VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Targeted at server, desktop and embedded use, it is now the only professional-quality virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.
Some of the features of VirtualBox are:
- Modularity. VirtualBox has an extremely modular design with well-defined internal programming interfaces and a client/server design. This makes it easy to control it from several interfaces at once: for example, you can start a virtual machine in a typical virtual machine GUI and then control that machine from the command line, or possibly remotely. VirtualBox also comes with a full Software Development Kit: even though it is Open Source Software, you don"t have to hack the source to write a new interface for VirtualBox.
- Virtual machine descriptions in XML. The configuration settings of virtual machines are stored entirely in XML and are independent of the local machines. Virtual machine definitions can therefore easily be ported to other computers.
Changelog:
- Virtualization core: fixed an invalid-guest state guru meditation in some rare circumstances on Intel hosts
- Virtualization core: some fixes for systems with lots of processors
- Audio: relaxed VRM / VRA (variable rate audio) bit checks to provide more compatibility for guests running ALSA setups with the AC"97 emulation
- USB: made device capturing for passthrough more accurate and reliable on Windows host
- Network: fixed potential issue with interrupt signalling for network adapters in UEFI guests
- 3D: fixed flicker and redraw issues when using VBoxSVGA or VMSVGA graphics adapter (bugs #18562, #18956)
- 3D: fixed crash with some applications when using VBoxSVGA or VMSVGA graphics adapter (bug #18638)
- macOS host: fix crash of GUI VM process which showed up frequently with 10.15 Catalina (bug #18990)
- Linux host: support Linux 5.3, thank you Larry Finger (see also bug #18911)
- Linux host: improve python version detection during rpm package creation, can change package dependencies and fix some installation problems
- Linux guests: calls to aio_read(3) and aio_write(3) may fail inside shared folders (bug #18805)
- Linux guests: fix problem with shared folder unmounting in service script, thank you Denis Ryndine (bug #18853)
- Linux guests: VBox 6.0.10 GAs fail to compile on Red Hat/CentOS/Oracle Linux 7.7 and Red Hat 8.1 Beta (bug #18917)
VirtualBox 6.1.0 RC1 changelog:
- list of changes introduced in Beta 1 can be found here.
- list of changes introduced in Beta 2 can be found here.
- GUI: Some issues related to mouse integration cursor scaling were addressed (bug #14366), more to go
- GUI: Few usability related fixes for export appliance wizard
- GUI: Fixed/improved mouse pointer scaling
- GUI: Fixed crash in cloud related wizards when accessibility functionality was enabled
- GUI: Soft keyboard visual improvements, and fix crash for first use
- GUI: Added the missing restriction options for disabling new functionality such as the VISO creator
- GUI: More consistent medium selection (both showing known images and allowing to select using the file picker)
- Documentation: updated supported host operating systems, added few new manual pages (more to come later)
- Virtualization core: Improvements for nested hardware-virtualization on Intel CPUs
- VBoxSVGA/VMSVGA: Support YUV2 and related texture formats with hosts using OpenGL (macOS and Linux), which accelerates video playback when 3D is enabled by delegating the color space conversion to the host GPU
- VBoxSVGA/VMSVGA: Several drawing fixes for the 3D case
- USB: Improvements for EHCI controller implementation
- USB: Filter can now specify port path, uniquely identifying a port in a system
- NAT Network: Use non-blocking sockets on Linux for accepted incoming connections (port forwarding)
- PCnet-ISA: Added new network adapter type, currently CLI only
- SMBIOS: Store system UUID in little endian format which is the default for new VMs, while existing VMs stick to the old VirtualBox behavior of storing them in big endian format for backwards compatibility to avoid breaking the activation status of Windows VMs
- VBoxSDL frontend: Fixed running on Windows hosts
- VBoxManage: show "unrestricted guest" and "nested HW virtualization" CPU features when listing the host information
- Shared Clipboard: Implemented experimental support for file transfers for Linux hosts on Windows guests (disabled by default)
- Linux host and guest: Support Linux 5.4 (bug #18945)
- Linux host and guest: Force disabling of kernel module signing during build (user can do it afterwards)
- Windows Guest Additions: Many fixes for drawing problems in the driver for VBoxSVGA
- Windows Guest Additions: Fixes for legacy VBoxVGA adapter, restore previously working cases
- Windows Guest Additions: Restore VHWA functionality for VBoxSVGA
NOTE: Please do NOT use this VirtualBox Beta release on production machines. A VirtualBox Beta release should be considered a bleeding-edge release meant for early evaluation and testing purposes.
Download: VirtualBox 6.1.0 RC1 | 106.0 MB (Open Source)
Download: VirtualBox 6.0.14 Extension Pack | 22.1 MB
View: VirtualBox Home Page | VirtualBox Screenshot
