VirtualBox 2.1.0

Sun released VirtualBox 2.1.0 today. In addition to bugfixes, new features include:

  • Support for hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V) on Mac OS X hosts
  • Support for 64-bit guests on 32-bit host operating systems (experimental; see user manual, chapter 1.6, 64-bit guests, page 16)
  • Added support for Intel Nehalem virtualization enhancements (EPT and VPID; see user manual, chapter 1.2, Software vs. hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V), page 10))
  • Experimental 3D acceleration via OpenGL (see user manual, chapter 4.8, Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL), page 66)
  • Experimental LsiLogic and BusLogic SCSI controllers (see user manual, chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, page 70)
  • Full VMDK/VHD support including snapshots (see user manual, chapter 5.2, Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD), page 72)
  • New NAT engine with significantly better performance, reliability and ICMP echo (ping) support (bugs #1046, #2438, #2223, #1247)
  • New Host Interface Networking implementations for Windows and Linux hosts with easier setup (replaces TUN/TAP on Linux and manual bridging on Windows)

Downloads for Solaris, OpenSolaris, Linux, OS X and Windows are available here.

5 thoughts on “VirtualBox 2.1.0”

  1. I just realized that it is a new package (virtualbox-2.1), so you won’t be upgraded automatically if you’ve got the virtualbox repo enabled with virtualbox-2.0 installed. You’ll have to manually install virtualbox-2.1. Also, if using the repo, don’t forget to install dkms so that kernel modules can be reconfigured every time you update vbox!

  2. @foo: That I don’t know, but I do know from working on OpenSolaris how long it can take to free up licence-encumbered code, so it could be a little while yet even if they’re already working on it. I’m afraid I’m not privy to their product roadmap, though…

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *