GNOME Boxes is an application of the
GNOME Desktop Environment, used to access virtual systems. Boxes uses the
QEMU
QEMU is a free and open-source emulator (Quick EMUlator). It emulates the machine's central processing unit, processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it t ...
,
KVM, and
libvirt virtualization technologies.
GNOME Boxes requires the CPU to support some form of
hardware-assisted virtualization
In computing, hardware-assisted virtualization is a platform virtualization approach that enables efficient full virtualization using help from hardware capabilities, primarily from the host processors. A full virtualization is used to emulate a ...
(
AMD-V
x86 virtualization is the use of hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities on an x86/x86-64 CPU.
In the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved by complex software techniques, necessary to compensate for the processor's lack of hardware-as ...
or
Intel VT-x
x86 virtualization is the use of hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities on an x86/x86-64 CPU.
In the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved by complex software techniques, necessary to compensate for the processor's lack of hardware-a ...
, for example).
History and functionality
GNOME Boxes was initially introduced as
beta software
A software release life cycle is the sum of the stages of development and maturity for a piece of computer software ranging from its initial development to its eventual release, and including updated versions of the released version to help impro ...
in GNOME 3.3 (development branch for 3.4) as of Dec 2011, and as a preview release in GNOME 3.4. Its primary functions were as a virtual machine manager, remote desktop client (over
VNC), and remote filesystem browser, utilizing the
libvirt, libvirt-glib, and libosinfo technologies. This enabled the viewing of remote systems and virtual machines on other computers in addition to locally created virtual machines. Boxes possesses the ability to easily create local virtual machines from a standard
disk image
A disk image, in computing, is a computer file containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or of an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc, or USB flash drive. A disk image i ...
file, such as an
ISO image
An optical disc image (or ISO image, from the ISO 9660 file system used with CD-ROM media) is a disk image that contains everything that would be written to an optical disc, disk sector by disc sector, including the optical disc file system. ...
while requiring minimum user input. As of version 40, the remote connection functionality has been moved to the separate application,
GNOME Connections.
People
Boxes was originally developed by Marc-André Lureau
Zeeshan Ali Alexander Larsson an
Christophe Fergeauref> and is currently being maintained and developed b
Felipe Borges
See also
*
VirtualBox
Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox) is a type-2 hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation.
VirtualBox was originally created by Innotek GmbH, which was acquired by S ...
*
Red Hat Virtual Machine Manager (virt-manager)
*
VMware Workstation
*
List of GNOME applications
GNOME Core Applications is a software suite of approximately 30 application software that are packaged as part of the standard free and open-source GNOME desktop environment. GNOME Core Applications have the look and feel of the GNOME desktop, an ...
References
External links
Boxes designs on GNOME wiki
{{GNOME
Free emulation software
Free software programmed in C
Free software programmed in Vala
Free virtualization software
GNOME Core Applications
Software that uses Meson
Virtualization software for Linux
Virtualization software that uses GTK