Sun released the first update to its open source desktop virtualization program, Sun xVM VirtualBox 2.0, which brings improved performance and 64-bit operating system support. VirtualBox, part of Sun's xVM series, runs on a wide variety of host operating systems, including 32- and 64-bit versions of Linux, Mac OS X, OpenSolaris, Solaris, and Windows.

In the installation tests performed by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, "While the manual claims that it supports 64-bit Mac OS X, the program doesn't actually support it yet. That said, VirtualBox runs a remarkable number of operating systems on any of these platforms, from MS-DOS and Windows 98 to OpenBSD and OS/2."

Review his tests, hosting VirtualBox on openSUSE 11 and Windows XP SP3: "In every case, my installations of VirtualBox, said Vaughan-Nichols, "and then the guest operating systems went flawlessly. However, other users might run into some quirks. For example, VirtualBox works on any PC with an x86 architecture, and it supports Intel's VT-x and AMD's AMD-V hardware virtualization components; however, it doesn't check for these architectures, nor does it support either by default. If you have the right chip set, you can turn on support manually via the program's control center."

He describes that with Linux, you will need to add users to the vboxusers group before you can use the program. In addition, he said, "VirtualBox is a lean, mean hypervisor. It only takes up approximately 30MB of hard drive space. However, to use it, you'll need multiple gigabytes of disk for the virtualized operating system and its files."

Vaughan-Nichols said that you will also need enough RAM for your base operating system and every virtual machine (VM) instance. In addition, he said, "If I had high-end graphic cards or networking interface cards on either system, it would have been a different story. VirtualBox is a paravirtualization virtual program, which means the VM accesses some system devices as virtual devices."

Some VirtualBox's functions, such as setting up the Shared Folders common drive space for trading files smoothly between the host and guest operating system, are available in VirtualBox's Guest Additions. VirtualBox Guest Additions are actually included in the VirtualBox program, by choosing Install Guest Addons from the Devices menu on the VirtualBox window that frames the running VM. This mounts the Guest Additions program's ISO file.

According to Vaughan-Nichols, "VirtualBox runs extremely well. Over the course of almost a week of constant work on the systems, I couldn't find a single Windows or Linux program that didn't run correctly on a VirtualBox guest."

Side Note: Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols has been writing about technology and the business of technology since CP/M-80 was the operating system of choice for PCs and 2BSD Unix was what the cool kids used on their computers.

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