virtualbox, PC on a PC

[dellysmelly]

http://www.virtualbox.org/

I put it on my windows vista install and I ran a fedora(Linux) 10 live CD on my desktop


sweet program

[MrCasual]

VMs are nice when you need them. Does virtualbox substitute hardware & drivers for its own like VMware Workstation or use the hosts?

[Fr0sty]

compared to vmware is it user friendly ???

[DesertRat]

VirtualBox uses its own drivers..it's virtual. But it gives you more options than VMWare, at least the last time I checked VMWare. I use VBox mostly now. No reason you can't install any driver you want under it tho.

The GUIs are more or less the same. I like VirtualBox because I can run it everywhere I need to (Solaris, Linux) where VMWare was becoming a PITA and they keep changing from VMWare server, to blah blah blah

[Renard0abi]

Yeah that's awesome. Compared to VMWare it's very user-friendly and easy to use.

QEMU on Linux and Basilisk are others that are fun to use, plus they are more stable than VirtualBox in some cases.

[anthony_chri]

What is the average size of the vm image? How does it compare to Virtual PC?

[DesertRat]

There is no average size. You choose how big you want the install to be.

I don't know anything about Virtual PC except if it comes from Microslop, it ain't running on my hardware.

Edit: I just checked and it's typical microrubbish alright. With VMWare and VirtualBox you are emulating a PC and you can run pretty much anything that runs on a PC under their software. With Virtual PC it's really only designed for winbloze and other stuff doesn't work very well under it.

[anthony_chri]

Originally Posted by DesertRat

There is no average size. You choose how big you want the install to be.

I don't know anything about Virtual PC except if it comes from Microslop, it ain't running on my hardware.

Edit: I just checked and it's typical microrubbish alright. With VMWare and VirtualBox you are emulating a PC and you can run pretty much anything that runs on a PC under their software. With Virtual PC it's really only designed for winbloze and other stuff doesn't work very well under it.

Wow, a little harsh on MS. VPC works great for running virtual Windows environments. It runs Ubuntu fine.

[Gargamel]

From what i understand virtual box has already implemented some Open GL 3d. It wont be able to run games, but anyone have any input?

[DesertRat]

As I understand it, QEMU, VMWare, and VirtualBox are all system emulators. They emulate a complete x86/64 (and in QEMU's case other boxes as well). I don't know why they would have to do anything additional to implement OpenGL. Unless that is a hardware feature of a PC? These emulators should intrinsically support anything the OS does on a real box.
You can always send me your games and I will test them out for you (thoroughly ) on my Winbloze running under VirtualBox.

Additional Comment:

Originally Posted by anthony_chri

Wow, a little harsh on MS.

Where I come from you there are two things you can never have too much of and that's horsepower or MS-bashing

[Fr0sty]

vmware isnt too bad either .. just like desertrat said it emulates pretty much anything that a normal pc could run

but at the time i leave it installed without nothing since im short on hd spaces.. too many mp3's movies etc...

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by DesertRat

As I understand it, QEMU, VMWare, and VirtualBox are all system emulators. They emulate a complete x86/64 (and in QEMU's case other boxes as well). I don't know why they would have to do anything additional to implement OpenGL...

...Where I come from you there are two things you can never have too much of and that's horsepower or MS-bashing

No vm's currently support 3d acceleration (hardware or software), I've looked, trust me. The reason for this is that you need to emulate an OpenGL/DX10.1 video card, this you might immagine is a very big project.

As for M$, they dont make a bad product, though i dont know that its worth paying $400 at release for Vista ultimate.
Still not as bad as mac tho, they will charge you $4000 for a $2000 computer and then say, Hey but mac osx is only $50, utter BS.

But there is a way we can combine VM 3d acceleration and death of windows, in fact i think they go hand in hand. In 10 years if virtualization has conquered 3d acceleration, that is all anyone will use, microsoft will shrink from a super big company to somthing of the same scale as sun microsystems. If you can switch between fully functional 3d accelerated desktops at a snap the neausea factor for newbs to try to figure out linux is gone, if they get frustrated they can just switch back to windows.

