VirtualBox is an open-source virtualization alternative to Parallels and VMWare in the MacOS X arena. Here is a step-by-step screenshot tutorial to installing Windows XP using VirtualBox in MacOS X.
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Member since:
2006-03-29
Member since:2006-07-26
Is XYZ platform that difficult to port to? You can't complain when a company makes a product for 3 platforms but not a 4th. Normally applications aren't that hard to port to FreeBSD once they're working on Linux, but I'm not sure if this is true of virtualization software. On Linux it does require vboxdrv kernel modules.
It is open source. Wait around for someone to do it, or do it yourself. Then again, if you do it yourself and release it to Sun, it doesn't mean that it will be supported. Just like GIMP has been ported to Windows but isn't supported.
Edited 2008-07-14 19:07 UTC
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2006-07-26
Member since:2006-01-26
Hey, where's the Haiku port?
Actually, my only problem with Haiku and VirtualBox is that it doesn't run as a guest on it unless you enable the hardware virtualization features (AMD-V, etc.):
http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/56
That kinda sucks :/
Apparently Haiku is "virtualization unfriendly".
Edited 2008-07-14 21:46 UTC
Member since:
2008-04-28
Member since:
2005-07-06
I think the problem is that there are a thousand little OSes out there, and for each app that gets ported to the three major platforms, Windows, Macintosh, and Linux/Unix, there are bound to be tons of requests for ports to all of the other OSes or variations of OSes out there. I don't think Sun owes it to FreeBSD or any other OS to port to them, but this is an Open Source project, and as a result, there may well be a port to >insertt OS name here< coming soon, or there may not be.
I have used OS/2, BeOS, and a couple of other OSes that often did not have the support of the Software Developement Community, and I know the feeling of wanting that cool piece of software to be ported, but the truth is we make a choice to use a platform we often have to put up with the consequences of that decision, or switch platforms.
Member since:
2005-08-29
Member since:
2005-07-06
I'm still waiting for a way to virtualise an existing, natively installed windows/Linux system. Before I switched to OS X (which runs office natively), I had 2 instances of the same windows sitting on my hard drive. One virtualbox image for MS Office, SPSS etc and one native install for games. It would be wonderful if this could be consolidated into one instance, imho, so I wouldn't have to maintain 2 separate windows's. Of course it would be even better if Virtualbox/VMWare would get fully hardware accelerated graphics. But unfortunately that's not about to happen.
Member since:2006-02-05
VMware used to do this, in its "physical disk" mode. You had to create a second hardware profile in Windows to support the VMware "devices", but other than that it worked. I used it with a Win 2000 guest/physical partition and VMware somewhere around 4 something.
I haven't tried it with VMware 6 and Win XP or later.
Member since:2006-01-05
Member since:2005-07-06
VirtualBox supports loading the os from a physical drive, and you can do exactly this. Dealing with the different machine profiles, and remembering never to physically boot into a drive that has previously had its state saved in a vm can make this more aggravating than it at first sounds.
Member since:
2005-07-05
...but there are still a bunch of bugs and stability issues to work out.
I tried it on OSX, but it wasn't very stable and the video wouldn't work right on either Fedora or Ubuntu.
Once they work out the issues, I'd be happy to use it. Until then, I'll be using Fusion (which also isn't very stable and requires I reinstall it all the time).
Member since:
2005-09-19
It is great to have a Free alternative to VMware and Parallels.
Unfortunately, there are a few OSX specific problems with VirtualBox. For example, when the dock is on the side of the screen, the window keeps get repositioned underneath it making it impossible to get at. Sounds trivial, but when trying to actually use the thing on a daily basis it gets annoying very quickly.
To me this is a great example of a problem that so often befalls open source software. It is 99% complete but the missing 1% makes the software far more difficult to use.
Another example of this is the ('stable') Mac version of Audacity, which works well until you try to save, and then discover that whilst typing the filename, the keys are being interpreted by the window underneath and the file is being edited/played/resampled.
Sorry for the long and O.T. comment, but I just wish these programs would leave their perennial beta status. There is loads of great free software that is *so close* to being usable but lacks a few things to be perfect.
Member since:2007-02-05
Member since:
2006-01-01