More trouble than it is worth

wplj42 · Post by **wplj42** » 27. Jan 2009, 22:00

So far, my experience with all the programs for emulation on the Mac are not good. Virtual Box does not work unless it is in the Applications folder. I have all my other non-Apple programs in an Xtras folder. Moving Virtual Box there, makes it inoperative. Nothing seems to work without headaches. I cannot get Solaris 10 to install at all, and I have a CD! All the other Linux distributions have something that doesn't work. Trying to get Windows 7 to remain stable with Virtual Box is impossible. In this case, free is by no means better. I need to buy some blank DVDs and try Windows 7 in Boot Camp. I hope it goes better than VB. Trying to get help from this forum is a hit and miss situation as well.

rm53 · Post by **rm53** » 28. Jan 2009, 18:03

in contrast to your bad experiences, I have Ubuntu (always the newest), openSuse 11 and openSolaris running in VB and I am quite satisfied.

I also have Parallels, which has some advantages when running Windows, but also the Parallels company has a ridiculous way to deal with clients, and their Linux support is lousy, to say the least.

jerryrice · Post by **jerryrice** » 2. Feb 2009, 15:03

Why cant you leave it in tthe application folder, I have vbox up and running on my macbook pro with Solaris10 as the guest and zero issues with loading either.

wplj42 · Post by **wplj42** » 5. Feb 2009, 01:07

I re-installed VB 1.6.0, the oldest available version and it seems to be okay. I cannot install Guest Additions for Windows 7 Beta as they are not available for that version of VB. So far, so good. I can run Windows in the 1280 x 1024 mode on my iMac 20 inch if I go fullscreen mode. I cannot run anything that requires 3D graphics. I suspect that is a VB issue. I am only using half of my RAM for Windows. My Mac is still running the one gig of RAM it came with. Windows is slow but seems to run on 512. Even if I allow for half of my video memory for Windows, still no go for 3D. I have 128 Meg of video memory. I cannot advise anyone to use VirtualBox as their primary method to run an operating system. Until someone shows me what I'm doing wrong, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. If someone really wants to run Windows and/or various Linux distributions, I would suggest they get a real PC. While I have yet to use it, there are likely issues with Boot Camp as well.

Post by **dmcgraw** » 5. Feb 2009, 02:33

First, why on earth would you want to use VB 1.6.0?

Version 1.6.0 certainly will not support Windows 7 or 3D acceleration.

Version 2.1.2 supports Windows 7.

Version 2.1.2 provides experimental OpenGL support for Windows guests.

No, VB is not very good for running 3D games yet.

I use VB everyday for doing software development. My main computer is running Ubuntu. I was never able to get VMWare running under Ubuntu. VB ran the first time I installed.

Dave

wplj42 · Post by **wplj42** » 5. Feb 2009, 21:11

Well ... I installed Windows 7 Beta under VB 1.6.0 as if it was Vista. It works just as well if not better than 2.1.2 did. Installing the Guest Additions for Windows 7 Beta (2.1.2) caused more trouble than the good they did. I could go full screen on my iMac, but eventually the whole screen went black and VB crashed. Had to shut down the power on my Mac. VB 2.1.2 did not do anything I cannot do with 1.6.0. I can't even play Windows Solitaire. I get a graphics accelerator uninstalled error and the game barely runs. So far, VB 1.6.0 has not failed and that would be why I'm using it. Newer is not always better, as is the case with Vista versus XP. As far as I can tell Windows 7 Beta is nothing more than Vista II. I like what I see and suspect it will work well by the time it hits retail. On the other hand, Mac OS X is still the best and I would hate to have to give it up for any other OS. I am delighted to see growth in the use of Mac OS X and Linux! Rock On!
EDIT
I finally installed Windows 7 Beta with Boot Camp. It has issues as suspected. If I install the extras from the Leopard DVD, then my bluetooth keyboard with not work. Windows can see it, but it will not pair up. Also, Windows thinks I have USB speakers and will not allow for any audio. I have a USB turntable. So to use Windows, I had to reinstall it without the add ons from the 10.5 DVD and live without sound. I get full screen video and everything seems to work great. Aero is a nice feature.

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