[_MtM_]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

No vm's currently support 3d acceleration (hardware or software), I've looked, trust me. The reason for this is that you need to emulate an OpenGL/DX10.1 video card, this you might immagine is a very big project.

As for M$, they dont make a bad product, though i dont know that its worth paying $400 at release for Vista ultimate.
Still not as bad as mac tho, they will charge you $4000 for a $2000 computer and then say, Hey but mac osx is only $50, utter BS.

But there is a way we can combine VM 3d acceleration and death of windows, in fact i think they go hand in hand. In 10 years if virtualization has conquered 3d acceleration, that is all anyone will use, microsoft will shrink from a super big company to somthing of the same scale as sun microsystems. If you can switch between fully functional 3d accelerated desktops at a snap the neausea factor for newbs to try to figure out linux is gone, if they get frustrated they can just switch back to windows.

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/d...sound_d3d.html

VMware Workstation includes experimental support for Direct3D video acceleration. This feature is not fully functional.
Caution: Features with experimental support are not intended to be enabled on production systems. Enabling 3-D acceleration may cause the host or guest to crash, causing you to lose data, even if 3-D applications are not active.
Note: To take advantage of the experimental 3-D capabilities of Workstation, the virtual machine must be running the version of VMware Tools that corresponds to the version of Workstation you are using to run it. So a virtual machine running on Workstation 5.0 must be running the version of VMware Tools provided with Workstation 5.0. A virtual machine running on Workstation 5.5 must be running the version of VMware Tools provided with Workstation 5.5. If you move the virtual machine and want to use the 3-D capabilities, be sure you have the correct version of VMware Tools installed.

http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~andreslc/vmgl/

What is this:
OpenGL apps running inside a Virtual Machine (VM) can use VMGL to take advantage of graphics hardware acceleration. VMGL can be used on VMware guests, Xen HVM domains (depending on hardware virtualization extensions) and Xen paravirtual domains, using XVnc or the virtual framebuffer. Although we haven't tested it, VMGL should work for qemu, KVM, and VIrtualBox. VMGL is available for X11-based guest OS's: Linux, FreeBSD and OpenSolaris. VMGL is GPU-independent: we support ATI, Nvidia and Intel GPUs.

[aubsxc]

Screenshot of VBox with the 3D Acceleration option (latest linux deb package from Sun)

[_MtM_]

Originally Posted by aubsxc

Screenshot of VBox with the 3D Acceleration option (latest linux deb package from Sun)

Yeah someone didn't look well enough

How does it work for you, I linked to articels but I haven't needed it personally and I haven't heard many personal opinions either so I'm quite interested in how you feel abit it!

[Orac]

well i have been playing half life (yeh the origianl) on XP through virtual box and seems to be more than happy - mind you thats what?? DX 3??? so VM are great for old school computing

[Odanez]

so I can now play starcraft in windowed mode? awesome

[_MtM_]

Originally Posted by Orac

well i have been playing half life (yeh the origianl) on XP through virtual box and seems to be more than happy - mind you thats what?? DX 3??? so VM are great for old school computing

Dx7 afaik?? Though, couldn't the original already run in software mode as well ( so you wouldn't need a d3d/ogl driver at all )??

[Orac]

i tryed running it on vista for a while but it didnt seem to gell too well - just checked the back of the box and says dx 8.0a and 3.0 for sound

[_MtM_]

Originally Posted by Orac

i tryed running it on vista for a while but it didnt seem to gell too well - just checked the back of the box and says dx 8.0a and 3.0 for sound

That's the max dx version it can use, not the minimum.

Minimum

• Pentium 133 MHz
• 24 MB RAM
• Windows 95/98/NT4
• SVGA video card
• Windows-compatible sound card
• 2x CD-ROM drive
• 400 MB hard-disk space.

svga = software mode.