The Bad: SMP performance is slow.
I have to say Virtualbox is one of my all-time favorite applications.I love Windows XP and I love Linux and nowhere else do they come together so nicely as in Virtualbox. I am longing for the day I can load Mac Os X as a guest in Virtualbox.
My Installation procedure (upgrading from 2.2.4 to 3.0):
- Double check that Debian sources and apt-secure key is in place.
- Uninstall 2.2.4.
- Reboot to get rid of vboxdrv
- Install 3.0 via Synaptic
- Reboot to get new vboxdrv (you can do this via CLI without rebooting)
- Fire up Virtualbox GUI. There is a new registration procedure but it is painless.
First thing I did was to configure one of my existing Windows XP virtual machines to use SMP. For the testing I was using a Quad Core machine and configured SMP for 2 virtual CPUs. After booting XP I noticed that the task manager only shows one CPU. Drats - I have the wrong Windows kernel installed.
Created a new virtual machine, reloaded XP and booted. Task manager now shows 2 CPUS - great ! Then I noticed the CPU meter in Ubuntu is showing 50% busy, yet Guest OS shows only 3 - 10%. Windows feels very slow. I also noticed sound breakup when trying to watch a video from wwww.hulu.com.
Changed the original XP virtual machine back to single CPU and and Windows feels snappy as ever and Hulu is butter smooth (no sound issues). I am not sure if SMP is causing the bad XP performance or the IO APIC setting (which I enabled when I built the new virtual machine). I will have to do more experiments. At least SMP is there and it is a step in the right direction.
Important: You have to reinstall the virtualbox additions once you have upgraded to 3.0.
I noticed that if you run the guest in full screen mode there is a new nifty toolbar at the bottom middle of the screen that pops up. The popup gives you access to the menu functions in the virtualbox window. There is also an option in the GUI to switch this toolbar on or off.
Related Posts:
