[Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Oliver Gerlich]

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Hello,

as I was just reading this on german newsticker heise.de:
http://www.heise.de/open/news/meldung/83680

Also on Slashdot:
http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/01/15/1631234.shtml

And the original news:
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/News


Anyone knows more about this? How is it in direct comparison with Qemu?


Regards,
Oliver Gerlich
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Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Pierre Palatin]

On Monday 15 January 2007 20:02, Oliver Gerlich wrote:
> Hello,
>
> as I was just reading this on german newsticker heise.de:
> http://www.heise.de/open/news/meldung/83680
>
> Also on Slashdot:
> http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/01/15/1631234.shtml
>
> And the original news:
> http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/News
>
>
> Anyone knows more about this? How is it in direct comparison with Qemu?

For what I have seen in the sources, that's based on qemu, sligthly modified 
in order to be somehow "modular", thus allowing them to distribute additional 
proprietary extensions (list at  
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Closed-source%20features )



Pierre Palatin

Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Hetz Ben Hamo]

What I don't see (and I hope they would answer) are any patches for
QEMU which fixes things like installation of XP (the famous freeze),
Vista, etc..

Anyone from InnoTek (I assume they're on the mailing list ) care to
shed some light about patches, availability etc please?

Thanks,
Hetz

On 1/15/07, Pierre Palatin <pierre.palatin@m4tp.org> wrote:
> On Monday 15 January 2007 20:02, Oliver Gerlich wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > as I was just reading this on german newsticker heise.de:
> > http://www.heise.de/open/news/meldung/83680
> >
> > Also on Slashdot:
> > http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/01/15/1631234.shtml
> >
> > And the original news:
> > http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/News
> >
> >
> > Anyone knows more about this? How is it in direct comparison with Qemu?
>
> For what I have seen in the sources, that's based on qemu, sligthly modified
> in order to be somehow "modular", thus allowing them to distribute additional
> proprietary extensions (list at
> http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Closed-source%20features )
>
>
>
> Pierre Palatin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Qemu-devel mailing list
> Qemu-devel@nongnu.org
> http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/qemu-devel
>


-- 
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Visit my blog (hebrew) for things that (sometimes) matter:
 http://wp.dad-answers.com

Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Oliver Gerlich]

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Oliver Gerlich schrieb:
> Hello,
> 
> as I was just reading this on german newsticker heise.de:
> http://www.heise.de/open/news/meldung/83680
> 
> Also on Slashdot:
> http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/01/15/1631234.shtml
> 
> And the original news:
> http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/News
> 
> 
> Anyone knows more about this? How is it in direct comparison with Qemu?

Just installed the Etch .deb (went well, even kernel module compilation;
though it didn't get the permissions of /dev/vboxdrv quite right). The
GUI is really good; it was easy to configure a new VM. For testing, I
started Ubuntu Edgy Desktop CD in VB and Qemu (0.8.2, taken from CVS in
Nov. 2006), both without hard disk, with audio, with 192 MB, with normal
kqemu (no kernel emulation).

Both systems start in reasonable time (didn't measure it, though).
It seems like the VB graphics emulation is snappier: in Qemu, it always
feels (and always felt) somewhat laggy and slow, while in VB it felt
faster. Note: I tried Qemu with and without -std-vga; in VB I didn't
install any guest stuff. In general, graphics in VB seem faster; while
in Qemu I could notice how the menus were displayed (first the frame,
then the interior), in VB the menus were "immediately" there. I think
that's a very important thing, because currently Qemu _feels_ slow on
the desktop, even though it's CPU performance is probably as fast as VBs
or VMWares! Hopefully the VB devs will give some of their improvements
back to Qemu (apparently their graphics emulation is based on Qemu's).
Afterthought: using Qemu with -kernel-kqemu makes the menu drawing as
fast as with VB, but mouse still feels laggy.

What else: VB sound was choppy when playing a video, while in Qemu the
same video was with good sound, bad choppy display.
It seems like VB doesn't use something like -kernel-kqemu; during Ubuntu
boot, host CPU was only used by userland apps, while with Qemu with
- -kernel-kqemu 80% of host CPU was used by kernel.
VB offers some guest tools (didn't try them), but without guest tools
there is smooth mouse-transition (Qemu does this nicely with tablet
emulation).

All in all I like VB for its easy GUI and good responsiveness; hopefully
this can be combined with Qemus broad host arch support :-)

Regards,
Oliver

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Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Dan Shearer]

On Mon, Jan 15, 2007 at 11:29:41PM +0100, Oliver Gerlich wrote:

> It seems like VB doesn't use something like -kernel-kqemu; during Ubuntu
> boot, host CPU was only used by userland apps, while with Qemu with
> -kernel-kqemu 80% of host CPU was used by kernel.

According to http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/VirtualBox%20architecture
VB leans more to the kvm model, only they don't like VT/SMT much. 

