F15 / VirtualBox

[Tomasz Torcz]

On Thu, Jun 09, 2011 at 06:37:19PM -0400, Dave Jones wrote:
> I'm curious why virtualbox has gained so much inertia so quickly.
> Based solely on the number of kernel bug reports we get that seem to be
> related to it, I have almost zero confidence in it being reliable.
> 
> Why are people choosing it over other solutions, and what can we change
> in qemu/kvm to get users using that instead ?

  For me, I installed VB to check (then) Sun's Fishworks emulator, which
was distributed as virtualbox image. Afterwards I stayed because:

 - my computer did not have VT-x/SVM (it's not relevant now, most
   computer have)
 - VB has 3D accell support for guest.  Enough to test for example Ubuntu Unity,
   and I believe gnome-shell also. This is BIG advantage.
 - virt-manager storage management is IMO a mess. I created LVM LV for
   new virtual-machine, then went to virt-manager to add this as raw
   file and got lost. I know that I want raw file, but the gui is
   talking about raw files separately from LVM pools.
 - bridged networking works with standard F15 install. With virt-manager
   one need to disable NetworkManager.
 - USB passthrough works.
 - changing virtual CD media is easy and reliable
 - VB provides yum repos

 VirtualBox has disadvantages:
 - it doesn't use kvm-intel for hardware virtualisation. I cannot run
   KVM and VB at the same time.
 - it's memory deduplication reimplements what already in-kernel (for the
   sake of cross platform)

-- 
Tomasz Torcz               "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station
xmpp: zdzichubg at chrome.pl    wagon filled with backup tapes." -- Jim Gray