizing the machine’s window, see the manual for more information
  • Support for creating and starting .vbox desktop shortcuts (bug #1889)
  • The VM list is now sortable
  • Machines can now be deleted easily without a trace including snapshots and saved states, and optionally including attached disk images (bug #5511; also, VBoxManage unregistervm –delete can do the same now)
  • Built-in creation of desktop file shortcuts to start VMs on double click (bug #2322)
• VMM: support more than 1.5/2 GB guest RAM on 32-bit hosts
• New virtual hardware:
  • Intel ICH9 chipset with three PCI buses, PCI Express and Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI); see chapter 3.4.1, “Motherboard” tab, see the manual for more information
  • Intel HD Audio, for better support of modern guest operating systems (e.g. 64-bit Windows; bug #2785)
• Improvements to OVF support (see chapter 1.12, Importing and exporting virtual machines, see the manual for more information):
  • Open Virtualization Format Archive (OVA) support
  • Significant performance improvements during export and import
  • Creation of the manifest file on export is optional now
  • Imported disks can have formats other than VMDK
• Resource control: added support for limiting a VM’s CPU time and IO bandwidth; see chapter 5.8, Limiting bandwidth for disk images, see the manual for more information
• Storage: support asynchronous I/O for iSCSI, VMDK, VHD and Parallels images
• Storage: support for resizing VDI and VHD images; see chapter 8.21, VBoxManage modifyhd, see the manual for more information.
• Guest Additions: support for multiple virtual screens in Linux and Solaris guests using X.Org server 1.3 and later
• Language bindings: uniform Java bindings for both local (COM/XPCOM) and remote (SOAP) invocation APIs

Installing VirtualBox 3.2 in Debian-based Linux Mint 9

I have struggled with this in the past, since VBox requires some different versions of packages that aren’t easily accessible/installable…at least until I found this hint.

1. Download VBox
2. From a terminal

      sudo dpkg -i "vbox-version".deb
      sudo apt-get -f install

That's it

VirtualBox 3.2.6 now available

Another maintenance release, changelog

Download

VirtualBox 3.2.0 Beta 1 released, err Oracle VM Virtualbox

What a name! Oracle VM VirtualBox?

Major version update!!!

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

VirtualBox 3.1.4 now available

Actually, Feb 12th was the release, but I’ve been neglecting my little VM babys.

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Too many fixes to list!

VirtualBox 3.1.2 update released

Not exactly breaking news, but VBox 3.1.2 was released 12/17/2009.  Its a maintenance release with the following fixes:

VMM: fixed SMP stability regression

USB: fixed USB related host crashes on 64 bits Windows hosts (#5237)

Main: wrong default HWVirtExExclusive value for new VMs (bug #5664)

Main: DVD passthrough setting was lost (bug #5681)

VBoxManage: iSCSI disks do not support adding a comment (bug #4460)

VBoxManage: added missing –cpus and –memory options to OVF –import

GUI: fixed VBox URL in update dialog for German and Dutch languages

GUI: NLS updates

OVF: fixed export of non standard storage controller names (bug #5643)

Solaris hosts: several USB fixes (including support for Apple iPhone)

Mac OS X hosts: several fixes for the 3D support

Mac OS X hosts: re-enabled CMD+Key combinations, even if the Host-Key isn’t CMD (bug #5684)

Mac OS X hosts: fixed to fast scrolling if the mouse wheel is used inside the guest (bug #5672)

Mac OS X hosts: dock & menubar don’t disappear in fullscreen when the VM is not running on the primary display (bug #1762)

Mac OS X hosts: added an option for enabling “Auto show Dock & Menubar in fullscreen” (bug #5636)

Windows host installer: fixed starting VBox with wrong privileges right after installation (bug #4162)

Host interface and host-only networking: prevent driver from unloading while a VM is still active (Windows host only)

Host-only networking: fixed host-only interface creation (Windows host only) (bug #5708)

Virtio-net: don’t crash without an attached network

Virtio-net: fixed the issue with intermittent network in VM with several virtual CPU cores.

NAT: fixed port-forwarding regressions (bug #5666)

NAT: fixed crash under certain conditions (bug #5427)

NAT: fixed resolving of names containing a slash or underscore when using the host resolver DNS proxy (bug #5698)

ATA: fixed sporadic crash when resuming after a VM was forcefully paused (e.g. due to iSCSI target being unavailable)

SATA: fixed raw vmdk disks (bug #5724)

Linux guests: increased the default memory for Redhat and Fedora guests

Linux Guest Additions: fixed installation on RHEL 3.9 guests and on some 64bit guests

Linux Guest Additions: prevent SELinux warnings concerning text relocations in VBoxOGL.so (bug #5690)

X11 guests: fixed mouse support for some Xorg 1.4 guests (openSUSE 11.0)

X11 guests: fixed xorg.conf modification for some older Xorg releases (openSUSE 11.1)

Windows guests: fixed some VBoxService shutdown issues

Windows guests: fixed VBoxVideo spinlock issues on NT4

Windows Guest Additions: fixed uninstallation issues of NT4

Shared folders: fixed resolving of symlink target (bug #5631)

2D Video acceleration: delay loading of OpenGL dlls for Windows hosts to avoid GUI crashes on misconfigured systems

2D Video acceleration: fixed issues with video picture not displayed on playback

Installing VirtualBox 3 in LinuxMint/Ubuntu

I have a second computer set up as a triple boot system (LinuxMint 7 x64, Utlimate Linux 2.3 x64, and Windows 7 Pro x64).

After installing VBox 3 inside VBox 3 running on my main Win7 system.  I thought I’d install VBox on my native LinuxMint system.

I thought I’d just downloaded and installed VBox, but alas, that simple 1-step operation is still missing (at least for VBox) with Linux.

There’s a good set of steps for doing this here: Installing VirtualBox 3.0 on an Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop

It’s not difficult, but you can’t right-click your .deb file and just install with Archive Manager or GDebi.  LinuxMint does provide a simple install if you want to go all the way back to version 2 of VBox.

Next step:  adding my Windows server shares to Linux.

VBox in VBox screenshot

Here’s a screenshot:

Although it works, I wouldn’t recommend using it in any kind of production environment.  The VM seems to reset or abort occassionally with the 3.0.6 version running, I haven’t tried 3.0.8 yet.