Virtual Machine Alternative: VirtualBox

[Detektiv-Pinky]

Is anybody using VirtualBox to run Windows on the Mac?

I just installed it on my machine and I am very impressed with it. It was very easy to install and run and seems to be very light on resources.
It is FREE for personal, educational and evalutation use. And althrough it is currently only beta-status I have not noticed any issues (there is a disclaimer on what is currently not fully supported - I think).

I would like to see how it compares to Paralles or VMWare, but since I do not have them, maybe somebody else could do some testing against these two.

 

[flopticalcube]

Without Bootcamp partiton support, its not ready for me. Looks very interesting as it supports loads of different OSs. I have a copy of Win98 lying around and I might give it a spin on that.

 

[-::ubermann::-]

i installed it and it runs windows 95 faster than parallels in my computer, takes 10 bounces to open, against 15 with parallels but leaving it idle uses 100% of a core, while parallels only 10%(with maximum acceleration enabled), but i notice more performance while doing intensive tasks
both virtual machines have windows 95, 16MB RAM, 256MB hard disk space

i would test games, only if someone tell me how to install the drivers to get at least 256 colors

 

[jyvonne27]

I downloaded it

I installed it last night and I'm running Windows XP. I have not used Parallels or Fusion so I don't have much to compare it to, but I like it. It asked me to partition part of my hard drive to windows and I didn't partition enough of it and I don't know how to change it. Have you played around with that aspect of it?

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

I installed it last night and I'm running Windows XP. I have not used Parallels or Fusion so I don't have much to compare it to, but I like it. It asked me to partition part of my hard drive to windows and I didn't partition enough of it and I don't know how to change it. Have you played around with that aspect of it?

VirtualBox typically uses a large file on the host act as the Virtual Disc Image (VDI) file. There seem to be two types of files, one that is automatically growing in size as you add content or install software on the machine. The other one is fixed in size (you specify this size at creation time). The latter is supposedly faster for write requests.

These files are stored in your ~/Library/VirtualBox/VDI directory.

The handbook says that you can not change the type of the VDI-file once it has been created. I think you need to start over, or ask this question in the VirtualBox Forum on their website.
However you could maybe add another VDI file to the Virtual Machine via the Virtual Disk Manager. I think it will show up as another drive letter in Windows though.

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

i installed it and it runs windows 95 faster than parallels in my computer, takes 10 bounces to open, against 15 with parallels but leaving it idle uses 100% of a core, while parallels only 10%(with maximum acceleration enabled), but i notice more performance while doing intensive tasks
both virtual machines have windows 95, 16MB RAM, 256MB hard disk space

i would test games, only if someone tell me how to install the drivers to get at least 256 colors

You need to install the "Guest Extensions" from the Devices menu in order to get seemless mouse and graphics installed. I had to temporarily remove the CD/DVD-ROM binding before it would install. With Control-F you can run Windows in Full-screen mode.

How do you measure your CPU-load? My system is 90-94% idle with Windows sitting in the back doing nothing, no sign of one core doing more work than the other.

 

[flyinmac]

Works great for me. I have a virtual machine running Ubuntu Linux and also FreeDOS (OpenSource DOS).

Seems pretty reliable and stable.

The only issue I've found is that it doesn't always free up / release it's memory space when you shut it down.

It requires a specific amount of contiguous free memory. And, it won't relaunch if that memory isn't available in one contiguous chunk. So, sometimes I'll have to restart the computer if I decide to relaunch the virtual machine.

 

[-::ubermann::-]

You need to install the "Guest Extensions" from the Devices menu in order to get seemless mouse and graphics installed. I had to temporarily remove the CD/DVD-ROM binding before it would install. With Control-F you can run Windows in Full-screen mode.

How do you measure your CPU-load? My system is 90-94% idle with Windows sitting in the back doing nothing, no sign of one core doing more work than the other.

uhmm i measured it with activity monitor
I've read the guest extensions thing, but it says "windows 9x are not supported"

 

[Detektiv-Pinky]

uhmm i measured it with activity monitor
I've read the guest extensions thing, but it says "windows 9x are not supported"

Hhm, I get the same picture in activity monitor. The system on idle uses only about 8% of the CPU. However, I have WindowsXP as a guest and I have only allocated 192 MByte RAM (of 1 GByte). Maybe it is a different picture with Windows9x...

I am currently having trouble setting up a shared folder between Windows and OSX. I either get a message that I do not have enough permissions or Windows crashes on me

 

[-::ubermann::-]

I don't want this thread becomes forgotten, how do you install drivers of a macbook in windows9x? (i dont want winxp because i have a PC with it, and the games i wanna play will only run in win9x)

 

[abhi2023]

using virtualbox post windows XP install on Mac

Hey Guys, I installed Win XP using the boot camp and learned about virtualbox after that. How can I now use virtualbox to access XP without having to shut down Mac and boot using XP? Thanks for your help guys.

 

[heyp]

Hey Guys, I installed Win XP using the boot camp and learned about virtualbox after that. How can I now use virtualbox to access XP without having to shut down Mac and boot using XP? Thanks for your help guys.

i'd like to do the same... is it possible?

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

^ not yet.

 

[Patcoola]

Hey Guys, I installed Win XP using the boot camp and learned about virtualbox after that. How can I now use virtualbox to access XP without having to shut down Mac and boot using XP? Thanks for your help guys.

you can't, virtualbox is a cross platform app for general use, they have no intention to develop mac only features.