Currently, VirtualBox runs on the following host operating systems:
Windows hosts:
Windows XP, all service packs (32-bit)
Windows Server 2003 (32-bit)
Windows Vista (32-bit and 64-bit[1]).
Windows Server 2008 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows 7 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Mac OS X hosts:[2]
10.5 (Leopard, 32-bit)
10.6 (Snow Leopard, 32-bit and 64-bit)
Intel hardware is required; please see Chapter 14, Known limitations also.
Linux hosts (32-bit and 64-bit[3]). Among others, this includes:
Ubuntu 6.06 ("Dapper Drake"), 6.10 ("Edgy Eft"), 7.04 ("Feisty Fawn"), 7.10 ("Gutsy Gibbon"), 8.04 ("Hardy Heron"), 8.10 ("Intrepid Ibex"), 9.04 ("Jaunty Jackalope"), 9.10 ("Karmic Koala"), 10.04 ("Lucid Lynx"), 10.10 ("Maverick Meerkat).
Debian GNU/Linux 3.1 ("sarge"), 4.0 ("etch"), 5.0 ("lenny") and 6.0 ("squeeze")
Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 and 5
Redhat Enterprise Linux 4, 5 and 6
Fedora Core 4 to 14
Gentoo Linux
SUSE Linux 9, 10 and 11, openSUSE 10.3, 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3
Mandriva 2007.1, 2008.0, 2009.1, 2010.0 and 2010.1
It should be possible to use VirtualBox on most systems based on Linux kernel 2.6 using either the VirtualBox installer or by doing a manual installation; see Section 2.3, “Installing on Linux hosts”. However, the formally tested and supported Linux distributions are those for which we offer a dedicated package.
Note that starting with VirtualBox 2.1, Linux 2.4-based host operating systems are no longer supported.
Solaris hosts (32-bit and 64-bit) are supported with the restrictions listed in Chapter 14, Known limitations:
Solaris 11 Express (Nevada build 86 and higher, OpenSolaris 2008.05 and higher)
Solaris 10 (u8 and higher)