VirtualBox wins an award for Best Technology of 2009 from InfoWorld

InfoWorld has published it's opinions on this year's best technologies, and Sun's VirtualBox 3.1 is one. They find it to be a compelling high performance, cross-platform virtualization software alternative to VMware Workstation, noting that VirtualBox definitely supersedes this competitor in scalability.

VirtualBox 3.x supports up to 32 virtual CPUs per VM, while VMware Workstation supports just 4. "Add to this improved snapshot capabilities and 2-D acceleration for virtualized applications, and you have a solution nipping at VMware's heels in the general desktop virtualization space," writes InfoWorld's Randall C. Kennedy.

Another feature highlighted is VirtualBox's teleportation capability. The command-line function allows users to use a simple syntax to move a VM running under VirtualBox on one system and "teleport" it to another VirtualBox system, all the while preserving the VM's runtime state.

The most remarkable feature of VirtualBox is the speed with which it has developed into a real competitor in the desktop virtualization market. "In a little over a year, Sun has turned this relatively unknown fledgling from an obscure German software developer (Innotek) into a potent threat," observes Kennedy. "Our advice to VMware (and Microsoft): Be afraid. Be very afraid."

InfoWorld article: http://www.infoworld.com/print/105458

Virtualbox + Games = Solution to last major hurdle?

Just a quick post. This is probably old news to many of you, but I continue to have high hopes for VirtualBox solving the Gaming issue with Non-Windows system (i.e. Linux). My hope is that using VirtualBox, people will eventually be able to simply play their Windows videogames in Linux.

There are people already dabbling with this idea and things continue to improve.

Here are a couple of articles talking about success stories with gaming through VBox:
http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/virtualbox-3-directx.html
http://vmetc.com/2009/07/18/video-of-working-windows-directx-games-in-virtualbox-302-on-ubuntu-904/

These articles are somewhat old and VirtualBox has already released newer versions with even more 3D acceleration support. According to some of the information I have seen about porting videogames to Linux, one of the biggest hurdles is the 3rd party applications used. This is frequently things like login software, sound systems, or anti-cheating. These are often proprietary, totally closed source, random applications that can be really a problem for porting.

Using VirtualBox, it lets Windows handle everything but the direct video rendering, which is passed up to the host OS, where it is offloaded to the resident GPU. Assuming this pass-through can be done with minimal performance loss, this option for gaming is basically awesome, since it lets Windows handle all the nasty software pitfalls.

I remember when I learned about Virtualization software years ago, and naively thought I would be able to play my videogames through it. Now several years later, this is slowly becoming a reality. Using VirtualBox, the Linux community might be able to overcome much of the last major hurdle for Linux adoptation into the Desktop Market. Namely, gaming.

Move from VMWare to VirtualBox

If you use Virtual Machine software, in particular VMWare, this will be of interest to you. If you use Ubuntu, I suggestion you consider using VirtualBox for your VM needs and here is why. Please note, this is only talking about non-VMWare Fusion products.

I have been using VMWare for about 2 and 1/2 years now, but just recently I have decided to move to using VirtualBox.

The Reasons I Left VMWare

1. Apt-get Availability: VMWare is not available in the Ubuntu apt repositories and I have never found any other Ubuntu/Debian repos to use. It was once available via 3rd party repos from Ubuntu, but not for well over a year and a 1/2.
   
2. Compiling: Because there are no easily available apt-repositories packages, I have been compiling VMWare myself for a while. I don't mind compiling (in fact, I think it is a great and powerful feature of Linux) but because VMWare has close ties with the kernel, occasionally I would have to recompile VMWare after a kernel or kernel module update from Ubuntu. In general, the compiling was not a major annoyance but it was not convenient.
   
3. Compiling Problems: In Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04, I have not been able to compile VMWare 1.x no matter what I try. I attempted to use verrsion 2.x, but that didn't work out well.
   
4. Future VMWare Versions: I successfully compiled and ran VMWare 2.x but it radically fails to meet my needs for a Virtual Machine program. Furthermore, it fails (perhaps even spectacularly) to meet some of my most basic preferences for a program in general. I personally found its interface ridiculously slow, featureless, and extremely unusable.
   

Reasons I Moved to VirtualBox

1. Competitors: VirtualBox is the major competitor to VMWare.
   
2. Features: VirtualBox actually has a few features that VMWare does not have, such as dynamic virtual harddrive expansion and shrinking and not require full diskspace pre-allocation. VirtualBox also supports limited 3D Acceleration (both OpenGL and Direct3D), with more in development. (This feature VMWare completely lacks). I have yet to find any features missing in VirtualBox from VMWare.
3. Integration: Though my recent usage experience has not been excessive, the integration of VirtualBox into my host Linux system has been better and smoother than VMWare. In particular:
   
   • Using VMWare I had network issues when running KDE4 in a VM. VirtualBox has no such issues.
   • After installing the Guest Additions, my mouse can travel smoothly between my VirtualBox guest VM display and my desktop without being stuck/limited to the display area. (Vbox specifically informs you of this capability actually post-installation).
   • Guided steps with the GUI for sharing files between the host machine and guest VM. VMWare required mounting via commandline which worked but was somewhat buggy.
     
4. Availability: VirtualBox is available right through the Ubuntu apt-repositories. If I want a more up-to-date version, I can easily find apt-repo at PPA launchpad. (This sort of community is yet another reason why Ubuntu is so great).
5. Portability: Just like VMWare, Virtualbox runs on every major OS out there.
6. Cost: VirtualBox is free as you get. While VMWare never cost me anything to run, there may have come a day when I was faced with paying for their products. I won't have to worry about that with VirtualBox.
7. Performance: Though I have not thoroughly tested the performance, from my own experience and the reviews I have read online, VBox does not perform (process tasks as quickly) as VMWare but it certainly is not casually noticable. I know VBox is continuing to push for improvements in this area.
   

Summary
I have been using VirtualBox for about 2 weeks now and it is exceeding my needs. VBox meets my needs in a more convenient way than VMWare did before, especially after installing the Guest Additions. Though VBox has a different interface from VMWare, I think I actually prefer the organization concept and designs of the VirtualBox system over VMWare's organization, particularly with shared resources. Overall, I think it is a better piece of software.