[Call for Testers] VirtualBox 4.2.0

[Bernhard Fröhlich]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 9:50 AM, Marek Salwerowicz <marek_sal at wp.pl> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> W dniu 2012-09-20 08:02, Bernhard Fröhlich pisze:
>>
>> Hi virtualbox users!
>>
>> I am very glad to be able to send out a VirtualBox 4.2.0 call for testers.
>> We've done a good job pushing many patches upstream before the
>> release this time so our port is much smaller and easier to handle.
>
>
>
> thanks for the release - I will do some tests and let you know about the
> results.
>
> By the way - can you tell me if there are any plans for releasing the
> Extension Pack for FreeBSD?
> I'd really like to have the Intel E1000 PXE support in virtual machine.
> So far now it doesn't work in my environment:
>
> s14% sudo VBoxManage list extpacks
> Extension Packs: 2
> Pack no. 0:   Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack
> Version:      4.1.4
> Revision:     74291
> Description:  USB 2.0 Host Controller, VirtualBox RDP, PXE ROM with E1000
> support.
> VRDE Module:  VBoxVRDP
> Usable:       false
> Why unusable: Failed to locate the main module ('VBoxPuelMain')
> s14%

The Oracle Extension Packs are binary blobs and don't support FreeBSD yet.
If we can convince the vbox developers that FreeBSD support is worth the work
and brings them some money they will most likely also release extension
packs and provide binary packages for virtualbox at some point.

That is a longterm goal and nobody knows if we ever get to that point. When
I look back 3 years when we started with vbox on FreeBSD and compare that
to the current state then I think we have almost reached a point where FreeBSD
support is almost equivalent in feature parity and stability to MacOSX and
Linux support. Sure there are still some weak areas like the networking
implementation in FreeBSD but the linux kernel guys are also unhappy with the
vbox kernel module stability so there is no big difference.

-- 
Bernhard Froehlich
http://www.bluelife.at/