Live data from Hacker News

VirtualBox 6.0 released

virtualbox.org

111–120 of 247 posts

Re: VirtualBox 6.0 released

#111

Avoid VirtualBox and becoming trapped in the non-free & personal use only extension by using one of the very decent open source alternatives Boxes[1] or virt-manager[2] [1] https://wiki.gnome.org/action/show/Apps/Boxes [2] https://virt-manager.org/

Even worse: Oracle is going around and threatening to sue enterprises that show traffic to the extensions download site from their IP blocks. Happened recently at a previous employer of mine.

Any public references for this anywhere?

Re: VirtualBox 6.0 released

#113
post #45

Is anyone using VirtualBox on the desktop? Specifically, to run Linux/macOS/Windows guests on a macOS host? Would you recommend it? Or is the best option VMware Fusion, Parallels, or something else?

I recently got a Mac and wanted to avoid the cost of Parallels, so I tried VirtualBox first. It was insanely slow. Like, I would be typing text into a VM and I would type a line, then wait and watch the characters appear. This happened on a 2018 Macbook Pro host with 32GB RAM. This happened on both Windows and Ubuntu guests. So, I tried Parallels and it was so fast I can't really tell the difference between the host…

Same experience here with a MBP 15'' 2015 with 16gb of ram

Re: VirtualBox 6.0 released

#114
post #97
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use hyper-v and rdp every day, very happy with both. I even run Linux VMs in hyper-v.

Can you run singularity-container or docker in your Linux guest?

I haven't had reason to try, but I can't imagine a good reason why one couldn't.

Re: VirtualBox 6.0 released

#115
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I vaguely recall that this was discussed here on HN a while ago and somebody who had actually tried to buy the necessary license reported that Oracle would not sell them the license; IIRC, the sales person told them to "just use it, we don't care", or something along those lines. Which is very problematic, of course, without something in writing, and given Oracle's reputation.

If you live in a one-party state, secretly record them and then if Oracle threatens to sue, show them the recording and remind them of promissory estoppel. (IANAL!)

In Germany, it is illegal to record phone conversations without the consents of the other party.

Also, I don't think Oracle is going to sue over something like this. They really seem not to care. But they could change their mind tomorrow.

Re: VirtualBox 6.0 released

#116
post #13
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you license them? I've never seen a "Buy now" link, only the text about "Free for personal use" every time.

I vaguely recall that this was discussed here on HN a while ago and somebody who had actually tried to buy the necessary license reported that Oracle would not sell them the license; IIRC, the sales person told them to "just use it, we don't care", or something along those lines. Which is very problematic, of course, without something in writing, and given Oracle's reputation.

This was my experience 6-7 years ago (shortly after the Sun/Oracle acquisition). Couldn't get a straight answer from anyone about how to license it (despite wanting to roll out many thousands of seats using it in a commercial product).

Re: VirtualBox 6.0 released

#117
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you live in a one-party state, secretly record them and then if Oracle threatens to sue, show them the recording and remind them of promissory estoppel. (IANAL!)

In Germany, it is illegal to record phone conversations without the consents of the other party. Also, I don't think Oracle is going to sue over something like this. They really seem not to care. But they could change their mind tomorrow.

> In Germany, it is illegal to record phone conversations without the consents of the other party.

Hence, "If you live in a one-party state."

> Also, I don't think Oracle is going to sue over something like this.

Check the other comments in the thread. People are reporting that Oracle is taking IP addresses of people who access the extensions site and if the IP address belongs to a company, they contact the company and threaten to sue.

Re: VirtualBox 6.0 released

#118
post #86
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, I'm upvoting this to prevent poor souls stuck on Windows from looking for these nice solutions...

But can't the poor souls stuck on windows use hyper-v and RDP into the vm?

I tried Hyper-V for a while but I found the network configuration really cumbersome. Therefore I went back to Virtualbox but I should probably request my employer to buy a license for Vmware.

Re: VirtualBox 6.0 released

#119
post #29
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you license them? I've never seen a "Buy now" link, only the text about "Free for personal use" every time.

You go to the download page, see the link about the licence, click the FAQ link, and then click the store link, it's £36/user

I appreciate you finding that. Here's the direct store link verbatim for anyone interested:

https://shop.oracle.com/apex/f?p=dstore:product:257141221156...

Post reply on HN