Does VirtualBox VM Have Much A Future Left?

[aksdb]

I simply fail to understand why someone would use VBox. Can it do something better than competitors? For me it looks like if Oracle mostly abandoned project and there was no community to continue development either (unlike in case with MySQL or LibreOffice).

VirtualBox is currently my only shot at even using Linux at work. If I had a Linux host, I wouldn't need virtualization at all.
And the thing it does better than VMware is: it's free.

[SystemCrasher]

Qemu doesn't support 3d acceleration (with the exception of vga passthrough), so it isn't a viable alternative. Virgil3d seems pretty dead.

And what real use case for that? It seems to be slow for hardcore gaming and not really needed for anything else. So it looking fancy ... but that's all.

And if someone in mood for "real" 3D in VM it seems to be better idea to use more than 1 GPU in their system, detach one from host and completely give it away to guest. This way it could be more or less simiar to "real" GPU (still subject to some overhead). Sure, it takes specific setup: system where you can detach at least one PCI-E GPU and it also should be more or less recent hardware (with IOMMU). But wish to have powerful GPU in VM is exotic as well

[SystemCrasher]

VirtualBox is currently my only shot at even using Linux at work. If I had a Linux host, I wouldn't need virtualization at all.
And the thing it does better than VMware is: it's free.

Well, if someone needs Linux IMO it is better idea to go on and use Linux. Both on host and guest. And maybe it sounds harsh, but usually nobody haves goal to give you some free solution of your personal problems. There could be some exceptions but they're rare.

In open source world people usually chewing on tasks when they're either interested in result or if they're just having fun doing something particular. In proprietary world people are working just because they're being paid for and so goal is usually to squeeze some bucks from you. Sometimes it also happens some opensource devs are doing jobs which are needed by someone else (e.g. large company). In this case company can hire that dev and pay for continuing doing that job. Which usually sounds like relly nice option for dev.

And so Vbox. I do not see how it fits. These who needed Linux likly mostly gone Linux on both host and guest and interested in KVM development. Then there is Oracle. I do not see any reasons why they could be interested in VBox. Its not part of their business and it's not like if Oracle is known in doing things "just for fun". Basically I do not get who will develop VBox and why they will do it. Probably that's why it got stuck, just as news article describes.

[darkbasic]

And what real use case for that?

Fast compositing for example?

[duby229]

And what real use case for that? It seems to be slow for hardcore gaming and not really needed for anything else. So it looking fancy ... but that's all.

And if someone in mood for "real" 3D in VM it seems to be better idea to use more than 1 GPU in their system, detach one from host and completely give it away to guest. This way it could be more or less simiar to "real" GPU (still subject to some overhead). Sure, it takes specific setup: system where you can detach at least one PCI-E GPU and it also should be more or less recent hardware (with IOMMU). But wish to have powerful GPU in VM is exotic as well

I wouldn't call it exotic. It makes sense for anyone wishing to play video games on windows through a VM. Right now the only way to do that realistically is to have a second video card, with a second monitor hooked up to that. The only thing I know of that can do it is qemu with KVM.

EDIT: Even then if you have an Intel CPU that had the Virtualization capabilities gimped, you may be SOL.

[darkbasic]

The only thing I know of that can do it is qemu with KVM.

Xen too.

[cynyr]

There is really no need. KVM is way forward, it is GNU/Linux's killer app. It works now on ARM, Power and x86, while VirtualBox is x86 only due to hideous amount of x86 assembly code. Windows port of Vbox is of no use for me, I don't use Windows for years.

Oddly for me, as time goes on i spend more and more time on windows. Professionally i have to use windows. Autocad 2014, Excel, and all of the windows only vendor product selection programs are windows only. Also there is no Autodesk design review for linux. Wine might work for some of it, but being able to load a DLL into excel and call functions via VBA is required for what I'm doing at work. So I'm using vbox at work to have a linux guest, and a windows dev VM. I'd have liked to use KVM+libvirt, and virt-manager but it doesn't work on linux. There is no way I'll get vmware paid for by work, so that's a non-starter there.

[rikkinho]

hm

virtualbox works well for personal use, i use it for test OS and a windows 8 guest when i need some app or test something, 3d and 2d is not great but it works

[Xaero_Vincent]

Virtualbox works okay, although it doesn't appear to support the new latest Windows 10 Tech Preview--it just kept BSOD but VMWare Player worked. However, accelerated 3D performance is far from great in virtualbox but it's better than nothing.

The only VM product with impressive emulated graphics is Parallels for Mac, with DirectX 10 support.

Theoretically, Xen and KVM support PCIe passthrough, which can let you pass a GPU into the guest (assuming the system has 2 GPUs or 1 card and an APU) but there are so many requirements that have to be met to make it work and by large most people's hardware lack one or more of these requirements.

* A CPU that supports Intel VT-d or AMD-Vi
* A motherboard with an IOMMU unit
* BIOS support for VT-d or Vi that isn't broken
* Video drivers that permit GPU passthrough
* At least 2 GPUs in your system

In this sense, it would be much easier if emulated graphics in VM products improve like they have with Parallels or just use Wine or Steam In-Home Streaming for gaming.

[benjamins]

Virtualbox's BIOS disk support is bad

I did some work running DOS programs in Virtualbox recently, and can say its int 13h BIOS emulation is riddled with bugs. Some BIOS disk support functions are not implemented. The BIOS does not catch errors reported to the drive and pass them on to DOS programs. Even worse, on drives greater than 2.2TB reads and writes don't even make it out to the drive (I think it's because their BIOS emulation doesn't support drives that big though actual BIOSes have since 2003). They end with some kind of internal error that gets logged but not passed on to the DOS program.

While there isn't much of a need for DOS emulation and BIOS calls these days, it shows that the program needs a lot of work. I did submit a minor bug report to Virtualbox, and when you log onto their bug tracking system it says there are thousands of outstanding bugs and don't expect your bug report to be addressed any time soon.