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Some (Biased) Observations about VirtualBox


raymac46

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Having tried a bunch of distros recently in VirtualBox I thought I'd make a few (biased) general observations.

  1. I still think VBox is a great way to test out a new distro for look and feel but there are still noticeable differences between a virtual and an actual install. Virtual hardware isn't as good as the real thing, and certainly virtual networking is much different if you are used to configuring wifi. You won't get a quad core CPU usually or a high end video solution in a virtual machine.
  2. If a distro works well in VirtualBox, great. If it doesn't, that does not mean it will fail if you install it "on the rails."
  3. I've had more problems getting distros to work in the Linux version of VBox than in Windows. Distros that choke after an upgrade or kernel panic after an install in Linux VBox work just fine in Windows. I don't know if Oracle pays more attention to its Windows version but it seems to be a bit more stable.
  4. The more "user friendly" distros (by that I mean lots of software off the shelf) are a better bet for VBox. The thing I like about Mint, Mageia, SUSE at least is that everything just works. You don't need to build guest additions to get the desired performance in Virtual Box.
  5. If a distro has a default Desktop Environment like KDE it's best to just use that in VBox and not try something exotic. For example using Gnome with Open SUSE gave me some glitches in VBox that KDE did not. Xfce seems to be a great choice in VBox for some reason so that would be my #1 alternate pick if you really need one.
  6. If you aren't interested in testing and just want to run something that works in a virtual machine, Debian Wheezy with Xfce is about as good as it gets. You'll have to build the guest additions but after that - rock solid.

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Guest LilBambi

If you do not care for VirtualBox, there is a much better virtualization software from VMWare for Windows, Linux and Mac. Like everything else, installation purchases are easy for Windows and Mac, but here's a page for installing the Workstation on Linux:

 

https://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_install_linux.html

 

http://www.vmware.com/products/workstation

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Guest LilBambi

It's not cheap ... which is why I love VirtualBox so much! Just wish it wasn't dependent on Java. :hysterical:

 

Here's the specs:

 

VMware Workstation runs on most Windows or Linux host operating systems 32-bit & 64-bit:

  • Windows 8
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Vista
  • Windows XP SP3
  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows Server 2003 Standard
  • Ubuntu 10.04 and above
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.8 and above
  • CentOS 5.8 and above
  • Oracle Linux 5.8 and above
  • openSUSE 11.2 and above
  • SUSE Linux 11.2 and above

 

And some Hardware requirements:

 

Hardware requirements:

 

VMware Workstation runs on standard x86-PCs with Intel and AMD processors.

 

VMware recommends the following:

 

64-bit x86 Intel Core™ Solo Processor or equivalent, AMD Athlon™ 64 FX Dual Core Processor or equivalent1.3GHz speed or faster2GB RAM minimum/ 4GB RAM and above recommended

 

Workstation installation:

 

1.2 GB of available disk space for the application. Additional hard disk space required for each virtual machine. Please refer to vendors recommended disk space for specific guest operating systems.

 

For Windows Aero graphics support in a virtual machine

 

3GB RAM (Host PC)Intel Dual Core, 2.2GHz and above or AMD Athlon 4200+ and aboveNVIDIA GeForce 8800GT and above or ATI Radeon HD 2600 and above

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Guest LilBambi

Could answer a survey and potential 60 min interview for $150 that could help with the costs...

 

USD

$249.00 normally

$199.20 with discount

on the webpage

 

But based on my answers I didn't qualify ;)

Edited by LilBambi
typo on interview amount
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Well if I were doing this professionally I'd certainly try VMWare out. However the reason I use VBox and for that matter Linux is to keep software costs down. VBox works very well in Windows and for 90% of the Linux stuff I try it is OK.

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Maybe it's Java that causes the problems with the Linux version of VBox. Most Linux hosts use Open JDK whereas Windows uses the Oracle Java version.

I'm not really complaining. I get VirtualBox for free and it's great for experimenting with Linux distros to see if I would like to install them later on. I learned a lot about Debian and Arch from playing with them in VirtualBox.

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Hedon James

Java is a requirement for all builds of VirtualBox:

 

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux%20build%20instructions

 

I suspect you are correct regarding potential differences between Oracle Java and OpenJDK versions. Personally, I haven't really experienced any issues with VirtualBox. But in all fairness, I only have Linux hosts in my home, so I can't comment on any comparisons of Linux vs. Windows versions. Also, FWIW, I'm not really a "power user" of VirtualBox. I just use it as a test bed to learn things about other distros and their software packages, and to practice CLI kung fu before I attempt it on a real system. Oh yeah, and to run 1-2 Windows applications that someone else says I MUST run, but haven't found a way around it yet?!

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Guest LilBambi

Built in ... it's in there! ;)

 

Anyway, regardless, I don't think that's the real problem:

 

From the VirtualBox Wikipedia entry:

 

Since version 4.3, Windows guests on supported hardware can take advantage of the recently implemented WDDM driver included in the guest additions; this allows Windows Aero to be enabled along with Direct3D support.

 

It also appears that the new versions since 4.3 of VirtualBox may not require Java as noted here but could be wrong on that, still checking but it appears it's built with something many of us gamers are familiar with - Open Watcom:

 

Prior to version 4, there were two different packages of the VirtualBox software. The full package was offered free under the PUEL, with licenses for other commercial deployment purchasable from Oracle. A second package called the VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE) was released under GPLv2. This removed the same proprietary components not available under GPLv2.[20][21]

 

Virtualbox requires the use of the Open Watcom compiler to build the BIOS since version 4.2.[22]

 

Although VirtualBox has experimental support for Mac OS X guests, the end user license agreement of Mac OS X does not permit the operating system to run on non-Apple hardware, enforced within the operating system by calls to the Apple System Management Controller (SMC) in all Apple machines, which verifies the authenticity of the hardware.[23]

 

Still looking....

