[Zxian]

Ok - I'll definately say wow about this... so much simpler than VMware or VPC, and the performance is just stunning...

[ripken204]

and its free, im definetly going to have fun playing with this

[CoffeeFiend]

Zxian, on Jan 18 2007, 07:32 PM, said:

Ok - I'll definately say wow about this... so much simpler than VMware or VPC, and the performance is just stunning...

I would say it's also it's biggest downside: simpler than other virtualization solutions also means "missing advanced features" in this case. It seems like a pretty good alternative to the overpriced vmware workstation though: 200$ for what everybody else gives away (this, VPC and others) or sells quite cheap (e.g. Parallels). Maybe soon enough VMWare will have to live off its ESX sales. They're only going to manage to sell their workstation product for so long at that price.

Not much of a server virtualization product though. VMWare Server (and Virtual Server 2005 R2) is still king there for many, many reasons: VirtualBox doesn't start as service which is absolutely essential, simpler networking, no image conversion tool to use all the existing vhd & vmdk images (nor the upcoming ones being released by various vendors as virtual appliances or as MS are doing right now for evals in vhd format), no migration products like VMWare has (P2V et al), no iSCSI support, no remote admin tools/console, doesn't have any of the scripting stuff vmware has, no upgrade path to something like ESX (with clustering, failover and all that), likely not quite the same level of support available (no major vendor behind it), etc.

By the way, VMWare has a new product: VMware Lab Manager (still beta), and it looks VERY nice and useful for programmers (for doing testing including deployment). Just too bad it'll cost an arm and a leg.

[Zxian]

@crahak - Sure... but for someone like me (and I'm sure I'm not alone here), VirtualBox does exactly what I need. I don't make use of scripts, remote administration, etc etc. I want something that I can test my latest XPlode config, or a new Linux distro, or something like that. A computer within a computer - nothing more - nothing less. Many people here like to use VMware to test out their nLite ISOs before installing them on their real PCs.

I don't think that anyone would argue that VirtualBox is a replacement for VMware, but it's a pretty good freeware alternative.

[KRYOGENIUS]

Hello

I have tested it last days. This software has a big potential in my opinion. Compare to the other solutions. Its simplicity make the software efficient instead VMWare and VPC.
Otherwise, some improvements (sure they will come soon) about usb, network and sound, will be better.

It is the only which allow me, without errors, to install solaris 10 !

Good chance Virtual Box

[Jeremy]

Does VirtualBox support basic networking in XP? I'm running a default vanilla XP Corp in it and can see my local workgroup but don't see my local shares listed. This is essential for what I'm doing right now and I can't seem to drag&drop to/from like in VMware. If it's currently not implemented that's fine. I can go back to VMware until it is. Just wondering, though.

[ripken204]

crap, i dont think it installs on xp x64, can anyone else confirm this?

edit: according to their site, "Support for Mac OS X and 64-bit operating systems is currently in the works."

This post has been edited by ripken204: 19 January 2007 - 09:38 PM

[dAbReAkA]

not bad, but it doesnt seem to support shared networking, or am i wrong?

[Camarade_Tux]

See the Closed-source features there : http://virtualbox.org/wiki/Editions

This post has been edited by Camarade_Tux: 20 January 2007 - 04:03 PM

[Tarun]

I've had AutoPatcher fail (CRC error) in VirtualBox, anyone else had that happen?

MD5 checksums match too, so perhaps VirtualBox doesn't like it?

[Zxian]

Does anyone know how to make a link to start a VM directly? I'd rather not have two windows open when I want to just run my single VM.

[DigeratiPrime]

not a direct solution but fyi you can close the first window or what i am calling the "vm mananger" and just leave the running VM window open.

unrelated but figured it might help someone currently the only way I know of to get files into the vm is by creating an iso file and mounting it or through a shared network folder but you must connect by ip ex "\\192.168.0.4"

[Zxian]

Yea Dig - I know I can do that, but I'd prefer to have a single shortcut to open just the VM.

[DigeratiPrime]

just checking because I was afraid to close the window at first

found a solution using VBoxManage make a shortcut to it like follows:

"\Program Files\InnoTek VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" startvm XP_PRO_SP2

I named my vm "XP_PRO_SP2" btw its case sensitive.

Have a look at the VirtualBox User Manual:

Quote

Chapter 6. Alternative VirtualBox frontends

Due to VirtualBox clean, modular design, it is relatively painless to create an alternative frontend to
the complex virtualization engine that is the core of VirtualBox. If VirtualBox, the graphical user
interface described in Chapter 3, Starting out with VirtualBox,does not suit your needs, VirtualBox
comes with several alternative frontends for certain scenarios. These are:

1. VBoxManage, which allows you to control all aspects of VirtualBox from the command line --
including those that the VirtualBox graphical user interface does not expose. This is described
in the following chapter.

2. VBoxSDL, an alternative graphical front end based on SDL. This is described in Section 6.2,
“VBoxSDL, the full-screen interface”.

3. VBoxVRDP, another frontend that produces no visible output on the host at all, but merely acts
as a VRDP server; see Section 6.3, “VBoxVRDP, the headless VRDP server”.

[FrozenBlade]

Isn't Virtual PC Free anyway?

[Zxian]

@Digerati - Thanks for that info. I'll have a deeper look into their possibilities.

[phkninja]

FrozenBlade- Yes Virtual PC is free, but it can be bloatware at times. also some people like to use more than 1 VM to test their ISO files before burning them to disk.

Also Virtual PC can be a bit complex for people who have never used a VM before (must add Additiona components to allow mouse to escape VM window withjout having to remeber the escape key)

[jaclaz]

phkninja said:

(must add Additiona components to allow mouse to escape VM window withjout having to remeber the escape key)

Yes , though rather faint, you can sometimes hear the screams of the poor cursor, hopelessly trapped inside the VM window.....

....the horror of it all....

...how cruel were the Connectix/Microsoft guys....



jaclaz

[Tarun]

phkninja, on Jan 25 2007, 04:17 AM, said:

Also Virtual PC can be a bit complex for people who have never used a VM before (must add Additiona components to allow mouse to escape VM window withjout having to remeber the escape key)

Yes, or simply press right alt as they tell you to.

[phkninja]

Tarun -

Quote

without having to remeber the escape key)

was stated above. It doesnt have to be the right ALT key, this can be changed