Sun has released xVM Virtualbox 2.1.2. The changelog shows a lot of improvements. I am especially delighted to see this entry NAT: fixed occasional crashes (bug #2709) this one bug has really been … bugging me since it made the virtual machine almost unusable. Also, this release adds official support for Windows 7. At least one defect remains. When running more than one Windows VM VirtualBox will die with the error message...
On 17-12-2008 Sun released a new version of VirtualBox, version 2.1.0. Looking at the changelog there are some real significant improvements – these are the ones that make me able to ditch VMware Workstation completely: Support for 64-bit guests on 32-bit host operating systems Experimental 3D acceleration via OpenGL Full VMDK/VHD support including snapshots New Host Interface Networking implementations for Windows and Linux hosts with easier setup (replaces TUN/TAP on Linux and manual bridging on Windows) Especially the ability to run 64 bit guests on 32 bit host operating systems is something I have been missing....
Update 01-11-08: VMware Workstation 6.5 is out and seems to have done away with the need for patching the installation After upgradering my workstation to Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex (8.10) I have run into the same problem as always with VMware Workstation. It will not compile against the installed kernel (in this case 2.6.26). This problem is not isolated to Ubuntu but affects all distributions using a 2.6.25 or 2.6.26 kernel (from what I gather)....
VMware released VMware Workstation 6.0.4 almost a month ago and reading the release notes I had high hopes On Ubuntu 8.04 hosts (which use kernel 2.6.24), when you install VMware Workstation, the vmnet module does not build. (bug 236605) and it certainly does compile. But… After installing it, when one tries to fire up the first virtual machine Workstation croaks with this message I’ve tried some of the vmware-any-any patches from vmkernelnewbies but they all broke the vmblock module....
Note: These instructions only applies to version 6.0.2 and 6.0.3. Version 6.0.4 now supports Ubuntu 7.10 and 8.04 out of the box (Updated instructions for 6.0.4 and Ubuntu Intrepid) Seems VMware has released a new version of Workstation; 6.0.3 I had hoped that this release had fixed the problems encountered with 6.0.2. This isn’t the case (By the way; this problem is not only with Ubuntu Hardy Herron but for for all distributions using Linux 2....
A new vmware-any-any patch is floating around the VMKernelNewbies group. It is unknown who has made the patch but I am very grateful. Not only has this person taken care of the tidious work if getting vmmon to compile but also fixed the problem with bridging on a wireless interface. I have a local copy of the file – just in case it disappears....