Virtualbox is a very nice software, available under the GPL. It’s a good aternative to VMWare, Parallel Desktop or even Boot Camp when it comes to run another operating system on MacOS X. Unfortunately, Sun doesn’t provide an official binary package of the open-source edition (OSE) of VirtualBox for Mac OS X, which is the only version allowing company use without having to pay a license. This site is meant to fill the gap, as we needed it for PureBasic, we decided to run a build server and release monthly builds from now. This package is built from the svn/trunk so it should contains all the lastest fix (and bugs). You should consider it as experimental, and it’s available on download without any warranty. That said, it works for us, so hopefully it should work for you. It has been tested on Leopard (OS X 10.5) and it uses QT/Cocoa. Enough talk, here is download link to the dmg:
VirtualBoxOSE-03-04-2010.dmg (04 March 2010)
VirtualBoxOSE-01-02-2010.dmg (02 January 2010)
VirtualBoxOSE-12-02-2009.dmg (02 December 2009)
VirtualBoxOSE-11-14-2009.dmg (14 November 2009)
You will also need the QT4 opensource package (cocoa version):
http://get.qt.nokia.com/qt/source/qt-mac-cocoa-opensource-4.5.3.dmg
Installation:
Once the QT4 package has been installed, you will need to load the VirtualBox drivers in the kernel. To do this, open a terminal, go in the VirtualBox directory and enter:
$ sudo ./load.sh
You can now launch VirtualBox and it should be OK ! Feel free to leave a comment to tell us if it works for you, and on which OS X version.
seems to be working well on Snow Leopard. Currently creating an ubuntu 9.10 vm instance and seems responsive.
perhaps you could look into writing a Homebrew recipe which would grab all the prerequisite dependencies and build virtualbox
http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/
Thanks for your suggestion. I have just followed the steps here: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Mac%20OS%20X%20build%20instructions, i think it should be easy enough. Happy to see it works for you on Snow Leopard !
Thanks for the 12/02/2009 update! Glad to see you keeping this up to date, it is much appreciated
Hi,
is it right, that load.sh must execuded after every boot?
Yes, you are right. You could probably put it in the drivers directory to have it load at boot.
Hello admin
I would like to build vbox OSE myself so I have always the latest version avialable. Unfortunately I got a compile problem related to libcrypto/openssl (undefined symbols). Could you give quick instructions how you managed to build OSE on OS X? What openssl verison you are using? how do you specify the openssl path to the kmk compiler?
when will you release this month’s build?
greetings
niehztog
Hello niehztog,
I just have built it and put the new version online, thanks for the reminder. About openssl, it’s the 0.9.8l (reported by pkg-config). I just followed the build instructions and it went nicely.
Being new to OSX (from Linux), this may be a silly question, but is this prebuilt package capable of running 32-bit guests only? If I want to run 64-bit guests, do I need to roll my own OSE build?
Thanks for the great work with the packaging!
I didn’t tried it myself, but IIRC, VirtualBox can run 64 bits hosts on 32 bits OS (if your processor is 64bit and VT-x enabled). Otherwise You are righr, this built is not native 64 bit.
You seem like an expert. I am trying to join the virtualbox forum and it is asking me for a version There are several OSE choices and one puel choice. Which one should I check since it is required to join. I am trying to uninstall it from my mac system because windows runs so small in the virtual machine that you even have to take the curor to the left to read a web page won’t view the entire page. You help would be appreciated
Unfortunately, i don’t know…
I am pretty much looking forward to the April’s built of vbox OSE. Who knows, maybe it already can handle OS X guests…
Hallo admin,
I am already waiting for the next release of the prebuilt VBox OSE. Will it happen soon or are there any problems?
Greetings and many thanks for the work!
Niehztog
Should be out this month
you disappoint me
Hi admin,
Did you manage to build these without disabling hardening? The Qt-framework seems to be giving some problems with regard to that.
Greets
It’s finally out, sorry for the delay !