Sun’s Virtualbox releases version 2.1 major update

Sun has released version 2.1 of its Virtualbox virtualization software. The version number doesn’t say it all ‘coz according to the changelog, there are actually some major changes to this latest release of the Virtualbox software. New features for this version include 3D acceleration via OpenGL and an new NAT engine that has significantly better performance. And ICMP echo or better known as ping is now supported.

I’ve downloaded Virtualbox version 2.1 on my Ubuntu notebook to update my current version 2.0.6. The update went out smoothly although I had to first uninstall the older version before installing the new version 2.1 of Virtualbox.

After uninstalling version 2.0.6 using the dpkg program of Ubuntu, I got the screen below after installing and running version 2.1 for the first time:

After pressing OK, I got the usual screen of Virtualbox and my previous settings and virtual guest machines was still there. Also I’m happy that ping in now working on my Windows XP guest machine.

Here’s a list the the new features that are included in Virtualbox 2.1

• Support for hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V) on Mac OS X hosts
• Support for 64-bit guests on 32-bit host operating systems (experimental; see user manual, chapter 1.6, 64-bit guests, page 16)
• Added support for Intel Nehalem virtualization enhancements (EPT and VPID; see user manual, chapter 1.2, Software vs. hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V), page 10))
• Experimental 3D acceleration via OpenGL (see user manual, chapter 4.8, Hardware 3D acceleration (OpenGL), page 66)
• Experimental LsiLogic and BusLogic SCSI controllers (see user manual, chapter 5.1, Hard disk controllers: IDE, SATA (AHCI), SCSI, page 70)
• Full VMDK/VHD support including snapshots (see user manual, chapter 5.2, Disk image files (VDI, VMDK, VHD), page 72)
• New NAT engine with signicantly better performance, reliability and ICMP echo (ping) support (bugs #1046, #2438, #2223, #1247)
• New Host Interface Networking implementations for Windows and Linux hosts with easier setup (replaces TUN/TAP on Linux and manual bridging on Windows)

In addition there’s a who list of fixes and additions you can find here. You can download the linux version of Virtualbox 2.1 for the Virtualbox site.