VirtualBox 5.1 Officially Released

[Kano]

I don't see where to specify SLP or SLIC (ACPI), there are tools to extract that like SLIC toolkit. SLIC 2.0 (Vista) and SLIC 2.1 (7) are not used anymore with 8+, there the used serial is stored in the firmware. Up to XP the SLP variant was used, basically just a string at a defined position. For Vista/7 you need to install the correct cert and an OEM key (both are extracted with the toolkit), funnly the OEM keys are exchangable between vendors and as the version was never defined in the vendor SLIC you could use those keys for "Anytime Upgrade" to switch from Starter to Ultimate on the cheapest netbooks too

[michael-vb]

I know that it's probably asking for a pony, but... what happened to VGA/PCIe passthrough? It's experimental since forever.

Too much work for too little (paying customer) demand. Passing through any PCI device is messy, and graphics cards are at the hard end of that.

Also, another very nice pony I ask you to provide me asap is the passthrough of BIOS/UEFI IDs and keys and whatever else is needed that should THEORETICALLY allow me to run a legit windows inside a VM running in a Linux host on a PC with a windows OEM license.

I tried this some time ago but was like black magic and didn't work.

Not even sure exactly what Windows needs there. What we have on offer:

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#changedmi

We haven't had much demand for more (any that I can recall in fact), but feel free to investigate what is needed. I can't promise or even say it is likely that we will do anything with the results, but if no one investigates it is extremely likely that nothing will happen.

[starshipeleven]

it might still be worth mentioning, other than 3D, any particular and specific performance pain points. Perhaps as particular use cases (or perhaps not).

I know that it's probably asking for a pony, but... what happened to VGA/PCIe passthrough? It's experimental since forever.

Also, another very nice pony I ask you to provide me asap is the passthrough of BIOS/UEFI IDs and keys and whatever else is needed that should THEORETICALLY allow me to run a legit windows inside a VM running in a Linux host on a PC with a windows OEM license.

I tried this some time ago but was like black magic and didn't work.

Thanks for your time reading this.

[bulletxt]

Hello All!

A few answers there:

• The release is not identical to the RC, but it only differs by a few commits.
• We removed DKMS support because it is not supported everywhere. We were already providing nearly the same functionality where it is not supported, and decided there are really better ways we can use our limited developer time than maintaining two kernel module build solutions, and we got quite a few bug reports which turned out to be because DKMS had got confused and stopped working. I don't really care whether it was their fault (if it is maintained at all) or ours, but it was a time drain. DKMS relies on a hook mechanism to be notified when an new kernel is installed so that it can rebuild its modules. We added hooks too, so this should still work. Obviously anything which worked before and does not now is a regression, and merits a bug report if you can reproduce it. If it is not important enough for you to reproduce of course then it may not be important enough to be worth investigating.
• I understand that 3D is an important area for Phoronix readers, but it is not likely to get dramatically better (especially in X11 guests<1>) in the near future. Sorry.
• I am not one of the core virtualisation performance people on the team, but it might still be worth mentioning, other than 3D, any particular and specific performance pain points. Perhaps as particular use cases (or perhaps not).

And other than that, I hope that many people enjoy the new release!

Regards,

Michael

<1> https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/X11Guest3D

Thanks to you for the great software you give to us!!

[bug77]

I'm going to give this a try. Last time I tried VB 5.0 would refuse to install on my Win10 machine.

Edit: Nope, still broken.

[michael-vb]

Hello All!

A few answers there:

• The release is not identical to the RC, but it only differs by a few commits.
• We removed DKMS support because it is not supported everywhere. We were already providing nearly the same functionality where it is not supported, and decided there are really better ways we can use our limited developer time than maintaining two kernel module build solutions, and we got quite a few bug reports which turned out to be because DKMS had got confused and stopped working. I don't really care whether it was their fault (if it is maintained at all) or ours, but it was a time drain. DKMS relies on a hook mechanism to be notified when an new kernel is installed so that it can rebuild its modules. We added hooks too, so this should still work. Obviously anything which worked before and does not now is a regression, and merits a bug report if you can reproduce it. If it is not important enough for you to reproduce of course then it may not be important enough to be worth investigating.
• I understand that 3D is an important area for Phoronix readers, but it is not likely to get dramatically better (especially in X11 guests<1>) in the near future. Sorry.
• I am not one of the core virtualisation performance people on the team, but it might still be worth mentioning, other than 3D, any particular and specific performance pain points. Perhaps as particular use cases (or perhaps not).

And other than that, I hope that many people enjoy the new release!

Regards,

Michael

<1> https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/X11Guest3D

[franglais125]

flubba86 Good to hear, thanks! I guess I'll see how it goes when I upgrade my own VBox.

[flubba86]

So... An additional script is run on every boot? If the module is already built, I guess it won't slow the boot process, but if not, then the boot-up is much slower? Did you notice something like that?

No, I didn't notice any slowdown at all during boot. In fact, the module may have been built at some other time during the install (again, without DKMS) and simply loaded at boot.

[franglais125]

I just rebooted the system and it worked correctly, the init script now builds the kernel module automatically (without DKMS) on boot if it doesn't have one. I now realize I could have simply unloaded the old kernel module (with modprobe -r) and then run the init script myself to get the kernel module built.

So... An additional script is run on every boot? If the module is already built, I guess it won't slow the boot process, but if not, then the boot-up is much slower? Did you notice something like that?

[pouar]

is there any reason to stop using dkms? other than "installing dependencies is too hard". Because in Arch, pacman now uses it to automatically recompile modules during upgrades