VirtualBox 5.0 tested
Virtual Home

© Lead Image © Anan Kaewkhammul, 123RF.com
We look at a number of new features in VirtualBox 5.0, a popular desktop virtualization solution.
Virtualization programs allow users to launch or install a foreign system within a software environment. One of the most popular of these programs is VirtualBox, which is free for personal use. A major update of VirtualBox to version 5 was released in June.
Virtualization solutions have been put to a variety of uses. Deployed on servers, they cleanly isolate services and ensure uniform load balancing between hardware resources. On desktops, they provide a convenient solution for testing or using other systems. Linux users in particular frequently rely on them to work with the occasional, indispensable Windows application.
Since 2005, VirtualBox [1] has vied for the attention of the customers and competed with commercial offerings from VMware [2] and Parallels [3]. The project, which was acquired by Sun Microsystems in 2008 and, in turn, by Oracle in 2010, has now published a major release: version 5. I put VirtualBox through its paces to see what's new or different.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Is This the Year of Linux?
Another major organization has decided to kick Windows and Office to the curb, in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.