Filed under: OS, Freeware, Open Source
Sun xVM VirtualBox: free x86 virtualiztion
We first noted the open-source virtualization application VirtualBox way back in 2007, and since then this open-source competitor to VMware Fusion and Parallels has come a long way. Most importantly, perhaps, the project was acquired by Sun Microsystems and has now become Sun xVM VirtualBox with a great deal more support.The application is free for personal use and is available for a wide variety of x86 platforms including OS X on Intel Macs. The feature set is extensive and includes a lot of the features of its commercial counterparts. That said, it lacks many of the niceties of those programs, including any kind of 3D graphics support. Nonetheless, it's hard to argue with free and is probably worth checking out if your virtualized Windows requirements are modest.
Sun xVM VirtualBox is a free download from Sun.
Thanks, Dean!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
SubGenius said 9:34AM on 5-23-2008
Can you virtualize MacOS?
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utterer said 10:02AM on 5-23-2008
With a boxed copy of Mac OS X, no.
Possibly with something along the lines of a Kalway installer disc for Mac OS X, it may be possible.
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Stu J said 10:14AM on 5-23-2008
I may try this, was using fusion on a trial basis for 30 days, and then saw the Parallels on one of the bundles recently. I took the plunge, and was very dissapointed!
I found VMWare's software showed off just how well a mac could run windows XP - on the other hand I find parallels amazingly slow & jerky - the difference is immense. Whether I have to make any changes to any settings backend I don't know - but in my mind it should work out of the box just like VMware Fusion did.
Before shelling out more money on fusion & ditching parallels as a complete loss I shall check out this one tonight.
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Paul said 12:49PM on 5-23-2008
Although I've switched mainly to Fusion (mainly because I can directly use the VMs set up for us at work), I still have Parallels and my experience is different from yours, albeit after installing Parallels Tools. That installs the video drivers and some other stuff into your Windows install and removes all jerkiness.
VMWare Fusion also has a tools install, and yes, it does work better out of the box without installing its tools, but doing it in Parallels only takes a couple of minutes.
If you've already bought Parallels and don't need to use VMWare images, I see no reason to try anything else.
One more thing, make sure you don't assign too much RAM to your VM ... that'll make less RAM available to OS X and hence to the Parallels/Fusion application itself. I recently fixed a colleague's computer at work that was slow as molasses, after finding he had assigned 1.5GB out of 2GB to his VM. I find 1/4 - 1/3 of the total RAM to be a sweet spot for VM and host machine performance.
Stu J said 7:29PM on 5-24-2008
Paul - good stuff!! I did as you suggested (lowered the memory & installed the tools that I never knew were there!) and hey presto, runs very smoothly now.
Think I will stick with this until newer versions come out & I can check out everything else.
Thanks for the tips !
Grindcore Ocarina said 10:23AM on 5-23-2008
I downloaded this the other day. You'll go mad trying to open the .dmg.cpgz file. It's not. It's just a DMG file that is named a .cpgz file. All you have to do is rename it to .dmg (don't try and extract it or unzip it). It'll then open as a normal dmg.
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Luigi193 said 10:36AM on 5-23-2008
Thanks!
a ham sandwich said 11:05AM on 5-23-2008
i came across a cpgz file the other day. what the hell is it?
Rob said 12:23PM on 5-23-2008
For those unaware of what a cpgz file is, it's a gzip'ed cpio archive.
Marc said 10:49AM on 5-23-2008
I have been waiting to have a VM for OSX. Mac-on-Mac doesn't work so well. Hopefully this will do the job.
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HandyMac said 11:04AM on 5-23-2008
I wouldn't know what it's like for "real work", or for Windows (which I don't do), but the idea of paying for a commercial utility so I could set up Ubuntu Linux in a VM for occasional dabbling seemed kind of nuts, so I was happy to discover VirtualBox. And even more happy to find it quite pleasant and easy to use, for my purposes anyway. Good job!
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RobK said 11:10AM on 5-23-2008
The new Sun website on VirtualBox is terrible. It does not explain the difference between the non-free Binary version and the really free Open Source Version.
I suspect the differences are the same as in the past. The free Open Source version does not have USB support and some other features; whereas, the binary version does have USB support and some other minor features.
The Binary version is free for home, non-commercial use. So if you are using Sun VirtualBox at home, you probably want to use the Binary version.
If you want to use the Binary version for commercial use, you will need to pay for it. The web site does not say how much Sun is now charging for a commercial use license.
On the other hand, I believe you can use the Open Source version free of charge for commercial use. But I suspect like, in the past, it does not have USB support and some other minor features are missing.
Note -- The free Open Source version is just source code. You will need to install the free Apple XCode development tools to compile it. It is not hard.
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HandyMac said 11:24AM on 5-23-2008
The original home page, which is considerably more informative, is still available:
http://www.virtualbox.org
Everyone seems to think Sun's takeover of VB is a Good Thing, but I'm not so sure. I don't really know much about it, having been exclusively a Mac user for 20 years (this month, in fact), but my general impression is that Sun's corporate culture is kind of sloppy, as in Java -- which seems to work okay but somehow also has perpetual problems -- and OpenOffice -- a great idea, and mostly pretty good, but somehow never up to even the standards Mac users have grown to expect. Everything Sun does seems to top out at about 80%. Anyway, it's a done deal, so we'll see where it goes.
For some thoughts on "The new Sun livery" (the first listed "improvement" in this version of VB), see:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?t=6351
(Fortunately, I still had the old version, so replaced the icon.)
HandyMac said 11:11AM on 5-23-2008
Also see the community forum for VirtualBox on Mac OS X Hosts:
http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewforum.php?f=8
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King Fysel said 11:37AM on 5-23-2008
It's importantly to not use bogus words like, oh, 'importantly', as in "most importantly".
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James Madley said 12:30PM on 5-23-2008
You've lost me.
Simon Arch said 8:20PM on 5-23-2008
importantly |imˈpôrtnt-lē|
adverb
1 [ sentence adverb ] used to emphasize a significant point or matter : a nondrinking, nonsmoking, and, importantly, nonpolitical sportsman.
2 in a manner designed to draw attention to one's importance : Kruger strutted forward importantly.
noza said 11:47AM on 5-23-2008
I've been playing with VirtualBox on and off since before Sun acquired it. It's a decent start, but it's very buggy and the interface is horrible. I've had it lock up many times and twice lock up my entire Mac Pro, forcing a reboot.
Given that if you watch the sales and rebates, you can pick up either VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop for about US$40, it just doesn't seem worth it to mess around with VB if you're actually serious about doing any real work.
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Jamus said 1:41PM on 5-23-2008
Tried it a week or so ago. So far it runs great with the various Linux appliances and DamnSmallLinux I tried, but I have not tried it with actual Windows yet.
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SN said 2:14PM on 5-23-2008
I have been using VBox for a few months now. The new 1.6.0 version is far improved over the previous adding in USB 2.0 support and Guest-Host file sharing. There are no commercial dollars backing the development of this utility. That considered, this is one amazing piece of open source software. I have never had a lockup or crash. Although the first time I launched to install XP it didn't work. Since then it has come up every time.
I am running XP on my MBA and am fairly close to eliminating Bootcamp. Yes, the VM is slow, but I like having both file systems side-by-side. Once the network-bridging is in place, I think I will be all set.
Oh, and the SW is only about 30MB, not bad! Although I am not sure how that compares to VMWare or Parallels.
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