>From the arch document talking about what a VB host can be running at any given
time. I think your observation about CPU usage is accounted for in point 3
below:

--- start quote 

   1. Your CPU can be executing host ring-3 code (e.g. from other host
processes), or host ring-0 code, just as it would be if VirtualBox wasn't
running.

   2. Your CPU can be emulating guest code (within the ring-3 host VM process).
Basically, VirtualBox tries to run as much guest code natively as possible. But
it can (slowly) emulate guest code as a fallback when it is not sure what the
guest system is doing, or when the performance penalty of emulation is not too
high. Our emulator (in src/emulator/) is based on QEMU and typically steps in
when

	  * guest code disables interrupts and VirtualBox cannot figure out
when they will be switched back on (in these situations, VirtualBox actually
analyzes the guest code using its own disassembler in src/VBox/Disassembler/);

	  * for execution of certain single instructions; this typically
happens when a nasty guest instruction such as LIDT has caused a trap and needs
to be emulated;

	  * for any real-mode code (e.g. BIOS code, a DOS guest, or any
operating system startup). 

   3. Your CPU can be running guest ring-3 code natively (within the ring-3
host VM process). With VirtualBox, we call this "raw ring 3". This is, of
course, the most efficient way to run the guest, and hopefully we don't leave
this mode too often. The more we do, the slower the VM is compared to a native
OS, because all context switches are very expensive.

   4. Your CPU can be running guest ring-0 code natively. Here is where things
get hairy: The guest only thinks it's running ring-0 code, but VirtualBox has
fooled the guest OS to instead enter ring 1 (which is normally unused with x86
operating systems). 

--- end quote

-- 
Dan Shearer
dan@shearer.org

Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Christian MICHON]

based on *quick* benchs and without entering too much in detail
(in case I'd violate EULA), it seems faster than qemu+kqemu on
windows hosts :(

--
Christian

Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Paul Brook]

On Tuesday 16 January 2007 08:25, Christian MICHON wrote:
> based on *quick* benchs and without entering too much in detail
> (in case I'd violate EULA), it seems faster than qemu+kqemu on
> windows hosts :(

Why is that a bad thing? VirtualBox is GPL, kqemu is not, so I'd say 
VirtualBox being faster is a good thing. It means there's no need for 
proprietary kernel modules.

Paul

Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Christian MICHON]

sorry I meant " :) "

it's a stupid typo mistake...

basically: video is faster, hdd access is faster.
I'll see if I can gather more figures.

I hope too we can put these improvements back inside qemu
of course! :)

On 1/16/07, Paul Brook <paul@codesourcery.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday 16 January 2007 08:25, Christian MICHON wrote:
> > based on *quick* benchs and without entering too much in detail
> > (in case I'd violate EULA), it seems faster than qemu+kqemu on
> > windows hosts :(
>
> Why is that a bad thing? VirtualBox is GPL, kqemu is not, so I'd say
> VirtualBox being faster is a good thing. It means there's no need for
> proprietary kernel modules.
>
> Paul
>


--
Christian

Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Ottavio Caruso]

--- Oliver Gerlich <olig9@gmx.de> wrote:


> 
> as I was just reading this on german newsticker heise.de:
> http://www.heise.de/open/news/meldung/83680
> 
> Also on Slashdot:
> http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/01/15/1631234.shtml
> 
> And the original news:
> http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/News
> 
>
Interesting! Does anybody know if and where I could finf a Windows
binary via http/ftp? Unfortunately I can't torrent!


-- 
Ottavio Caruso

I will not purchase any computing equipment from manufacturers that recommend Windows Vista™ or any other Microsoft® products.
http://www.pledgebank.com/boycottvista


 
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Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Marc Lörner]

On Tuesday 16 January 2007 15:12, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
> --- Oliver Gerlich <olig9@gmx.de> wrote:
> > as I was just reading this on german newsticker heise.de:
> > http://www.heise.de/open/news/meldung/83680
> >
> > Also on Slashdot:
> > http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/01/15/1631234.shtml
> >
> > And the original news:
> > http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/News
>
> Interesting! Does anybody know if and where I could finf a Windows
> binary via http/ftp? Unfortunately I can't torrent!

Hello,
either click at site: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads left on:
"VirtualBox 1.3.2 for Windows Hosts", not on the torrent link at the right,
or follow this link to download the msi:
http://www.virtualbox.org/download/1.3.2/VirtualBox_1.3.2_Win_x86.msi


HTH,
Marc

Re: [Qemu-devel] VirtualBox PC virtualization released as Open Source

[Ottavio Caruso]

--- Ottavio Caruso <pr0f3ss0r1492@yahoo.com> wrote:

>> Interesting! Does anybody know if and where I could finf [sic!]a
Windows
> binary via http/ftp? Unfortunately I can't torrent!


I am sorry! A Windows binary was actually provided and I have later
installed it, but I am not going touse it as it is not portable,
unlike Qemu, which I can just run from my usb flash drive...

-- 
Ottavio Caruso

I will not purchase any computing equipment from manufacturers that recommend Windows Vista™ or any other Microsoft® products.
http://www.pledgebank.com/boycottvista


 
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