VirtualBox, an open source x86 virtualization project available for free has just hit version 3.1. The new version, a 65 megabyte download, sports the following fixes and changes:
– Teleportation (aka live migration); migrate a live VM session from one host to another (see the manual for more information).
– VM states can now be restored from arbitrary snapshots instead of only the last one, and new snapshots can be taken from other snapshots as well (“branched snapshots”; see the manual for more information).
– 2D video acceleration for Windows guests; use the host video hardware for overlay stretching and color conversion (see the manual for more information).
– More flexible storage attachments: CD/DVD drives can be attached to arbitrary storage controllers, and there can be more than one such drive (the manual for more information).
– The network attachment type can be changed while a VM is running.
– Complete rewrite of experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts making use of the latest USB enhancements in Solaris Nevada 124 and higher.
– Significant performance improvements for PAE and AMD64 guests (VT-x and AMD-V only; normal (non-nested) paging).
– Experimental support for EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface; see the manual for more information).
– Support for paravirtualized network adapters (virtio-net; see the manual for more information).
– VMM: guest SMP fixes for certain rare cases.
– GUI: snapshots include a screenshot.
– GUI: locked storage media can be unmounted by force.
– GUI: the a log window grabbed all key events from other GUI windows (bug #5291).
– GUI: allow to disable USB filters (bug #5426).
– GUI: improved memory slider in the VM settings.
– GUI: the VirtualBox website couldn’t be opened from the help menu (bug #4559).
– 3D support: major performance improvement in VBO processing.
– 3D support: added GL_EXT_framebuffer_object, GL_EXT_compiled_vertex_array support.
– 3D support: fixed crashes in FarCry, SecondLife, Call of Duty, Unreal Tournament, Eve Online (bugs #2801, #2791).
– 3D support: fixed graphics corruption in World of Warcraft (#2816).
– 3D support: fixed Final frame of Compiz animation not updated to the screen (#4653).
– 3D support: fixed incorrect rendering of non ARGB textures under compiz.
– iSCSI: support iSCSI targets with more than 2TiB capacity.
– VRDP: fixed occasional VRDP server crash (bug #5424).
– Network: fixed the E1000 emulation for QNX (and probably other) guests (bug #3206).
– NAT: added host resolver DNS proxy (see the manual for more information).
– VMDK: fixed incorrectly rejected big images split into 2G pieces (bug #5523, #2787).
– VMDK: fixed compatibility issue with fixed or raw disk VMDK files (bug #2723).
– VHD: fixed incompatibility with Hyper-V.
– Support for Parallels version 2 disk image (HDD) files; see the manual for more information.
– OVF: create manifest files on export and verify the content of an optional manifest file on import.
– OVF: fixed memory setting during import (bug #4188).
– Mouse device: now five buttons are passed to the guest (bug #3773).
– VBoxHeadless: fixed loss of saved state when VM fails to start.
– VBoxSDL: fixed crash during shutdown (Windows hosts only).
– X11 based hosts: allow the user to specify their own scan code layout (bug #2302).
– Mac OS X hosts: don’t auto show the menu and dock in fullscreen (bug #4866).
– Mac OS X hosts (64 bit): don’t interpret mouse wheel events as left click (bug #5049).
– Mac OS X hosts: fixed a VM abort during shutdown under certain conditions.
– Solaris hosts: combined the kernel interface package into the VirtualBox main package.
– Solaris hosts: support for OpenSolaris Boomer architecture (with OSS audio backend).
– Shared folders: VBOXSVR is visible in Network folder (Windows guests, bug #4842).
– Shared folders: performance improvements (Windows guests, bug #1728).
– Windows, Linux and Solaris Additions: added balloon tip notifier if VirtualBox host version was updated and Additions are out of date.
– Solaris guests: fixed keyboard emulation (bug #1589).
– Solaris Additions: fixed as_pagelock() failed errors affecting guest properties (bug #5337).
– Windows Additions: added automatic logon support for Windows Vista and Windows 7.
– Windows Additions: improved file version lookup for guest OS information.
– Windows Additions: fixed runtime OS detection on Windows 7 for session information.
– Windows Additions: fixed crash in seamless mode (contributed by Huihong Luo).
– Linux Additions: added support for uninstalling the Linux Guest Additions (bug #4039).
– Linux guest shared folders: allow mounting a shared folder if a file of the same name as the folder exists in the current directory (bug #928).
– SDK: added object-oriented web service bindings for PHP5.
VirtualBox 3.1 is available for free and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and an Intel-based Mac to install and run.