VirtualBox 2.1.4 released

[TerryE]

VirtualBox 2.1.4 (released 2009-02-16)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• Windows hosts: Fixed network component BSOD issue (bugs #2916)
• Windows hosts: Fixed installation issues (bugs #3130)
• Linux hosts: fixed occasional kernel oopses (bug #2556)
• Linux hosts: fixed module dependency for shipped modules (bug #3115)
• Linux hosts: moved the udev rules for USB forward so that they don’t override existing system rules (bug #3143)
• Linux hosts: fixed the issue with guest not being able to communicate with each other when attached via TAP interfaces (bug #3215)
• Linux hosts: give up probing for USB gracefully if dbus or hal are not available (bug #3136)
• Linux hosts: fixed warnings in installer when SELinux was disabled (bug #3098)
• Linux hosts: VirtualBox sometimes failed to start if it had been started using sudo previously (bug #3270)
• Solaris hosts: fixed high CPU load while running many guests in parallel
• Solaris hosts: fixed inability to start more than 128 VMs
• VMM: fixed performance regression for Windows guests (bug #3172)
• VMM: ignore CPU stepping when restoring a saved state/snapshot
• REM: fixed inability to use gdb to debug programs in Linux guests with software virtualization (bug #3245)
• GUI: fixed dead key handling on Solaris hosts (bug #3256)
• GUI: in the shutdown dialog, disable the action send the shutdown signal if the guest is currently not using ACPI
• GUI: suppress additional key release events sent by X11 hosts when keys are auto-repeated (bug #1296)
• API: restore case insensitive OS type name lookup (bug #3087)
• VBoxHeadless: really don’t start X11 services (clipboard service, 3D acceleration; Solaris & Darwin hosts only; bug #3199)
• NAT: fixed occasional crashes when the guest is doing traceroute (non-Windows hosts; bug #3200)
• NAT: fixed crashes under high load (bug #3110)
• NAT: fixed truncated downloads (Windows hosts only, bug #3257)
• NAT: don’t intercept TFTP packages with a destination address different from the builtin TFTP server (bug #3112)
• USB: several fixes for USB passthrough on Linux hosts
• USB: reduced host CPU utilization if EHCI is active
• VRDP: fixed VRDP server black screen after a client reconnect (bug #1989)
• VRDP: modified rdesktop client (rdesktop-vrdp) now uses NumLock state synchronization (bug #3253)
• LsiLogic: make FreeBSD guests work (bug #3174)
• ATA: fixed deadlock when pausing VM due to problems with the virtual disk (e.g. disk full, iSCSI target unavailable)
• iSCSI: fixed possible crash when pausing the VM
• 3D support: added missing GL_MAX_TEXTURE_COORDS_ARB (bug #3246)
• Windows Additions: fixed ERROR (e0000101) error during installation (bug #1923)
• Windows Additions: fixed Windows Explorer hang when browsing shared folders with 64 bit guests (bug #2225)
• Windows Additions: fixed guest screen distortions during a video mode change
• Windows Additions: fixed the Network drive not connected message for mapped shared folders drives after the guest startup (bug #3157)
• Linux Additions: fixed occasional file corruption when writing files in O_APPEND mode to a shared folder (bug #2844)
• Linux Additions: the mouse driver was not properly set up on X.Org release candidates (bug #3212)
• Linux Additions: fixed installer to work with openSUSE 11.1 (bug #3213)
• Linux Additions: disable dynamic resizing if the X server is configured for fixed resolutions
• Linux/Solaris Additions: handle virtual resolutions properly which are larger than the actual guest resolution (bug #3096)

This topic is locked for moderator announcements relating to Version 2.1.4. Please use Discuss VirtualBox 2.1.4 Releaseif you wish to discuss this release.

Announcement copied from Changelog — VirtualBox

[TerryE]

The section 13 of the User Guide details some issues that are known not to work in VirtualBox 2.1.4:

• 64-bit guests on some 32-bit host systems with VT-x can cause instabilities to your system. If you experience this, do not attempt to execute 64-bit guests. Refer to the VirtualBox user forum for additional information.
• Slow VGA graphics with hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V). If hardware virtualization is enabled, legacy VGA graphics modes (planar modes, not pixel-packed modes) have very bad performance. In particular, this affects the GRUB bootloader, which will take a while to present itself. This is due to limitations with VT-x and AMD-V. For some VGA modes (but not those used by GRUB), this can be significantly improved by enabling nested paging; see Section 1.2, "Software vs. hardware virtualization (VT-x and AMD-V)" in the User Guide for more information.
• Shrinking virtual disk images currently unavailable. The VBoxManage modifyhd compact command is currently disabled. At the moment the only way to optimize the size of a virtual disk image (VDI, VMDK, VHD) is to clone the image and then use the cloned image in the VM configuration.
• Linux hosts. There are a few problems when compiz is used as the host's window manager, notably:
  • seamless mode does not work well (garbled screen display if no windows are open in the guest);
  • OpenGL guest acceleration (added with 2.1) is very slow.
  If you experience these problems, you way want to try using a different window manager, such as metacity.
• Vista 64-bit hosts have stability issues when using USB.
• Mac OS X host. The following restrictions apply (all of which will be resolved in future versions):
  • no support for audio input;
  • the numlock emulation isn't implemented yet;
  • the CPU frequency metric is not supported.
• Solaris hosts. For OpenSolaris and Solaris 10 U4/U5, the following restrictions apply (all of which will be resolved in future versions):
  • no support for audio input;
  • no support for using USB devices on the host;
  • no support for connecting a virtual serial port to a physical serial port on the host;
  • no ACPI information (battery status, power source) is reported to the guest;
  • no support for using wireless with host interface networking.
  In addition, on Solaris 10 U4, zones are not supported.
• Guest Additions for Solaris. Shared folders are not yet supported with Solaris guests; this will be fixed in a future release.
• Guest Additions for OS/2. Shared folders are not yet supported with OS/2 guests. In addition, seamless windows and automatic guest resizing will probably never be implemented due to inherent limitations of the OS/2 graphics system.

Some of these issues will be fixed in later releases.