...they just released version 4.0.0 which is a major update from 3.2x. I installed it and updated the Additions for both my Ubuntu VM and XP VM (use my XP VM most and am typing this message in it through a Sandbox as I think I mentioned to you all already). Didn't have to install the additions for my Win98se VM (finished playing a game of Uno since I haven't played in a little while; only reason I keep Win98se around. I won by the way; lol). They made some major innovations to boot. Might give Meerkat a try again even. lol

I will definitely be checking this out. I also have an XP that is virtualized, and I recently installed a Fedora virtual machine to mess with. Thanks for the heads-up.

well time to try it

The instrution to install on Maverick with apt get doesn't work for me as the packet on synaptic, but the deb package on the site worked well

Now i just hope next kernel update of kubuntu will not screw up everything (were a VB add on to avoid it buti got some problem to install it..

Don't really have time yet to look it up, working on to much crap right now, but what's the improvements, and updates. (I use VirtualBox portable, but it's not an official portable release, you can look more into it, if wanted)

Here's the changelog Mike. The biggest thing that I see is that it supports more then 1.5/2G for 32 bit OSs. Since the largest memory that I've allocated to my VMs is 750MBytes (my XP VM), that doesn't apply to me.

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog

Wow these are some very nice updates, I would love for webcam support to be added in like in VMWare so I could connect my webcam into my virtual machine despite whatever OS I'm running, but mainly for programming purposes.

I could tell there was some sort of change with memory management. After getting the update I ran each VM to update the Additions, and for both my 32-bit XP and 32-bit Fedora VM I had to disable compiz and conky on my host machine - neither VM would start due to out of memory errors. (My host is a 64-bit LinuxMint w/2GB RAM and I had already given the max allocation of RAM.)

I did hessitate before install 4.0 Bob, but decided to go for the gusto and was happy that all of my VMs worked flawlessly through it. Sorry you had to do some changes to get your VMs to work, but still, you were technical enough to do so.

I still may do some "mangling" of my system. There are some things about Fedora I like after seeing them in the VM. I may get crazy and dump Vista from my second hard drive (turn it into a VM like I did XP) and let Fedora out to play.

I'm never completely satisfied with my setup. This is cheaper than always working on automobiles, right?

?? what is that 2GB limit ??
a virtual box may only contain 2GB ??

I decipher it like this. XP 32-bit can actually use up to 3.5GBytes, but apparently an 32-bit XP VM was only able to have assigned to it a max of 2GBytes. Apparently they fixed this limit for 32-bit OSs.

Some of you might already be aware of this, but I wanted to point it out for anyone interested in trying out the whole virtualization process - for example, using a virtual machine to "test-drive" a new or different operating system before actually installing it on your system.

Having a 64-bit processor and running a 64-bit host OS does not automatically mean that you will be able to run a 64-bit guest OS. Your processor must support hardware virtualization and the BIOS must be configured so that the processor's virtualization is turned on.

I found this out the hard way: I wrongly assumed that by having a 64-bit OS running on a 64-bit processor meant that I could run any OS in a virtual machine, whether 64-bit or 32-bit. Unfortunately my CPU does not have the virtualization capability. It took me a while to figure out why I could never set up 64-bit guest OSs.

The alternatives are:

1. Upgrade the CPU (and likely the motherboard and RAM as well). Not currently possible for me due to cost.
2. Create and use a 32-bit VM to test out the OS in a 32-bit version before deciding if I want to try a 64-bit version. The catch to this method is when a situation arises where the 64-bit counterpart to an application is unstable (Adobe Flash Player, for example). The 32-bit version of an app may work just fine, but it may not carry over into the 64-bit realm.

If/When I am confident I want to further explore the 64-bit version of an OS, I can then download a bootable or LiveCD/DVD version and either burn it to disk or a USB thumbdrive and proceed from there.

You should turn on Virtualization setting in the BIOS regardless if you are going to try to install a 32-bit or 64-bit OS. In fact, Microsoft's Virtual Mode XP won't install unless you enable this (only reason I keep Virtual PC installed is for the one program that I was too lazy to figure out how to get it to work in Virtualbox XP (works fine in Virtual PC XP and, of course, won't in Win7 64-bit) lol).

True. Too bad my system is old enough that the CPU doesn't have virtualization capabilities and neither does the motherboard. I have the AMD Athlon 3400+ 64-bit. It seems that this particular chip didn't get virtualization capabilities until the 3400+ X2 (the dual core).

Yeah; I have AMD 64 X2 4600. It was a barebones that my brother got me from Christmas 2 years ago. I've since updated the memory from 2Gs to 6Gs, and the OS from XP Pro to Win7 Pro. Still the video, though GeForce 6150se, is not powerful enough for me to take advance of CS5's GPU acceleration (I know; traitor I am; lol. Not really. 98% of the time I use GIMP. I do use PS to process all my Leica RAW captures since I'm no fan of any of the open source RAW programs (UFRaw is not going to replace ACR any time soon. Also, sometimes I do need 16/32 bit support which is still lacking in GIMP. Most of the time not, but still sometimes it's useful). I got some Christmas dough, so yesterday I upgraded my CS2 to CS5 (doughs now about gone; lol). Not a happy camper. Because the onboard Video GPU is not powerful enough, I can't run PixelBender in PS (but the Pixel Bender Toolkit vs. 2.5 stand-a-lone runs fine and I recommend you download this one since it's free; will pass a link at the end of this entry). I also have had some issues running Imageskil's Displacement map filter (click here and scroll all the way down for the free filter; pretty fun). It works flawlessly in Irfanview and GIMP (and that includes the preview which is a rarity for GIMP as you all know). I chuckle to myself on that one. On other forums, I mentioned that the Photoshop gods cursed me since I'm a GIMPer. lol

Anyway, I will have to wait to buy a better video card since my Christmas doughs spent and am in between employment right now. Oh well. Guess I could have just saved my money and bought the video card, but I really didn't need to until I upgraded to CS5 (i.e., chicken before the egg or catch 22 (whatever that means) whichever cliche' you prefer). If your video has GPU capabilities, I would highly recommend playing with Pixel Bender toolkit (version 2.5; if you had installed 2.1, then you will probably need to install the hotfix in order to un-install it to install 2.5; I had too; lol). The toolkit is free, and you can then play with this cool Fractal plugin from Subblue.

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/pixelbender.html

I completely understand. I haven't had any steady work in three years; right now the best I can do is odd jobs and handyman type stuff, because relocating to find work isn't an option. The last big income I had I spend a couple hundred US$ to upgrade my hard drive, video, power supply and RAM. This system was a hand-me-down from one of my sisters; it started life as an HP Pavilion that caused her a problem and the repair guy she took it to replaced the power supply and the case. Then a lightning strike fried the motherboard so she replaced it, the CPU and the RAM (this is where she and I first encountered Ubuntu as the new motherboard came from a 3rd party supplier and wasn't HP branded, so her HP-branded XP restore disks wouldn't work). Then she bought herself a new HP Pavilion PC and gave me the old one. She never got comfortable with Ubuntu and was happy to return to a Windows PC - although she complained about Vista not being like XP.

I like it just fine and the cost to me (then) was $0! With all the work that I've done to it since 2006, the HP part is just a fading memory, as there are none of the original parts remaining. I mentioned it has the single core AMD Athlon 3400+ 64-bit CPU and 2GB RAM; I added a 500GB SATA drive, a nVidia GeForce 9500GT PCIe video card that has 1 GB VRAM, and a 600W power supply. If I were doing it again I'd probably spend even more money on it by upgrading the motherboard and CPU to a faster multi-core processor, more RAM, and I'm dying to dump my CRT for a flat panel!

When I do get ready to buy parts, I generally check out NewEgg.com to see if they have any "bundles"; we got this CPU/motherboard/RAM as bundle and I think it was under US$130 including shipping. It was relatively inexpensive because it was (at the time) previous generation hardware. The motherboard was designed to be used in an office - the so-called nVidia Business Platform. Works pretty good for me, though.

Just PMed you Bob.

how you turn on Virtualization setting in the BIOS ?

where is the option ?

I did do a search on my MB, but the PDF file didn't have this since they made a BIOS update which included it (i.e., I flashed my BIOS way back and it added this feature). Took a picture and did a sorry attempt at perspective correction. lol

PM'd you back. Now off to bed, tomorrow's another day.