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Guest LilBambi

But it would seem that Java is still a part of it based on this trouble ticket:

 

latest update breaks Java on XP guest - VirtualBox

 

Reported by: Florin Andrei

Owned by:

Priority: major

Component: other

Version: VirtualBox 4.0.6

Keywords: java

Cc:

Guest type: Windows

Host type: Linux

Description

Windows XP 32bit guest, Linux Ubuntu 10.04 32bit host.

Recently, I found I cannot run any Java application that has a GUI component. Running "java -version" in Command Prompt works fine, but any Java app that has a GUI, including the Java Control Panel, results in nothing happening on the screen, and the CPU usage goes to 100% due to javaw.exe

A work-around is to go to Control Panel / System / Advanced / Environment Variables / System Variables and add a variable called "J2D_D3D" with the value "false". This will supposedly disable Direct3D in Java. But this is not a proper solution.

BTW, this bug has occurred before. This is not the first time. Please make sure it is not repeated all over again. Thank you.

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Guest LilBambi

Yes, confirmed, Java is a part of it, as noted again in the VirtualBox wikipedia article:

 

Feature set[edit]
  • 64-bit guests (hardware virtualization support is required)
  • Snapshots
  • Seamless mode - the ability to run virtualized applications side by side with your normal desktop applications
  • Shared clipboard
  • Shared folders
  • Special drivers and utilities to facilitate switching between systems
  • Command line interaction (in addition to the GUI)
  • Public API (Java, Python, SOAP, XPCOM) to control VM configuration and execution[33]
  • Nested paging for AMD-V and Intel VT (only for processors supporting SLAT and with SLAT enabled)
  • Limited support for 3D graphics acceleration (including OpenGL up to (but not including) 3.0 and Direct3D 9.0c via Wine's Direct3D to OpenGL translation)
  • SMP support (up to 32 virtual CPUs per virtual machine), since version 3.0
  • Teleportation (aka Live Migration)
  • 2D video output acceleration (not to be mistaken with video decoding acceleration), since version 3.1

 

Or at least can be.

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Guest LilBambi

It may have it built in and not a separate requirement because:

 

End-user documentation

 

This page is for end users who are looking for information about how to download and run VirtualBox.

In order to run VirtualBox on your machine, you need:

  • Reasonably powerful x86 hardware. Any recent Intel or AMD processor should do.

  • Memory. Depending on what guest operating systems you want to run, you will need at least 512 MB of RAM (but probably more, and the more the better). Basically, you will need whatever your host operating system needs to run comfortably, plus the amount that the guest operating system needs. So, if you want to run Windows XP on Windows XP, you probably won't enjoy the experience much with less than 1 GB of RAM. If you want to try out Windows Vista in a guest, it will refuse to install if it is given less than 512 MB RAM, so you'll need that for the guest alone, plus the memory your operating system normally needs.

  • Hard disk space. While VirtualBox itself is very lean (a typical installation will only need about 30 MB of hard disk space), the virtual machines will require fairly huge files on disk to represent their own hard disk storage. So, to install Windows XP, for example, you will need a file that will easily grow to several GB in size.

  • A supported host operating system. Presently, we support Windows (XP and later), many Linux distributions, Mac OS X, Solaris and OpenSolaris.

  • A supported guest operating system. Besides the user manual (see below), up-to-date information is available at "Status: Guest OSes".

 

No sign of requirement on their site for Java.

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Guest LilBambi

However, it appears to be a pre-requisite but optional for builds in Windows and Linux for Java API Bindings -- but not for Mac OS X (until Apple make the java stuff downloadable -- isn't that now?):

 

Windows build instructions:

 

 

 

Linux build instructions:

 

  • Java JDK (required to generate the Java bindings)

 

Apparently not used in Mac OS X:

 

+ # We disable the java stuff until Apple make the java stuff downloadable.

+ WITH_JAVA=0

 

and

 

3. Then run configure

 

./configure --disable-python --disable-java --disable-docs --target-arch=amd64

Edited by LilBambi
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Just wanted to document a bit of Chrome/Chromium weirdness in VirtualBox. It happens with either Linux or Windows hosts. If:

  • You have 3D support enabled in VirtualBox.
  • You are running Gnome Shell in the guest. In my case it's Debian Wheezy,
  • You install Chromium.

You might run into some strange rendering. The display could go into coloured squiggly lines, get corrupted, go black and show a cropped window in the display, or just crash Gnome entirely. You must shut down the guest to recover.

Now if you run Chromium in Xfce or even Gnome Classic mode you don't see this. IceWeasel (Debian Firefox) works just fine. So the problem is with Chromium.

 

Suggested workarounds:

  • Don't use Chromium
  • Don't use Gnome Shell
  • Disable 3D support in the Virtual Machine
  • Possibly disabling accelerated compositing in Chromium might fix the problem.

All in all another good reason why Xfce4 should be your DE of choice in VirtualBox machines.

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I think I have this fixed now. As root, I added the following command-line option to Chromium's launcher in /usr/share/applications : --blacklist-accelerated-compositing.

After this, Chromium seems to work OK and the proper menu is now showing up in Chromium settings.

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