Important Things 1999

To start a virtual machine in VirtualBox directly without its management GUI, you can use this command,

“c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe” startvm {344deca7-3272-454a-b845-77777777777}

note: 344deca7-3272-454a-b845-77777777777  is uuid which can also be checked with command vBoxManager.exe. This is an example output.

C:\Users\it1999>”c:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe” list vms
“Ubuntu 10.10 VirtualBox” {344deca7-3272-454a-b845-77777777777}

VirtualBox is not stable as VMware, If you want add/remove usb device frequently. Except it can’t recognize the device correctly, it can’t shutdown normally when detect an unknown device.

But VirtualBox V4.0.2 is suitable for simply application now.

I don’t like its virtual device management of this version. It makes you feel nothing you can do, just accept it gives.

The advantage of VirtualBox V4.0.2 over VMware V7.1.3 is summarized as following,

1. Faster boot and reboot, 10 seconds less than VMware in most tests. Fast application response.

2. 2D/3D support

3. support most poplar virtual disk formats, such as vmdk, vdi, vhd and hdd.

4. Free

5. Windows partition auto align. My test shows, the offset of Windows XP in VMware is 28KB.  When the same vmdk opened by VirtualBox, it is changed to 32KB. VirtualBox follows the best practice.

The virtual machines I used need add/remove usb device every day, even several times in a day. The best choice for me is still VMware V7.1.3, to continue bearing its long boot time.

Compatibility, Availability and performance is my standard to choose V-applicatons.

VirtualBox for Windows is lost in my test, again.

I will test VirtualBox for Linux today, wish it win.

Error loading operating system, VirutalBox, Why?!

The reason is very simple,

If vmdk use a SCSI disk interface, it will make VirtualBox don’t know how to boot, because it want a IDE interface in Windows.

So, we change SCSI disk to IDE disk, it should work.

I chose the slowest and the simplest way, VMware: IDE–>Ghost–>Del SCSI, VirtualBox: New OS

1. create another disk which has a IDE interface, having the same size as SCSI disk.

2. using a boot ISO image which also can run ghost.

3. Ghost, disk to disk

4. Delete SCSI disk in VMware’s settings.

5. Reboot Windows in VMware, and shutdown, to test it can work.

6. Add a new Virtual Machine in VirtualBox using the IDE vmdk cloned by Ghost.

7. Boot Windows in VirtualBox, now the Windows is coming.

:)

To test Windows’ vmdk can be immigrated to VirtualBox took me about 5 hours.

The solution isn’t perfect ,but it works.

When using clone of vmdk from VMware, VirtualBox is defeated by VMware.

“Error loading operating system” , the error for Microsoft Windows OS hasn’t been solved  for a long time.

I have tested that VirtualBox can use clone of vmdk in Unbuntu 10.10.

But, in Windows 7, when using clone of VMware, it always shows “Error loading operating system” whatever you have tried.

And, there is no solution in Internet.

Why ?!

It shouldn’t be the reason to discard VirtualBox, when you want to convert all of your VMs to VBs.

I don’t believe VirtualBox is slower than VMware.

So, tested again tonight.

The process is following,

1. copy WinXP Guest from NTFS to EXT3

2. For VirtualBox, add Extension Pack, and reinstall new guest additions under safe mode. also, remove VMware tools.

3. boot VMware guest os

4. boot VirtualBox guest os

5. compare boot/reboot/shutdown time

The result is VirtualBox V4.0.2 is a little faster than VMware Workstation V7.0.2.

The reasons may be

1. In the first test, guest os was in NTFS, not local EXT3(my Ubuntu filesystem, not EXT4)

2. VirtualBox guest os had VMware Tools.

3. VMware is slower, because it used a longer time in BIOS.

VMware give me the feeling of real boot, slow, wait, see Windows, wait, wait, then you can use it.

VirtualBox is booting…., and ejected Windows XP, then it’s OK.

In fact VirtualBox is faster than VMware about 10 seconds during test of reboot.

Just a recorder,

1. StarDict, with dictionary Langdao and Oxford

2. Firefox: Xmarks, Zotero

3. Docky

4. Ubuntu-tweak

5. Gimp

6. Filezilla

7. Movie Player, update to support AVI, RMVB

8. VMware worksation 7.1.3, and VirtualBox 4.0.2

9. 7zip

10. Freemind

11. ThunderBird: lighting, provider for google calendar

(Google calendar login, setting, share calendar, calendar detail, right click image “XML” for private address, copy link, paste into new network calender in lighting)

12. Wallpapoz, delete the background image it already set.

I just tested two virtualization software this morning, VMware workstation 7.1.3 and Virtualbox 4.0.2 under Ubuntu 10.10.

There are some strange things I can’t understand.

1. Both not support multi vCPUs very well.

2. 4-CPUs is obviously slower than 2-CPUs

3. 2-CPUs shows best performance, but only a little faster than 1-CPU.

4. VMware is faster than Virtualbox

Test enviroment:

Host: Ubuntu 10.10 updated, 4CPU, 4GB RAM

Guest OS: Windows XP with Office 2007, 1GB RAM, (1-4) CPU

After simple test, I decided to use VMware Workstation 7.1.3, but just for emergency.

I had tested several virtul machine softwares to find one I could use for working in it.

First, I tested VMware Workstation, and gave up for its big body and slowly startup.  I have used it for a long time in Windows and Linux host, so it’s the first one I tested and gave up.

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