VirtualBox

Grogan · 01-21-2010, 03:53 AM

VirtualBox is absolutely amazing on my new system, with the improved VT-x (virtualization) of the Core i7. It also supports "nested paging" (hardware assisted paging... the translation between guest physical addresses and host physical addresses is handled directly by the CPU now instead of being done in software). I'm highly impressed now.

It must be doing a better job of virtualizing i/o too, because not even the virtual disk seems to be a bottleneck. This is "bare metal" performance.

It's really come a long way on Linux (never tried it on Windows) since I first started using it. As of 3.1.2, it blows any version of Vmware that I've used (haven't tried their current betas... they invited me but I'm done with Vmware). I never have trouble with "unsupported" kernels and distros either, with VirtualBox, unlike Vmware.

I happened to have a copy of the original "gold" Windows XP that I wrote down the product key and kept when a customer was throwing out a computer, so I figured a VM would be the best use of that (it's really too old to be of use on any computers I'd be installing XP on)

This was so fast it was freaky. I've never seen XP so fast. Setup took like 5 minutes (installed with the virtual CDROM drive pointing to an ISO image on hard disk, not reading it from an actual CD), and the part that usually takes time (building the registry while it says "saving settings" was over so fast that I practically missed it. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, turned my attention thinking it would be a while and it was done and the VM was rebooting. In the OS, things like Control Panel and other dialogs and IE6 snapped open so fast it was startling.

The original Windows XP was a lot lighter before the crap that Service Pack 2 adds, and before and IE 7 or 8 bloats up the shell. It even ran decently with 128 RAM (and very well with 256) back then.

It absolutely flew through the install of Service Pack 2 and 3, and all the rest of the updates. If only the computers I have to work on were that fast!

It isn't quite as snappy now with the updates and crap installed, but it's still faster than any Windows XP computer I've seen.

I gave it 4 CPUs (they are virtualized on the host which juggles the CPU time between all the cores/threads) and 1 Gb of RAM. I'm surprised Windows didn't have a shit fit... CPUs like this weren't invented yet.

VirtualBox 3.1.2 (from Sun, not the stuff in portage) on Gentoo.

This was before installing the virtualbox drivers, I wanted to get service pack 2 on first. (hence the unknown devices)

XP used to run like shit with 4 CPUs in VirtualBox on my older system, I had to cut it down to 2 because it actually made things slower. The VT-x was more rudimentary on Core 2. (The SMP support in VirtualBox is only possible through that extension)

sagecss · 01-21-2010, 04:14 AM

Thanks for sharing that Grogan. I too really like Virtualbox a lot.
I am temporarily using VB on a win7 host. I just noticed I have nested paging deselected, so will give it a go with an Arch guest as well as Win7 and see how it runs.
I haven't tried 4 CPU's yet either, let's see.

sagecss · 02-06-2010, 03:59 PM

Grogan, on Arch (64 Bit) I've just installed VB 3.1.2-56127.
It fails to load stating libpng12.so.0 can't be found.
I checked and noticed that libpng1.4.0-2 is installed on my system. I'm assuming some sort of computability issue here?

I am quickly going to see if I can remove it and get the previous version installed.

sagecss · 02-06-2010, 06:03 PM

Nope, no success. Will give this some more thought.

sagecss · 02-06-2010, 06:42 PM

Ok, seems to be working now...
I used the virtualbox_bin install method from the VirtualBox-Archwiki; also had to install qt and sdl packages.
I'll load a virtual machine and see if all is good.

Grogan · 02-06-2010, 08:31 PM

I ALWAYS use the bin file (.run) downloaded from Sun. Never the packages, or anything from a distributor's repository.

Yes, it does use qt4 for the GUI, but it should use its own included one if your system's is not suitable. (I say should, because when I first started using Vbox, it was unstable unless you had the exact version it was looking for on your system. I had none and some dialogs were crashing when using the included qt4)

I wasn't aware of the SDL dependency, because that's something I always have.

01-21-2010, 03:53 AM	#1
Grogan Hell's Very Own Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 15,968 Points: 139,190.40 Bank: 385,740,828.31 Total Points: 385,880,018.71 Donate Awards Showcase Total Awards: 2	VirtualBox VirtualBox is absolutely amazing on my new system, with the improved VT-x (virtualization) of the Core i7. It also supports "nested paging" (hardware assisted paging... the translation between guest physical addresses and host physical addresses is handled directly by the CPU now instead of being done in software). I'm highly impressed now. It must be doing a better job of virtualizing i/o too, because not even the virtual disk seems to be a bottleneck. This is "bare metal" performance. It's really come a long way on Linux (never tried it on Windows) since I first started using it. As of 3.1.2, it blows any version of Vmware that I've used (haven't tried their current betas... they invited me but I'm done with Vmware). I never have trouble with "unsupported" kernels and distros either, with VirtualBox, unlike Vmware. I happened to have a copy of the original "gold" Windows XP that I wrote down the product key and kept when a customer was throwing out a computer, so I figured a VM would be the best use of that (it's really too old to be of use on any computers I'd be installing XP on) This was so fast it was freaky. I've never seen XP so fast. Setup took like 5 minutes (installed with the virtual CDROM drive pointing to an ISO image on hard disk, not reading it from an actual CD), and the part that usually takes time (building the registry while it says "saving settings" was over so fast that I practically missed it. I saw it out of the corner of my eye, turned my attention thinking it would be a while and it was done and the VM was rebooting. In the OS, things like Control Panel and other dialogs and IE6 snapped open so fast it was startling. The original Windows XP was a lot lighter before the crap that Service Pack 2 adds, and before and IE 7 or 8 bloats up the shell. It even ran decently with 128 RAM (and very well with 256) back then. It absolutely flew through the install of Service Pack 2 and 3, and all the rest of the updates. If only the computers I have to work on were that fast! It isn't quite as snappy now with the updates and crap installed, but it's still faster than any Windows XP computer I've seen. I gave it 4 CPUs (they are virtualized on the host which juggles the CPU time between all the cores/threads) and 1 Gb of RAM. I'm surprised Windows didn't have a shit fit... CPUs like this weren't invented yet. VirtualBox 3.1.2 (from Sun, not the stuff in portage) on Gentoo. This was before installing the virtualbox drivers, I wanted to get service pack 2 on first. (hence the unknown devices) XP used to run like shit with 4 CPUs in VirtualBox on my older system, I had to cut it down to 2 because it actually made things slower. The VT-x was more rudimentary on Core 2. (The SMP support in VirtualBox is only possible through that extension)

02-06-2010, 03:59 PM	#3
sagecss Arch Ninja Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 442 Points: 24,709.18 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 24,709.18 Donate	Encountered An Issue With libpng Grogan, on Arch (64 Bit) I've just installed VB 3.1.2-56127. It fails to load stating libpng12.so.0 can't be found. I checked and noticed that libpng1.4.0-2 is installed on my system. I'm assuming some sort of computability issue here? I am quickly going to see if I can remove it and get the previous version installed.

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01-21-2010, 04:14 AM	#2
sagecss Arch Ninja Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 442 Points: 24,709.18 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 24,709.18 Donate	Thanks for sharing that Grogan. I too really like Virtualbox a lot. I am temporarily using VB on a win7 host. I just noticed I have nested paging deselected, so will give it a go with an Arch guest as well as Win7 and see how it runs. I haven't tried 4 CPU's yet either, let's see.

02-06-2010, 06:03 PM	#4
sagecss Arch Ninja Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 442 Points: 24,709.18 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 24,709.18 Donate	Nope, no success. Will give this some more thought.

02-06-2010, 06:42 PM	#5
sagecss Arch Ninja Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 442 Points: 24,709.18 Bank: 0.00 Total Points: 24,709.18 Donate	Ok, seems to be working now... I used the virtualbox_bin install method from the VirtualBox-Archwiki; also had to install qt and sdl packages. I'll load a virtual machine and see if all is good.

02-06-2010, 08:31 PM	#6
Grogan Hell's Very Own Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Ontario, Canada Posts: 15,968 Points: 139,190.40 Bank: 385,740,828.31 Total Points: 385,880,018.71 Donate Awards Showcase Total Awards: 2	I ALWAYS use the bin file (.run) downloaded from Sun. Never the packages, or anything from a distributor's repository. Yes, it does use qt4 for the GUI, but it should use its own included one if your system's is not suitable. (I say should, because when I first started using Vbox, it was unstable unless you had the exact version it was looking for on your system. I had none and some dialogs were crashing when using the included qt4) I wasn't aware of the SDL dependency, because that's something I always have.