1 First steps officially support and optimize for a select few (which, however, include the most common ones). See chapter 3.1, Supported guest operating systems, page 39 for details. Virtual machine (VM). This is the special environment that VirtualBox creates for your guest operating system while it is running. In other words, you run your guest operating system “in” a VM. Normally, a VM will be shown as a window on your computer’s desktop, but depending on which of the various frontends of VirtualBox you use, it can be displayed in full-screen mode or remotely on another computer. In a more abstract way, internally, VirtualBox thinks of a VM as a set of parameters that determine its behavior. They include hardware settings (how much memory the VM should have, what hard disks VirtualBox should virtualize through which container files, what CDs are mounted etc.) as well as state information (whether the VM is currently running, saved, its snapshots etc.). These settings are mirrored in the VirtualBox Manager window as well as the VBoxManage command line program see chapter 8, VBoxManage, page 99. In other words, a VM is also what you can see in its settings dialog. Guest Additions. This refers to special software packages which are shipped with VirtualBox but designed to be installed inside a VM to improve performance of the guest OS and to add extra features. This is described in detail in chapter 4, Guest Additions, page 53. 1.3 Features overview Here’s a brief outline of VirtualBox’s main features: Portability. VirtualBox runs on a large number of 32-bit and 64-bit host operating systems (again, see chapter 1.4, Supported host operating systems, page 13 for details). VirtualBox is a so-called “hosted” hypervisor (sometimes referred to as a “type 2” hypervi- sor). Whereas a “bare-metal” or “type 1” hypervisor would run directly on the hardware, VirtualBox requires an existing operating system to be installed. It can thus run alongside existing applications on that host. To a very large degree, VirtualBox is functionally identical on all of the host platforms, and the same file and image formats are used. This allows you to run virtual machines created on one host on another host with a different host operating system for example, you can create a virtual machine on Windows and then run it under Linux. In addition, virtual machines can easily be imported and exported using the Open Virtual- ization Format (OVF, see chapter 1.12, Importing and exporting virtual machines, page 26), an industry standard created for this purpose. You can even import OVFs that were created with a different virtualization software. No hardware virtualization required. For many scenarios, VirtualBox does not require the processor features built into newer hardware like Intel VT-x or AMD-V. As opposed to many other virtualization solutions, you can therefore use VirtualBox even on older hardware where these features are not present. The technical details are explained in chapter 10.3, Hardware vs. software virtualization, page 157. Guest Additions: shared folders, seamless windows, 3D virtualization. The VirtualBox Guest Additions are software packages which can be installed inside of supported guest systems to improve their performance and to provide additional integration and communi- cation with the host system. After installing the Guest Additions, a virtual machine will sup- port automatic adjustment of video resolutions, seamless windows, accelerated 3D graphics and more. The Guest Additions are described in detail in chapter 4, Guest Additions, page 53. 11
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