Oracle VM VirtualBox: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 02:37, 5 August 2016

A hybrid PC system emulator that uses both software emulation and hardware virtualisation techniques to emulate/virtualise a modern IBM PC compatible computer. It is available in two versions, a proprietary version published by Oracle that is delivered for Microsoft Windows, Solaris, Mac OSX and Linux and an open source version that lacks a few features but is available on a wider number of platforms.

Guest Additions

Similarly to Virtual PC, VirtualBox uses Guest Additions to simplify interaction between the guest operating system and its host, Guest Additions are simply drivers, system extensions and/or applications for the guest OS that interact with VirtualBox or the host OS that allow them to use features such as

Mouse pointer integration
Shared folders
Copy/Paste between host and guest
Drag and drop objects between host and guest
Graphics acceleration and 3D pass through

At this point in time Oracle only ships Guest Additions for Microsoft Windows and OS/2, Drag'n'drop, 3D pass through and shared folders are not supported with the OS/2 GA.

Compatibility issues

In general VirtualBox is an excellent PC System emulator and usually the fastest amongst the free ones, if your objective in using it is primarily to run OS/2 on a PC running Mac OSX or MS Windows you may want to take a look at Microsoft's Virtual PC, VMware or Parallels Desktop.

VMware is available in both free and paid versions and is in general more capable, faster and stable than VirtualBox, the paid version in particular. The supplied extensions for OS/2 are superior to the VBox Guest Additions and the system is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.
Parallels Desktop is commercial software derived from SVISTA and is only available for Mac OSX, the OS/2 extensions are on par with the VBox Guest addition in capability but the integration with the host operating system is superior.
Microsoft's Virtual PC is freeware that is supplied built into the Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Microsoft Windows 7 and higher and available as a free download for Windows 2000, Vista and XP and Win7 and higher versions that do not have it built in. It slower but more flexible than VBox and can even be forced to run as a software only emulator which can be handy and even though the extensions for VirtualBox are basically developed from those for Virtual PC they lack support for shared folders that VPC does support in most versions. Virtual PC is especially a better option if you are running Windows Vista or older.

Hardware

There is no serial port virtualisation, only pass through to real serial ports via the Superchip or USB, this does not make serial port debugging on a single PC impossible, just that you will have to assign VirtualBox a serial port and use a crossover cable to hook that port up physically to another serial port on your PC.

DOS

There are no Guest Additions available for DOS, you might just as well run your DOS programs from an OS/2 or eComStation guest or host.

Tips

The OS/2 video driver that is part of the Guest Additions, requires GENGRADD to be installed.
For installing eComStation 1 and 1.1 on VirtualBox you may need to disable Nested Paging in the "System>Acceleration" tab on the settings pane, this may be needed on eComStation Preview as well. It is usually OK to enable Nested Paging again after the systems have been installed.

Links

Publisher

Innotek Systemberatung (Original developer)
Sun Microsystems
Oracle

@@ Line 8: / Line 8: @@
 * Copy/Paste between host and guest
 * Drag and drop objects between host and guest
-* Graphics acceleration and 3D pass throug
+* Graphics acceleration and 3D pass through
-At this point in time Oracle only ships Guest Additions for Microsoft Windows and OS/2, Drag'n'drop and shared folders are not supported with the OS/2 GA.
+At this point in time Oracle only ships Guest Additions for Microsoft Windows and OS/2, Drag'n'drop, 3D pass through and shared folders are not supported with the OS/2 GA.
 ==Compatibility issues==
+In general VirtualBox is an excellent PC System emulator and usually the fastest amongst the free ones, if your objective in using it is primarily to run OS/2 on a PC running Mac OSX or MS Windows you may want to take a look at [[Microsoft]]'s [[Virtual PC]], [[VMware]] or [[Parallels Desktop]].
+* VMware is available in both free and paid versions and is in general more capable, faster and stable than VirtualBox, the paid version in particular. The supplied extensions for OS/2 are superior to the VBox Guest Additions and the system is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.
+* Parallels Desktop is commercial software derived from [[SVISTA]] and is only available for Mac OSX, the OS/2 extensions are on par with the VBox Guest addition in capability but the integration with the host operating system is superior.
+* Microsoft's Virtual PC is freeware that is supplied built into the Professional, Ultimate and Enterprise editions of [[Microsoft Windows]] 7 and higher and available as a free download for Windows 2000, Vista and XP and Win7 and higher versions that do not have it built in. It slower but more flexible than VBox and can even be forced to run as a software only emulator which can be handy and even though the extensions for VirtualBox are basically developed from those for Virtual PC they lack support for shared folders that VPC does support in most versions. Virtual PC is especially a better option if you are running Windows Vista or older.
 ;Hardware
 * There is no serial port virtualisation, only pass through to real serial ports via the [[Superchip]] or [[USB]], this does not make serial port debugging on a single PC impossible, just that you will have to assign VirtualBox a serial port and use a crossover cable to hook that port up physically to another serial port on your PC.