New VirtualBox Beta Has PCI Pass-Through Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: New VirtualBox Beta Has PCI Pass-Through Support

Just a week after Oracle released VirtualBox 4.1 Beta 1, the second beta for this forthcoming feature release of the former Sun virtualization stack is now available. The VirtualBox 4.1 Beta 2 release has various bug-fixes since the first beta, but for Linux hosts it also introduces PCI pass-through support...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTY0OQ

[darkbasic]

Are you talking about the open source version or the proprietary one?

[strcat]

Are you talking about the open source version or the proprietary one?

There is no proprietary VirtualBox anymore. There are now proprietary extensions instead, and from reading the announcement, I don't think this is one of those.

[darkbasic]

Does virtualbox support usb passthrough without any proprietary extension?

[3vi1]

Does virtualbox support usb passthrough without any proprietary extension?

No. As I recall, that feature requires the proprietary extension package and license click-thru (free to normal users).

[strcat]

Does virtualbox support usb passthrough without any proprietary extension?

I don't have the extensions installed, and it looks like I can enable USB support - but NOT USB2.0. Checking that box results in an alert saying I need to install the extensions. USB1.0 support isn't very useful though...

[DeepDayze]

I don't have the extensions installed, and it looks like I can enable USB support - but NOT USB2.0. Checking that box results in an alert saying I need to install the extensions. USB1.0 support isn't very useful though...

It'll work but it'll be slow. Have you tested it with anything like USB sticks?

If you want USB 2.0 support you'd need that extension package

[Kano]

for usb2 or pci path-through the extpack is needed. then you need to set the vm to emulate ich9, after that i was able to use pciattach (via cmd line) to a nic. mii-tool showed link but i did not get an ip in the (linux) guest. there is nothing mentioned in the manual what to do on the host before. i tried to unload the kernel module on the host but that did not help. did anybody manage to get an ip with a nic that was set up for path-through (dont forget to disable the emulated one)? my test was done with i7-2600 (without k) and q67 board, kernel 3.0 on the host, 2.6.38 guest.

[schmidtbag]

holy crap so does this mean that we'll have direct access to video cards? if so this could very easily be the end of dual booting. we can virtualize windows in linux and then run stuff like games and photoshop with a minimal performance drop. i am extremely excited if this is true.

[LinuxID10T]

holy crap so does this mean that we'll have direct access to video cards? if so this could very easily be the end of dual booting. we can virtualize windows in linux and then run stuff like games and photoshop with a minimal performance drop. i am extremely excited if this is true.

EXACTLY what I was about to ask!!!