64 bit virtualbox guest on 32 bit host

[mimosa]

I just spent ages installing virtualbox in order to run Salix 64 as a guest on a 32-bit machine, with a view to packaging for both architectures, only to discover:

1) it will only work if your motherboard or BIOS supports "hardware virtualisation";

2) I should have RTFM'd, and the forum. As well as the kernel sources (which I remembered) VirtualBox requires acpica and jdk (mentioned at slackbuilds.org) and also libvncserver (not mentioned). However, you can save yourself the bother of a long compile like this:

http://www.salixos.org/forum/viewtopic. ... uel#p18376

as laprjns kindly pointed out when I was trying to do exactly the same thing some time back.

[thenktor]

1) it will only work if your motherboard or BIOS supports "hardware virtualisation";

I didn't know that this is possible after all. Isn't it awful slow?

However, you can save yourself the bother of a long compile like this:

VirtualBox is available as binary package on their site. I'd recommend the non open source edition anyway because it has USB support (AFAIK the OSE has not).

[JRD]

I did not recommand binary version on the VB site.
This is not free software and the use of USB is useless. There is a command in the free version to use a USB key and it's working pretty good.
Yes it's long to compile, but the real problem here is that nobody packaged it. I don't think that recommanding a non-free version of a free software is a good way to go.
I recommand compile VBox free version. But if you want to save time, you can use the non-free version of the site...just be-aware it's non-free.
[Edit] Maybe I will provide a package for the free version

[mimosa]

@ Thenktor

I don't know whether it's slow, because this machine doesn't have this feature - at least, I couldn't see anything in BIOS about it. So I can't build 64-bit packages

@ JRD

You're right, the long compile isn't a big deal. It might be tricky for inexperienced users, though the information on how to do it is on the forum.

For the record:

1) Read the instructions. You need to create a group for Virtualbox and add your user to it; add some lines to rc.local and rc.local_shutdown to run virtualbox as a service; install the kernel source, acpica and jdk

2) Another dependency that's not mentioned is libvncserver

3) You probably also want to install virtualbox-kernel

4) Inside the guest, install the guest additions, it makes everything work more smoothly. I can't remember how this works because I didn't get that far, but there are instructions on the website and also scattered about this forum.

[thenktor]

This is not free software and the use of USB is useless.

I know it's not free and of course free software is always recommended, but for me VirtualBox without real USB support is useless I need to connect USB devices to the guests, not only USB mass storage.

[laprjns]

1) it will only work if your motherboard or BIOS supports "hardware virtualisation";

I didn't know that this is possible after all. Isn't it awful slow?

No, not slow at all. I'm using VMs, both 32 and 64 for building my packages for current I've got my build directory on the host and both VM have shared folders back to the host folder. Works good. In the past I've had both VM running at the same time which did slow it down to the point where there was much to be gained by doing it. I imagine if the system has enough horses and lots a ram you could run both at the same time without problems.

As for the OSE, I use to package it for Zenwalk and Salix back in 13.1 days, but got a little tired of it. VB use to come out with a new version every month or so and there always seem to be a new wrinkle in the build process. Once I tried PUEL, I didn't think OSE was worth the hassle. Since there seems to be some need for it I may tried building OSE again in the next week or so.

[thenktor]

1) it will only work if your motherboard or BIOS supports "hardware virtualisation";

I didn't know that this is possible after all. Isn't it awful slow?

No, not slow at all. I'm using VMs, both 32 and 64 for building my packages for current

And your host is 32 bit? That actually was the question

[laprjns]

And your host is 32 bit? That actually was the question

Yes, the host OS is Salix 32

[laprjns]

No, not slow at all. I'm using VMs, both 32 and 64 for building my packages for current I've got my build directory on the host and both VM have shared folders back to the host folder. Works good.

After my weekend experience trying to build webkit I'm going to have to take this back, I took over 12 hours to build webkit on a vm versus under 2 hours on a real machine.

[thenktor]

I have built all my 13.37 packages in Virtualbox on a 64 bit host. It works quite well, but I did not do any benchmarks. I guess for big projects it's really better to use a native installation or a chroot build environment (search the forum for Shadors post about this topic). Also if you are using a Virtualbox you have to make sure it has a lot of RAM available.