Virtualbox performance issues

[David Fox]

On Sun, Sep 14, 2008 at 8:05 PM, Keith Clark <keithclark at k-wbookworm.com> wrote:
> I've also noticed that is highly depends on the o/s that you are running in
> the virtual machine.  I tried Mint and PCOS2008 and both had problems with

Scientific (redhat based) seems to run rather quickly, but it's the 32
bit version. I am trying out intrepid 64 (not installed yet) but it's
the last alpha release and I find it to be very slow painting the
screen, almost to the point of being unusable. I have amd-v
virtualization on, since my processor (dual core amd64 5200) supports
the feature.

The 32-bit 8.04.1 reference ISO of kubuntu, in contrast, is fast
enough in VirtualBox to be usable enough, although I haven't installed
it into a VM - since I already have a 64 bit ubuntu/kubuntu running.

The 32 bit intrepid alpha (as of Sept 5) seems to also run quickly
enough, as I don't have to wait nearly as long as I do if I try the 64
bit version of intrepid.

I know 64 bit guests are something new in vbox, but maybe there are
gotchas and extra work the CPU has to do to virtualize 64 bit guests
compared to 32 bit ones. I'll have to do some more checking and get
back.

> the display size, they would only go as high as 800x600.  PCOS  also ran
> quite slow and jerky.  Mint ran pretty smoothly if I let it stabilize itself

Display size on the virtualized Intrepid 32, alpha Kubuntu is also
tweaked. There's a text box "enter your name" to the right of the
Desktop folder view but the text box is cut off. I tried resizing the
window, but that doesn't help.

Speaking of desktops, I lost the desktop view in kde 4.1 (ubuntu
hardy) and although I don't really need it back, there should be some
way to show that translucent desktop using dolphin on the display as
it is done by default in Intrepid - even though it only contains one
folder, namely "install".


> I also tried Mandriva One Spring 2008 and it was the best.  Flawless.  Full
> 1024x768 and fast and smooth.

I just downloaded 2009.0 rc1 over the weekend - the dvd. For a while
it was going extremely slow (the download that is) I wondered if it
would even complete :). Maybe I'll give it a spin in vbox.

I was a mandrake user for a few years, then I got into mepis for a
while and then debian, and now ubuntu :).