Oracle VM VirtualBox 6.0 now available!

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Oracle is pleased to announce the general availability of Oracle VM VirtualBox 6.0, the latest release of the world’s most popular free and open source, cross-platform virtualization software. This release provides tight integration with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, enabling organizations and developers to more easily and flexibly create applications on premises and deploy to the cloud with a few clicks.

A key tool for developers and users creating cloud and local applications without the overhead of using a full server environment, Oracle VM VirtualBox runs on standard x86 desktop and laptop computers. It allows users to set up multi-platform virtual machine environments for software development, testing, and general purpose operating system (OS) virtualization, with optional runtime encryption. Software engineers can develop for cloud native environments from within Oracle VM VirtualBox VMs directly on their Windows, Mac OS, Linux, and Oracle Solaris machines, making it easier to create multi-tier applications with just a standard laptop.

Oracle VM VirtualBox also enables users to create and update virtual machines locally, including the OS and applications, and then package them into an industry standard file format for easy distribution and cloud deployment in conjunction with Oracle VM Server, or other server virtualization solutions.

Oracle VM VirtualBox allows users to run nearly any standard x86 OS to run applications that are not available natively on their systems.

What's New with Oracle VM VirtualBox 6.0?

The 6.0 release supports the latest guest or host operating systems including: Apple Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, Oracle Linux, Oracle Solaris, other Linux operating systems, and legacy operating systems. New capabilities in Oracle VM VirtualBox 6.0:

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Support Added for Export Appliance: Oracle VM VirtualBox supports the export of VMs to an Oracle Cloud Infrastructure service by launching the Export Appliance feature.

Support for Nested Virtualization: This release adds support for nested virtualization on certain hardware platforms that enables you to install a hypervisor, such as Oracle VM VirtualBox or KVM, on an Oracle VM VirtualBox guest. You can then create and run virtual machines in the guest VM. Support for nested virtualization allows VirtualBox to create a more flexible and sophisticated development and testing environment.

Moving a VM or a Disk Image to a New Location: With this release, you can not only move a disk image to a different location, but also move a VM to a different location.

Improved Export and Import of Appliances in OVF/OVA Format: The export and import of appliances in OVF and OVA format have been improved by selecting additional options that affect the size and content of the exported file archive as well as selecting additional options for the imported appliance.
Enhancement for Cloning VMs: A new option enables you to retain the hardware UUID when cloning a VM.

User Interface Improvements: A number of usability and accessibility improvements have been integrated into this release.

Guest Control File Manager: This feature enables a guest VM user to transfer files between the guest and host.

Improved 3D Graphics Support: performance improvements for displaying 3D graphics and adds support for emulating VMware SVGA graphics devices.

FUSE Mounting of Virtual Disk Images: vboximg-mount is a new command line utility for Mac OS X hosts that provides raw access to an Oracle VM VirtualBox virtual disk image.

Improved Integration with Microsoft Hyper-V: Oracle VM VirtualBox can now be used on a Windows host where Hyper-V is running. No configuration is required. Oracle VM VirtualBox detects Hyper-V automatically and uses Hyper-V as the virtualization engine for the host. This is an experimental feature.

For the complete list of enhancements and further details check the Oracle VM VirtualBox 6.0 Release Notes.

Oracle VM VirtualBox Upgrade Path

Oracle VM VirtualBox can be easily upgraded to the 6.0 release from prior supported releases.

Oracle VM VirtualBox Product Support

Oracle VM VirtualBox supports a variety of "Host" and "Guest" operating systems.

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