3 Configuring virtual machines
Solaris 10, OpenSolaris Fully supported (32 bits and 64 bits). Guest Additions are available.
FreeBSD Limited support. Guest Additions are not available yet.
OpenBSD Versions 3.7 and later are supported. Guest Additions are not available yet.
OS/2 Warp 4.5 Requires hardware virtualization to be enabled. We officially support MCP2 only; other OS/2 versions may or may not work. Guest Additions are available with a limited feature set.1
3.2 64-bit guests
Starting with version 2.0, VirtualBox supports 64-bit guest operating systems. Starting with version 2.1, you can even run 64-bit guests on a 32-bit host operating system. The hardware prerequisites are identical for both cases.
In particular, 64-bit guests are supported under the following conditions:
1.You need a 64-bit processor with hardware virtualization support (see chapter 3.4.3, “Acceleration” tab: hardware vs. software virtualization, page 49).
2.You must enable hardware virtualization for the particular VM for which you want 64-bit support; software virtualization is not supported for 64-bit VMs.
3.If you want to use 64-bit guest support on a 32-bit host operating system, you must also select a 64-bit operating system for the particular VM. Since supporting 64 bits on 32-bit hosts incurs additional overhead, VirtualBox only enables this support upon explicit request.
On 64-bit hosts, 64-bit guest support is always enabled, so you can simply install a 64-bit operating system in the guest.
Warning: On any host, you should enable the I/O APIC for virtual machines that you intend to use in 64-bit mode. This is especially true for 64-bit Win- dows VMs. See chapter 3.3.2, “Advanced” tab, page 46. In addition, for 64-bit Windows guests, you should make sure that the VM uses the Intel network- ing device, since there is no 64-bit driver support for the AMD PCNet card; see chapter 6.1, Virtual networking hardware, page 88.
If you use the “Create VM” wizard of the VirtualBox graphical user interface (see chapter 1.6, Creating your first virtual machine, page 17), VirtualBox will automatically use the correct settings for each selected 64-bit operating system type.
1See chapter 13, Known limitations, page 237.
