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Oracle released today VirtualBox 6.1.24 as a new maintenance update to this very popular, free, and open-source virtualization software for Linux, macOS, and Windows platforms.
VirtualBox 6.1.24 comes almost three months after version 6.1.22 to introduce support for the latest and greatest Linux 5.13 kernel series, for both hosts and guests. As you can imagine, this means that you can now run GNU/Linux distributions powered by Linux kernel 5.13 on virtual machines or install VirtualBox on a distro running Linux 5.13.
For the first time, VirtualBox introduces support for kernels that are specific to a certain GNU/Linux distribution. In this release, there’s support for Ubuntu specific kernels, as well as kernels that are specific to the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Desktop (SLES/SLED) 15 SP3 (Service Pack 3) operating systems.
In addition, for Linux hosts only, VirtualBox’s installer has been updated to no longer attempt to build kernel modules if they’re already installed on your and the modules versions match the current version you’re installing. Also, this release fixes an issue on Linux with USB webcam pass-through.
For all platforms, VirtualBox 6.1.24 brings multiple audio enhancements and bug fixes, fixes a small memory leak in the host and guest driver, improves the DVD medium change signaling, addresses guest missing interrupts that occurred under certain circumstances, and fixes a Guest Additions crash that occurred when using the shared clipboard.
A couple of networking improvements are present as well in this release to fix a connectivity issue with the virtio-net driver that occurred after resuming the virtual machine with disconnected link, as well as to a UDP GSO fragmentation issue with missing 8 bytes of payload at the end of the first fragment.
Lastly, for Solaris guests only, this release increases the default memory and disk sizes. VirtualBox 6.1.24 also adds support for network booting with the E1000 network controller emulation and EFI stability improvements.
You can download VirtualBox 6.1.24 right now from the official website for your favorite GNU/Linux distribution or as a universal binary that you can install on virtually any distro. If you’re using VirtualBox to test Linux distros or run another supported OS, I highly recommend that you update this new release as soon as possible for a much-improved virtualization experience, especially if you’re dealing with Linux kernel 5.13.
Image credits: Oracle
Last updated 3 years ago
