this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2024
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Cyberus Develops Open-Source KVM Backend For VirtualBox (www.phoronix.com)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Making use of Linux's Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) opens up new possibilities while users can still enjoy the VirtualBox VMM itself. The KVM support is part of the mainline kernel so there is less worries with not having to use the VirtualBox kernel driver, KVM tends to support new features quite quickly, and tends to be more actively developed than VirtualBox and is embraced by a range of organizations. Early users of this backend by Cyberus customers are said to be experiencing better performance too.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago

Known issues and limitations

Currently, Intel x86_64 is the only supported host platform.
    AMD will most likely work too but is considered experimental at the moment.
Linux is required as a host operating system for building and running VirtualBox KVM.
Starting with Intel Tiger Lake (11th Gen Core processors) or newer, split lock detection must be turned off in the host system. This can be achieved using the Linux kernel command line parameter split_lock_detect=off or using the split_lock_mitigate sysctl.

Source: https://github.com/cyberus-technology/virtualbox-kvm

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

This is really interesting and great news. I use VirtManager and Boxes but find VirtualBox to be easier to use and configure.

Commercially, there are sometimes VirtualBox images available that cannot be used with QEMU. I think even Microsoft makes “test” instances of Windows available as VB images.

VirtualBox is cross platform. I teach sometimes and, while I am using Linux, most of the students use Windows or macOS. It is easier to create instructions and give demos that use VirualBox. This announcement will be great for me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Dumb question: why would anyone improve VBox?

I have heard of Oracle looking at IP addresses and if they notice a trend they try to collect a license off it. Same crap they do with Java. Do people use VBox and not concerned of Oracle looking over them?

I loved VBox back then, it worked great.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

why would anyone improve VBox

VirtualBox has it's own advantages, for starters some people may find it's GUI easier to use. It also has certain unique features not found in other opensource hypervisors, such as seamless mode. Finally, VirtualBox may have better compatibility or performance with certain operating systems. For instance, in my case when I wanted to get GhostBSD working on virt-manager, I ran into lot of issues, such as not being able to install it in UEFI mode, mouse not working etc, whereas it ran and installed without any issues at all using VirtualBox.

I have heard of Oracle looking at IP addresses and if they notice a trend they try to collect a license off it. Same crap they do with Java. Do people use VBox and not concerned of Oracle looking over them?

Yes that is indeed a thing Oracle is notorious for, but with VirtualBox the only concern is with their proprietary extension pack. VirtualBox itself is licensed under GPLv2, so there's no issues using it in a commercial environment. However, the extension pack is for personal use only. Luckily, the extension pack isn't really a necessity any more - back in the day, it was needed for USB 3.0 support, but now it's only needed for VirtualBox's built-in RDP, disk encryption, Intel PXE boot ROM, and webcam passthru. If you don't need these features - which most people don't - then you can use the main VirtualBox package without any worries.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Thanks for the fantastic write up. It has been about 5ish years since I used VBox. Back then extensions were still needed for USB to work so this is good news.

VBox was always a great software, Oracle getting it really sucked

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

The performance of Virtual Box wasn't even a contest vs KVM/QEMU. It's easy to use, though VirtManager has gotten close to the ease of use that VB has.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Cyberus Technology announced today the open-source release of a KVM back-end developed for VirtualBox.

This new back-end allows the VirtualBox VMM to run virtual machines utilizing the Linux KVM hypervisor instead of the custom kernel module relied upon by the standard Oracle VM VirtualBox software.

Making use of Linux's Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) opens up new possibilities while users can still enjoy the VirtualBox VMM itself.

The KVM support is part of the mainline kernel so there is less worries with not having to use the VirtualBox kernel driver, KVM tends to support new features quite quickly, and tends to be more actively developed than VirtualBox and is embraced by a range of organizations.

Cyberus intends to continue developing this VirtualBox KVM back-end and implement more features over the course of the year.

More details on the VirtualBox KVM back-end are available from the announcement at Cyberus Technology.

The original article contains 173 words, the summary contains 148 words. Saved 14%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago

hope this helps with the dumbster fire of the virtualbox version in the official Ubuntu repositories
(virtual box basically "breaks" on Ubuntu LTS once a newer HWE kernel gets released unless you install a newer version of it, leading to hundreds of support threads every time this happens)