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Oracle VM VirtualBox

From EDM2

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 called VirtualBox OSE that lacks a few features but is available on a wider number of platforms, there is no difference between the two versions in practice since version two the propriety portion of the program is now delivered as a part of the Guest Additions.

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.
OS/2
  • For VBox to work With OS/2 you will have to have a processor that supports the AMD-V virtualisation extensions or Intel's VT-x clone, that means most Intel processors made after 2006 with the exception of the Atom line and embedded processors and all AMD 64 bit capable processors bar the first generation. This also means that the AMD-V/Intel VT-x feature must be turned on in the settings notebook.
  • 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.
  • If you want to run a widescreen resolution under VBox-gengradd you may have to run the command VBoxManage setextradata to get a custom resolution and in a worst case scenario edit the \OS2\MONITOR.DIF to gain the modes you require.
DOS & 16 bit Windows versions
  • There are no Guest Additions available for DOS or any 16 bit Windows version, you might just as well run your DOS/Win 16 bit programs from an OS/2 or eComStation guest or host. You can copy and paste between an eCS guest Windows and DOS sessions and your VBox host without a hitch.
  • On top of that VBox has some problems running DOS and Windows 3x, any version of DOS has a tendency to show screen corruption and finding Win3x drivers that work with anything but VGA resolutions is close to impossible.

Links

Licence

The full Windows, Solaris, OSX and Linux version are closed source programs that are free to download but released under a proprietary licence. The VirtualBox OSE version is open source software released under the GPL v2

Publisher

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