First lets dismiss (for this thread) the assumption, which is: Virtualbox is open source so there is no "designed access", while vmplayer is closed source so of course there is "designed access". That discussion will not get resolved. Departing from above, are many of you folks using vmplayer on a linux through and through setup? By that I mean host and guests are linux. I don't really care about the linux flavor but feel free to mention it if you think it is relevant. btw - I am using ubuntu 14.04 just so you know. Mostly, I am getting tired of VirtualBox breaking almost every time there is a kernel change. Lots of times its easy to correct but other times its a pure fight to get it all back to correct. I have read/heard that vmplayer doesn't seem to "break" all too often, and that usb acquisition in the virtual machines is much better. Frankly, virtualbox kind of sucks on USBs in my pure linux machines. Works fine on windows. While I realize that USBs in virtual machines create some security risk, that is a risk I must take due to my needs for their use. So info/experience with VMPLAYER'S USB and "breakage" on linux systems would be appreciated ----------- > alot!!
You can fix the headers issue by installing virtualbox-guest-dkms. See http://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...headers-to-install-virtualbox-guest-additions. I've used VMware Player, but not in Linux. Maybe I'm spoiled, but it seems like a toy, after having used ESXi Also, I find virtual network management in VMware to be more complicated than in VirtualBox. Or at least it's different enough to be confusing I don't use USB in VMs, so I can't say much about that issue.
After using VMPlayer for a day now I have to say that I find it disappointingly "heavy" on my machine. My machine is snappy and crisp with VirtualBox. I might get some more time to examine if I have something set wrong on my Player VM configs. For now I created a fresh 14.04 machine from a scratch iso. Player has many nice features: copy and paste among things, etc... However some of those features present security concerns (host ---------- to guest), which I haven't even begun to address yet. If I could fully resolve the crappy USB support issues on VirtualBox, I would purge Player and never look back.
Generally, I've found that VMware Player works best on Windows hosts. VMware and Microsoft have at times collaborated closely on virtualization. VirtualBox, on the other hand, has its roots in the Unix/Linux world.
I am leaving VMPlayer behind. I can tell you that VirtualBox smokes on my linux machine (especially compared to Player). Solved my VirtualBox problem. My system was F#$#$D with VB. I deleted VB and then re-installed it. Added my username to vboxusers, logged out, logged in, and its now working perfectly. USB is fine on all linux machines, but not being seen in the 7 Ultimate machine. I don't have time to mess with it more today. For now VB is working fine excluding my windows VM. I don't know why VB got hosed on my host and why my username disappeared from vboxusers but it did. All is working perfectly now. Much much more crisp using VirtualBox.
While I know this is/was a vmplayer thread I am putting this post here just to correct the record on VirtualBox. In case anyone using linux is thinking about giving it a try know you won't be disappointed. VmPlayer does not run anything like VirtualBox on a linux host. Its like VB was designed specifically for Linux by how smooth and sharp it responds on a linux host. The ubuntu repo only gives 4.3.10, which is quite old. My report is based upon using 4.3.18, the latest and greatest, available directly from Oracle. My original VirtualBox installation got hosed. I cleaned it all out and started over and "tweaked" it with the needed features for my usage requirements. I had to update to the latest 4.3.18 version before my Win 7 Ultimate VM would perform well with USB. VB 4.3.18 has the 2.0 usb controller for trusty tahr (14.04) and once configured it runs USBs seamlessly.
