VirtualBox 3.0: No More Booting Windows
VirtualBox 3.0, with its improved 3D support, can ensure that some users won't need to boot Windows even when gaming.
With its version 3.0 of VirtualBox, Innotek/Sun/Oracle made a significant step forward. End users will probably like the 3D graphics support the most: you can now run Ubuntu with Compiz. The new version brings enhancements and support for OpenGL 2.0.
Almost more interesting is a Windows feature: the virtualization software now supports Direct3D 8/9. With OpenGL and Direct3D on board, it's theoretically possible to run Windows with all your favorite games on a virtual box. If the games normally run well and error-free on existing systems, Linux users can from now on spare themselves the obligatory Windows boot. Finally, VirtualBox fixes a few 3D support bugs involving rendering and memory leaks.
Linux users will also appreciate the improved USB support that, according to the changelog, allows running webcams and other USB devices on the virtual machine. SUSE Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 11 now runs as a Linux guest and PXE boots show a marked performance increase. Shared Folders also had some file permission and timestamp errors removed.
Running the new VirtualBox requires deinstalling the old package and installing 3.0 from the download webpage.
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Wine?
I never got Wine to run anything but one piece of old game software. The applications usually crash due to missing dll files, simply crash, or do not even install. No such problems with VirtualBox, everything just works.
usefullness of virtual mashines for private use
Router-Replacement
Ip-Phone-Server
Network Monitoring.
Since you can store the virtual-mashine-drives on hidden encrypted containers, so you have space to do stuff that actually isn't tracable by forensic analysing your regular operating system.
Virtual mashines are useful if you want to check out what malicious viruses or anything else do.
Short: VMs and Sun's VirtualBox is essential damn important stuff.
Works for me
I've got to say, while I didn't see any improvement for my use in the switch between 2.X and 3, it was painless, and- for me at least- runs much *much* faster than VMWare did.
I've had zero problems installing virtual machines, from Ubuntu to Win7 RC (base OS is Debian Lenny x86_64.
Hmm ... what exactly is the point of virtualization for end-users?
virtualbox and detached machines
VB 3.0 does in fact support 3D
@ Axel
VirtualBox is not meant to be a data center virtualization solution. It is desktop virtualization -- i.e. a user brings up a virtual machine to do something, 99% of the time he's there interacting with that machine the entire time it is running. Then the user shuts the virtual machine down when he's done.
That being said, you can start machines via command line so if you really wanted to create an init.d script to bring them up. But doing that requires just a bit of reading, which is often beyond the skillset of today's users.
Re: 3d not really fast
VirtualBox 2.x does not meet the Basic needs or virtualisation...
3D support is not very fast.
While there is support for 3D with DirectX, the speed is too slow to run most games. As an example I tried to run Warcraft, a game from 2002, will all settings on low on a GeForce 8800GTS and was getting < 1 FPS.No more booting windows?