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VirtualBox Beta Supports OS X As Guest OS On Macs

Posted by kdawson on from the macs-on-macs-oh-my dept.

milesw writes "In addition to a slew of new features, VirtualBox 3.2.0 Beta 1 offers experimental support for Mac OS X guests running on Apple hardware. Got to wonder whether Larry Ellison discussed this with Steve Jobs beforehand, given Apple's refusal to allow virtualizing their (non-server) OS."

9 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Re:With what host? by dingen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The fact you can run OS X as a guest on a Mac does not imply you are actually using Mac OS X as host OS. You can use Boot Camp to run Linux or Windows as host OS on a Mac as well. My question is: can you run OS X as a guest in such a situation, or does it only work from an OS X host OS?

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  2. OSX on Vmware by gaspyy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OS X has been working for quite some time on VMWare with a Windows/Linux host. It's been even hacked to work with AMD processors on the host, so from a technical standpoint, nothing new.

    Frankly, I'm getting really tired of all the artificial limitations that Jobs is placing left and right for developers and consumers alike. A bit offtopic, but yesterday I realized that while quicktime pro can export to MP4 as well as MOV, if you want to use H264, you need to use the MOV container. Why? When Microsoft did that with WMA vs MP3, people complained. Loudly.

    1. Re:OSX on Vmware by dingen · · Score: 5, Informative

      A bit offtopic, but yesterday I realized that while quicktime pro can export to MP4 as well as MOV, if you want to use H264, you need to use the MOV container. Why?

      That's not true at all. I have QuickTime Pro right here. When I choose "export" from the file menu, you can choose to export to an MP4 file. When you click "options", you can set the codec to H264. Here's a screenshot.

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    2. Re:OSX on Vmware by catmistake · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Frankly, I'm getting really tired of all the artificial limitations that Jobs is placing left and right for developers and consumers alike

      I read your other posts, and it's not that you sound trollish or anything, just that you have your own experience, which as it turns out isn't what it's supposed to be and not Apple's fault. But I quoted you because it is becoming extremely trendy to bash Apple for jealously protecting their IP. It is difficult for one to separate personal preference or bias from the truth of the matter when trying to make a global evaluation of a company using a few gripes repeated ad infinitum by the uninformed. It's not an artificial limitation that Apple is employing. Or rather, it's no more artificial than Windows requiring a key. But Apple's money comes from hardware, and by restricting their software to only run on their hardware, by any means, they are creating a consumer insentive to buy their hardware. To quote the insane and immoral tyrant himself, "it's as simple as that."

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      The Admin and the Engineer
  3. Re:With what host? by gb3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's not true. You can virtualize OS X Server starting with Leopard as long as it's on Apple hardware (host does not need to be OS X, in fact Parallels has a bare metal version for XServes). They've never let you virtualize OS X, just the last 2 versions of Server.

  4. Re:With what host? by camperdave · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... with Windows ... running as the host OS on Mac hardware?

    [Shudder]

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  5. Re:With what host? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The host doesn't matter, what matters is the underlying hardware. Mac OS X unmodified will only be able to start if it runs on Mac hardware.

    http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?p=134642&sid=e4351fbfef3e3c91d57db22fc2af2cb9#p134642

  6. Re:Shit just got real by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Interesting

    No more out of the bottle than the hackintosh community. Apple will just sue vendors who allow people to bypass the license, and all that will be left are a tiny group of committed hackers who will be small enough for Apple to ignore, hopefully. Really, most people in the free software and open source software communities are staying away from Apple because of their hostility, and businesses will not want to risk a lawsuit from Apple.

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  7. Re:With what host? by Z34107 · · Score: 4, Funny

    You shudder, but I'll see you one better: Our primary server at work is some kind of Mac tower with two quad-core Xeon processors. It runs Windows Server 2008 R2 which in turn uses Virtual Box to host CentOS VMs for routing, DHCP/DNS, a LAMP stack, and a firewall.

    Linux on Windows on Mac. We call it "Turducken."

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