A major update to VirtualBox, open source virtualisation software for Windows, macOS and Linux, is now available to download.
VirtualBox 6.1.0 includes a crop of canny new capabilities, including accelerated video playback on Linux and macOS hosts, support for the Linux kernel 5.4, and experimental file transfer support.
This release includes accelerated video playback on Linux hosts, and support for Linux 5.4
Just don’t get too excited about the latter feature. File Transfer support is currently implemented as part of the Shared Clipboard and only works with Windows hosts and guests. The feature also needs to be manually enabled through VBoxManage, as it is not turned on by default.
Elsewhere, the Virtualbox 6.1.0 update implements support for importing VMs from the Oracle Cloud infrastructure, and exporting them to it too.
Experimental changes include making vboxim-mount available on Linux hosts (which allows read-only access to NTFS, FAT and ext2/3/4 filesystems inside a disk image) and introducing VirtIO SCSI capabilities (where supported) for faster machine performance.
A glut of GUI tweaks are on offer too, including an improved VISO creation and file manager; enhanced VM search; and more detail in the VM information pane.
There’s also a new virtual keyboard (with multimedia keys) is available to enable input to guest systems; and the VM CPU load is now related in the VM status bar CPU indicator.
Of note, this release no longer includes the “old style 3D support” using VBoxVGA.
Download VirtualBox 6.1.0
VirtualBox is free, open source software available for Windows, macOS and Linux. Official installation packages can be found on the downloads page on the official website.
Using Ubuntu, Linux Mint, or a related distro? You can install older versions of the app direct from the archives, just search it out in your system’s default app store.
To install VirtualBox 6.1.0 on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS or above you will need to download and install the latest version manually, using the official Ubuntu install package linked below: