VM Wizards

[bqbauer]

This is not just related to the Beta, but I'll throw it out. More of a rant about the outdated Wizards with confusing defaults. Yes, these can all be changed on the fly or afterward, but for the less experienced, these could be a source of frustration.

The BSD suggestions seem very dated in the VM Wizard.
--First, please add PC-BSD as an option.
--Second, don't allocate the piddly default 128MB of system memory! How about 2-4G?
--Make the suggested hard drive at least 25GB and not 2.

Even the Ubuntu wizard suggests only 8GB for the hard drive, which should be more like 25-40 minimum. I don't know if it would even install on 8? Maybe.

Most of the UNIX or Linux VMs I've build have needed 24-32 MB video memory to operate properly, which is more than what I think is a default of about 12MB on most of these, which doesn't work well if at all. I suggesting bumping up the default video memory to 24MB for any Unix or Linux VM

Please stop attaching a floppy to every VM and putting it at the top of the boot sequence! That's just another annoyance I have to "fix" because I don't see the point of it and why have one more device load that probably doesn't exist. But that's me.

[Technologov]

video memory : 1920x1080 (Full HD, which is what people have) = 2 mega pixels. If 32-bit true color, then 8 mega bytes is enough for every body. (assuming 3D is disabled and single monitor, of course)

I really don't see a single reason to go above 8 megs, as all of my VMs feel great with this amount. But I do agree to up the RAM and Disk requirements for many modern OSes.

-Technologov

[klaus]

The defaults are meant to be sane minimum values which allows installing the OS. Sure, blindly adding 20GB to the size of the disk image and 1-2GB to the RAM size would allow doing more, but it would also annoy people who are on a tight budget. There every little bit counts. If you have more: feel free to drag the corresponding sliders to your liking.

Oh, and regarding floppies: they only get added for selected guest OSes (DOS, OS/2, Windows 3.x) where absolutely needed. Can't understand why you're complaining about them. When creating a Linux/Windows/BSD VM I don't get them, and it's been like this for a long time.

[wacher]

We are complaining about floppy, becasue it is added for every OS, not for oldies.

The defaults are meant to be sane minimum values which allows installing the OS. Sure, blindly adding 20GB to the size of the disk image and 1-2GB to the RAM size would allow doing more, but it would also annoy people who are on a tight budget. There every little bit counts. If you have more: feel free to drag the corresponding sliders to your liking.

Oh, and regarding floppies: they only get added for selected guest OSes (DOS, OS/2, Windows 3.x) where absolutely needed. Can't understand why you're complaining about them. When creating a Linux/Windows/BSD VM I don't get them, and it's been like this for a long time.

[mpack]

We are complaining about floppy, becasue it is added for every OS, not for oldies.

Not in my experience it isn't. Give a concrete example of a new VM that does this?

[noteirak]

I'm fairly sure the OP is talking about the Boot devices, and not the floppy controller itself.

[klaus]

I understood the OP differently, namely that it's about the presence of floppy drives in newly created VMs.

For VMs which don't have floppy drives one can have "Floppy" as the first item in the boot order as long as one wants, and the VM won't boot off it (and as it would simply be skipped it won't delay booting). So it's totally harmless.

[Perryg]

It has been this way for a long time. The wizard does have the Floppy device and it is for anyone that needs it. However the Floppy controller is not automatically created except for specific guests making it a moot point whether it is in the settings dialogue or not. The extra checks to prevent the settings dialogue from showing the device for specific guests would take a lot of effort IMHO that are better spent on other areas. Just to point out the obvious here but this is completely cosmetic and has nothing to do with the overall operation of the guest/s.

You can always edit the source to remove this however if it is that offensive and compile your own version as I do, although I must admit I have not removed the Floppy personally because of the statement above. Just too much work for so little of a benefit. Plus I do have some test cases that still require a Floppy in a few guests even though my development PC does not have or support a floppy and I would need to rely on VBoxManage to add controller and device.