VirtualBox 2.0 released
Sun Microsystems today released xVM VirtualBox 2.0, the latest version of the open source virtualisation software. It is high performance, free and open source desktop virtualization software. The user interface has been converted from Qt3 to the nicer-looking Qt4, 64-bit guests are supported (with a 64-bit host), and there have been major performance improvements. Windows, Mac, and Linux clients have all gotten an upgrade in the looks department, and networking support has been boosted for Macs (improving its standing as a free alternative to Parallels and VMWare). Performance improvements for AMD chips is also baked in, so most users can find a good reason to upgrade. VirtualBox is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.
The main highlights are:
- 64 bits guest support (64 bits host only)
- New native Leopard user interface on Mac OS X hosts
- The GUI was converted from Qt3 to Qt4 with many visual improvements
- New-version notifier
- Guest property information interface
- Host Interface Networking on Mac OS X hosts
- New Host Interface Networking on Solaris hosts
- Support for Nested Paging on modern AMD CPUs (major performance gain)
- Framework for collecting performance and resource usage data (metrics)
- Added SATA asynchronous IO (NCQ: Native Command Queuing) when accessing raw disks/partitions (major performance gain)
- Clipboard integration for OS/2 Guests
- Created separate SDK component featuring a new Python programming interface on Linux and Solaris hosts
- Support for VHD disk images
You can download here.
