VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD.
VirtualBox is being actively developed with frequent releases and has an ever growing list of features, supported guest operating systems and platforms it runs on. VirtualBox is a community effort backed by a dedicated company: everyone is encouraged to contribute while Sun ensures the product always meets professional quality criteria.
News source: Official website
Download: VirtualBox 2.1.0
View: Change log
Presently using it for running Kubuntu (on a XP host) and it runs flawlessly.
Nice new features that easy my development and testing process.
+100 Points for this build!
Starting with version 2.1, the VirtualBox Guest Additions for Windows contain experimental hardware 3D support.
With this new feature, if an application inside your Windows guest uses 3D features through the OpenGL programming interfaces, these will not be emulated in software (which is slow), but instead VirtualBox will attempt to use your host's 3D hardware. This works for all supported host platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris), provided that your host operating system can make use of your accelerated 3D hardware in the first place.
The 3D acceleration currently has the following limitations:
1. It is only available in Windows XP and 32-bit Vista guests with the Windows Guest Additions installed.
2. Only OpenGL acceleration is presently available in those guests; Direct3D is not yet supported and will be added in a future release.
3. Because the feature is experimental at this time, it is disabled by default and must be manually enabled in the VM settings (see chapter 3.7.1.2, "Advanced" tab, page 46).
Please see chapter 13, Known issues, page 182 also.
Technically, VirtualBox implements this by installing an additional hardware 3D driver inside your Windows guest when the Guest Additions are installed. This driver acts as an OpenGL hardware driver and reports toWindows that the (virtual) hardware is capable of 3D hardware acceleration. When an application in the Windows guest requests hardware acceleration through the OpenGL programming interfaces, these are sent to the host through a special communication tunnel implemented by VirtualBox, and then the host performs the requested 3D operation via the host's OpenGL programming interfaces.
A good start to a more important feature.
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