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)
Windows 8 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Windows Server 2012 (64-bit)
Mac OS X hosts:[2]
10.6 (Snow Leopard, 32-bit and 64-bit)
10.7 (Lion, 32-bit and 64-bit)
10.8 (Mountain Lion, 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:
8.04 ("Hardy Heron"), 8.10 ("Intrepid Ibex"), 9.04 ("Jaunty Jackalope"), 9.10 ("Karmic Koala"), 10.04 ("Lucid Lynx"), 10.10 ("Maverick Meerkat), 11.04 ("Natty Narwhal"), 11.10 ("Oneiric Oncelot"), 12.04 ("Precise Pangolin")
Debian GNU/Linux 5.0 ("lenny") and 6.0 ("squeeze")
Oracle Enterprise Linux 4 and 5, Oracle Linux 6
Redhat Enterprise Linux 4, 5 and 6
Fedora Core 4 to 17
Gentoo Linux
openSUSE 11.0, 11.1, 11.2, 11.3, 11.4, 12.1, 12.2
Mandriva 2010 and 2011
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 including Solaris 11 Express
Solaris 10 (u8 and higher)
Note that the above list is informal. Oracle support for customers who have a support contract is limited to a subset of the listed host operating systems. Also, any feature which is marked as experimental is not supported. Feedback and suggestions about such features are welcome.