Status: Guest OSes
The following table gives an overview of how well VirtualBox supports various operating systems in its virtual machines. Rows marked with an asterisk (*) contain information reported by users and not verified by the VirtualBox team.
(Page last updated 2011-05-24)
|
Guest OS |
Status |
Remarks |
Windows family |
 |
Windows 7 (32/64-bit) |
Works, with Additions |
|
 |
Windows Vista (32/64-bit) |
Works, with Additions |
|
 |
Windows 2000 |
Works, with Additions |
|
 |
Windows XP (32/64-bit) |
Works, with Additions |
|
 |
Windows Server 2008 (32/64-bit, also R2) |
Work, with Additions |
|
 |
Windows Server 2003 (32/64-bit) |
Work, with Additions |
|
 |
Windows NT |
Works, with Additions |
Some issues with old service packs. Recommended to install service pack 6a. Shared folders not implemented. |
 |
* Windows 98 |
Works, no Additions available |
Slow because VirtualBox not optimized for it. Disable VT-x. |
|
Linux family |
Generally, all 2.4 and 2.6 kernels work; however, we recommend 2.6.13 or above for better performance. Kernels 2.6.18 to 2.6.18.2 contain a race condition (which was unfortunately backported to the Ubuntu 6.06 Server and 6.10 kernels) that can cause boot crashes in virtual machines. |
 |
Ubuntu 5.10 / 6.06 Desktop / 7.04 - 11.04 |
Work, with Additions |
|
 |
Ubuntu 6.06 Server/6.10 |
Works partially, with Additions |
The Ubuntu 6.06 Server and 6.10 kernels suffer from the race condition mentioned above. |
 |
Debian 6.0 |
Work, with Additions |
|
 |
Debian 5.0 |
Work, with Additions |
|
 |
Debian 4.0 (32-bit) |
Work, with Additions |
|
 |
Debian 3.1 |
Work, with Additions |
Requires IDE Controller. |
 |
SUSE 9/10.0 |
Work, with Additions |
Disable VT-x |
 |
openSUSE 10.2 |
Works partially, with Additions |
The openSUSE 10.2 kernel suffers from the race condition mentioned above. |
 |
openSUSE 10.3 |
Works, with Additions |
|
 |
openSUSE 11.0-11.3 |
Work, with Additions |
|
 |
Mandriva 2008 |
Works, with Additions |
Mandriva 2008 has the guest additions for VirtualBox 1.5 installed by default. These should be updated after installation. |
 |
Mandriva 2009.0/2009.1 |
Work, with Additions |
|
 |
Mandrake 10.1 |
Works, with Additions |
|
 |
*Mandrake 9.2 |
Works, without Additions |
|
 |
Fedora Core 1/4/5/6 |
Work, with Additions |
|
 |
Fedora 7-14 |
Work, with Additions |
Fedora 7 and 9 have problems with Additions. We recommend you upgrade before installing Guest Additions. |
 |
RHEL6, Oracle Linux 6 |
Work, with Additions |
5.3+ Recommended if using VirtIO. |
 |
RHEL5, OEL5, CentOS 5 (32/64-bit) |
Work, with Additions |
5.3+ Recommended if using VirtIO. |
 |
RHEL4, OEL4, CentOS 4 (32/64-bit) |
Work, with Additions |
Requires IDE Controller. 4.8+ Recommended if using VirtIO. |
 |
RHEL3, OEL3, CentOS 3 (32/64-bit) |
Work, with Additions |
Requires IDE Controller. Sound broken. |
 |
* Red Hat Linux 9 |
Works, without Additions |
|
 |
* Red Hat Linux 7 |
Works, partially without Additions |
Requires VT-x, and text-mode only. |
 |
* Xandros 4 |
Works, with Additions |
|
 |
ArchLinux |
Works, with Additions |
Installation has to be booted with the ide-legacy option. |
Solaris |
 |
Solaris 10 5.08 and later |
Works, with Guest Additions |
|
 |
OpenSolaris 2008.05 and later |
Works, with Guest Additions |
|
Mac OS X |
 |
Mac OS X Server (Leopard, Snow Leopard) |
Works without Additions |
See Manual for more information. |
Unices |
 |
FreeBSD |
Works partially |
FreeBSD 6.2 is known to cause problems. Requires VT-x. |
 |
* PC-BSD 1.3 |
Doesn't work |
|
 |
* PC-BSD 7.1.1 |
Works, no Additions available |
Requires VT-x or AMD-V hardware virtualization support. |
 |
* PC-BSD 8.1 |
Works, no Additions available |
Requires VT-x or AMD-V hardware virtualization support. |
 |
OpenBSD |
Works, no Additions available |
Requires VT-x or AMD-V hardware virtualization support. |
Others |
 |
DOS |
Works, no Additions available |
Only limited testing as part of system installation processes has been performed. |
 |
OS/2 |
Works, with Additions |
Requires VT-x or AMD-V hardware virtualization support. Only MCP2 is reported to work reliably so far. |
 |
* QNX Neutrino 6.32 |
Works, no Additions available |
Requires VT-x or AMD-V hardware virtualization support. |
|
 |
* Novell Netware 6.5 |
Doesn't work |
|
 |
* BeOS R5 |
Doesn't work |
|
 |
Haiku |
Works, no Additions available |
|
 |
Syllable |
Works, no Additions available |
|
 |
* Visopsys |
Doesn't work |
|
 |
ReactOS |
Works, no Additions available |
|
 |
* SkyOS |
Works, no Additions available |
|