vbox What is the future of VirtualBox on FreeBSD?

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tennea9

What is the future of VirtualBox on FreeBSD? (as a host)

As a user of VirtualBox, as well as bhyve (in CLI, via BVCP - great latest version by the way... thanks to Davies ! - and also thanks to my own manager,
I am concerned about the future of VirtualBox on FreeBSD.

As of now, the versions available on the quarterly and latest releases are no longer supported, the guest additions can no longer be downloaded, etc.
Last year, it took several months before the package returned to the repositories, due to an issue with electron, and it was necessary to go through a build process to manage to install VirtualBox for quite a while.

What is really going on?

Is there an intention to ever port version 7, or should we expect to have to switch entirely to bhyve?

I am a daily user of bhyve on FreeBSD and illumos, but I find that for now VirtualBox still has significant advantages in terms of ergonomics.
It takes me much more time to manage to create simulations under bhyve than under VirtualBox... and this is quite problematic.
 
tennea9 said:
What is really going on?

Is there an intention to ever port version 7, or should we expect to have to switch entirely to bhyve?
Click to expand...
You should ask the port maintainer vbox@freebsd.org, or on freebsd-emulation@FreeBSD.org. On the latter there is mostly emulation problem reports from https://bugs.freebsd.org CC'd, but when mailed, there should be a reply from a developer.

tennea9 said:
I find that for now VirtualBox still has significant advantages in terms of ergonomics.
It takes me much more time to manage to create simulations under bhyve than under VirtualBox
Click to expand...
I also run simulations in Virtualbox very often before applying on my systems, or to reproduce a forum users problem. The ergonomics to create in VirtualBox a new VM is unmatched in comparison to bhyve(8).

I would hate seeing VirtualBox gone from ports, but I suppose as long as there is source code available (including VBoxGuestAdditions), which is the case back to version 4.0.0, and a maintainer and/or user willing to update the port (even it is only to make sure a unsupported version can be build), then I don't see why it wouldn't stay in ports.
 
tennea9 said:
the guest additions can no longer be downloaded, etc.
Click to expand...

Just a note. This hasn't changed. Guest Additions are closed-source and for a limited number of platforms so have never been available on FreeBSD.

Oops, I meant extension pack... Guest Additions are available.
 
I also use VBox for a minikube instance and to test some OS.
Since it works even if an old version of VBox I don't see any problem with that.
But of course I'd rather getting all product but fix and new features as they are released.
 
kpedersen said:
Guest Additions are closed-source and for a limited number of platforms so have never been available on FreeBSD.
Click to expand...
Surely you mean Extension Packs, Guest Additions are available on FreeBSD:

ports/emulators/virtualbox-ose/Makefile
Code: 
GUESTADDITIONS_DESC=    Build with Guest Additions

ports/emulators/virtualbox-ose/distinfo
Code: 
SHA256 (VBoxGuestAdditions_6.1.50.iso) = ...
SIZE (VBoxGuestAdditions_6.1.50.iso) = ...
 
I too am seriously interested in this discussion, so will now be watching this thread.

It is also a great shame that usb passthrough can't be used in FreeBSD, since this feature requires the unsupported VirtualBox extension pack.
 
bgroper said:
It is also a great shame that usb passthrough can't be used in FreeBSD, since this feature requires the unsupported VirtualBox extension pack.
Click to expand...
As per: https://docs.oracle.com/en/virtualization/virtualbox/6.0/user/usb-support.html
The xHCI and EHCI controllers are shipped as an Oracle VM VirtualBox extension package
Click to expand...
Which means you still have OHCI (usb 1.x) support. In some cases that might be good enough?

VirtualBox 7 (not yet in ports) actually pulls the USB passthrough support into the open-source package (no need for extension pack) which is quite cool.

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Changelog-7.0
Devices: The EHCI and XHCI USB controller devices are now part of the open source base package
Click to expand...

So it might just be a waiting game...
 
Yes indeed, the waiting game.
I understood the virtualbox extension pack is needed for usb passthrough, even in 7.0.
Seems others too. There's some notes in this blog page.
Maybe we misunderstood. When time permits, I'll try vbox 7.0 usb passthrough on a linux platform.
 
tennea9 said:
… port version 7, …
Click to expand...

Developer vvd (presumably VVD here) may be best placed to estimate the workload from solo and cooperative perspectives. I'll ping him in FreeBSD Discord.

I have a report for deprecation of the legacy ports.

For the non-legacy ports: IMO there should be deprecation (upstream support has ceased) – plus, debatably, marks of vulnerability.
 
Throwing my hat into the ring here...

I use VirtualBox on FreeBSD, too. VBox6 works fine for the most part. With a little bit of research, I can overcome most of the technical hurdles.

But yeah, at some point, VBox6 may become just too old to be properly supported on an up-to-date FreeBSD system. So I would vote for a VBox7 to be ported to FreeBSD.
 
I’m a fairly heavy user of vbox. I have a dozen or so VMs that I use fairly regularly. Jails don’t cut the mustard. I haven’t tried bhyve or any other virtualization. It would be bad news for me if vbox stopped working - in particular I’m not sure if I could get macOS running on anything else.
 
tennea9 said:
… VirtualBox still has significant advantages in terms of ergonomics. …
Click to expand...

True.

tennea9 said:
… should we expect to have to switch entirely to bhyve? …
Click to expand...

I imagine that if things become too bad, The FreeBSD Foundation will help to progress what VVD can not do, alone, within a reasonable time frame.

The current situation is very bad, but not too bad.

I might have mentioned VirtualBox in the 2024 community survey, the report was discussed in FreeBSD Discord.
 

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Right now, VirtualBox does a better job with Linux distributions using GUI, at least in my experience. (Though this is vm-bhyve). Keyboard shortcuts don't work well, and I've not been able to get sound, though others have. (On the other hand, for my use case, I've never needed sound on it, it was just curiosity.) That being said, on my machine at least, Bhyve is MUCH faster than VirtualBox running a Windows guest.
 
I link this previous thread, in case it be helpful.
forums.freebsd.org

Virtualization bhyve vs virtualbox

Hi, can bhyve coexist with Virtualbox, meaning no modules or settings conflict? I don’t need to run them at the same time, but I don’t want to reboot to switch between bhyve and vb sessions. Also, is bhyve faster than VirtualBox? In my case, there‘s an appliance that I have to use in VB, but on...
forums.freebsd.org forums.freebsd.org

Personally, I hope VirtualBox remains viable. Mostly due to familiarity, not because it is "better".
 
for me the biggest advantage of VirtualBox compared to Bhyve is that you can pass single USB devices to the VM whilst under Bhyve you have to passtrhu the PCI controller, something that may be problematic when using laptops for example. In my case if I passthru the USB controller my external keyboard and mouse stop working.
 
Are you sure? I can't find anything apart from "PCI Passthrough: PCI Passthru functionality added from 2.0.0 version" and "PCI Passthrough: BVCP supports PCI Passthru configuration." in the website.
 
Exactly what I was saying, you can only passthru the entire PCI bus, not the single USB device. So you lose the ability to use the USB ports on the laptop.
 
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