El Capitan?

[kosmognosis]

Is it safe to upgrade to the new OSX or will it effect the current performance of VirtualBox?

[frank]

There are a few minor issues with El Capitan, for example grabbing USB devices will not work but I'm not aware of fundamental problems. There will be a VirtualBox maintenance release soon which has a few more fixes for El Capitan.

[loukingjr]

Not that I disagree with Frank because I've been running OSX 10.11 pre-releases and VirtualBox since the beginning but, whether something is a minor issue or not depends on which features you need. For the most part VirtualBox runs pretty well on OSX 10.11.

One thing worth mentioning, to be safe one should wait to see how the early versions of OSX shake out before updating. There are already 10.11.1 betas with fixes to 10.11. Nothing to do with VirtualBox of course.

[brycesteiner]

Unless you like to upgrade computers and don't have a problem with problems, then go ahead, but El Capitan is not ready for primetime for most people. The USB issue is a real problem, for me anyway. I've also had a several Kernel Panics in the OS and two had to do with starting a virtual machine. There are other minor issues with Preview and PDF, network and SMB, etc.

[loukingjr]

actually there is nothing wrong with OSX 10.11. Most problems people have run into were because of incompatible software. as I mentioned, I've been running it for months without issue. VirtualBox USB support as Frank mentioned isn't done yet.

[bird]

This test build may help a bit with the USB issues, we hope: https://www.virtualbox.org/download/tes ... 70-OSX.dmg
(Not yet finished installing El Capitan GA, so can't make any hard promises yet.)
-bird

[loukingjr]

Thanks bird. I'll check it out.

[loukingjr]

Tried it with a Superdrive and a USB key. No luck.

Shouldn't there be a new extension pack since that handles USB?

[bird]

Thanks for testing! Reproduce it here as well, it definitely is not quite working 100% correct yet. Things goes south when manually trying capturing a USB device at run time (Device/USB menu). Using filters (setting dialog) to capture a device when it is inserted seems to work fine, at least for the two devices I had handy here.

No, you don't need a new extension pack in this case. Extension packs generally works fine with VirtualBox updates in the same release series (5.0.xx).

I'll see what I can get done after some sleep.

-bird

[loukingjr]

I didn't try filters.

night night.

[loukingjr]

bird, typing quietly so I don't wake you. USB filters do indeed work. Listening to the Thomson Twins in my Windows 8.1 guest from the Apple SuperDrive.

[kosmognosis]

Thanks everyone for your comments. Think I'll hold off for a bit. Same like the safest route.

What essential improvements have you all noticed from El Capitan anyhow? Seem pretty minimal.

[loukingjr]

Not really a place to discuss OSX but one major difference is it's about 40% faster. There are many differences and several features added.

[michaln]

Not really a place to discuss OSX but one major difference is it's about 40% faster.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof... but now I'm curious.

[loukingjr]

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof... but now I'm curious.

michaln, michaln, michaln,

Apple's Metal graphics API is probably the most important improvement in OS X El Capitan because it will make a huge difference on any Mac that supports it. According to Apple, Metal works by speeding up Core Graphics and Core Animation for a 50% faster system level rendering speed, with an increased efficiency of up to 40% across the board.

from: http://news.softpedia.com/news/os-x-10- ... 3129.shtml

Is it exactly 40% faster? I don't know because i don't benchmark PCs but it is noticeably faster.