Live data from Hacker News

VirtualBox is garbage

lkml.org

91–100 of 102 posts

Re: VirtualBox is garbage

#91

I have used VirtualBox on a linux host with WinXP as the client operating system for about three years, every day. I depend on it for work and have found it to be rock-solid and completely dependable. I really appreciate the contributors to the project. They deserve some love!

Same anecdote: fulltime dev for 3 years using multiple windows guests on Linux host running Vbox (only switching to host occasionally). Linux box never crashes. I and a coworker (using windows on windows 95% of time in guest) love VirtualBox.

But no arguments if those with real data flag driver as SHIT. I am just thankful that I have never had any crashes.

Re: VirtualBox is garbage

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with it?

strcmp (and many other string routines like strlen, strcpy) relies on strings being null terminated. Safe versions (strncmp, strnlen, strncpy) have a parameter for maximum string length. I am pretty sure that in this particular case it is not passed any user input, so it's kinda safe.

In this case it should be fine because the second argument is a string literal (guaranteed to be null-terminated) and the function doesn't continue past the end of the first null-terminated string.

Re: VirtualBox is garbage

#93

I have used VirtualBox on a linux host with WinXP as the client operating system for about three years, every day. I depend on it for work and have found it to be rock-solid and completely dependable. I really appreciate the contributors to the project. They deserve some love!

Same anecdote: fulltime dev for 3 years using multiple windows guests on Linux host running Vbox (only switching to host occasionally). Linux box never crashes. I and a coworker (using windows on windows 95% of time in guest) love VirtualBox.

But no arguments if those with real data flag driver as SHIT - a crash rate of o. I am just thankful that I have never had any crashes.

Re: VirtualBox is garbage

#95

I've had quite a few issues with it. 1. Copy + paste randomly breaks between host win32, client ubuntu32. 2. Random freezes every so often. 3. Seamless mode extremely unreliable, does not draw correctly. 4. Horrible issues with shared folders breaking io operations. I actually got a (trivial) patch into golang to work around this issue (!). This also completely breaks ido mode completions in emacs. 5. Occasionally sh…

I run Ubuntu guest on a Win 7 host, and I notice 1 and 2 quite often. 4 and 5 I have NEVER hit, and yet a lot of replies to this seem to never have hit 1 or 2 and ONLY 4 and 5.

It seems to have gotten less stable for me during the 3.x to 4.x switch, but not nearly so much as to make me want to stop using it (although there are days...) It allows me to do work I wouldn't otherwise be able to easily; I freaking love it.

Re: VirtualBox is garbage

#97
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

kvm, for one. Not quite as featureful, and the UI is a command line (though there's the virt manager stuff that I haven't tried). But it's rock solid virtualization that never gives me problems. I think people are misunderstanding this thread. This is a kernel developers thread, where Dave Jones is complaining that virtualbox is the source of too much random corruption and arbitrary crashes in the kernel, and he's su…

>" No one is flaming about it vs. vmware or whatever, or telling you what to use. " Well saying virtualbox is garbage is pretty much flaming. It doesn't bother me but I imagine those working on virtualbox won't exactly be happy about it.

All the more motivation for them to fix the bugs, no?

Re: VirtualBox is garbage

#98
VirtualBox has always worked very well for me. Perhaps the poster did not install it correctly or just doesn't know what they are doing?

Just not me: I know about a half dozen people who also use VirtualBox, and I haven'heard complaints. Perhaps the poster works for one of the commercial competitors.

Strange rant against a good, and free tool.

Re: VirtualBox is garbage

#99
post #48

VirtualBox is a fantastic piece of software. Just because it's not perfect, doesn't mean it's garbage. Far from it.

The VirtualBox software (as in the UI, etc) is great, however this article/mail listing is discussing the 'vboxdrv' Linux kernel module, which is a source of a large number of bug reports to the Linux kernel project.

Maybe there are so many bug reports because so many people use it?

Re: VirtualBox is garbage

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>" No one is flaming about it vs. vmware or whatever, or telling you what to use. " Well saying virtualbox is garbage is pretty much flaming. It doesn't bother me but I imagine those working on virtualbox won't exactly be happy about it.

All the more motivation for them to fix the bugs, no?

Depends on their personalities.

Often just calling stuff people are giving away for free "rubbish" will lead them to simply stop giving it away.

Post reply on HN