There’s a brand new version of VirtualBox, the hugely popular cross-platform virtual machine software.

Oracle VM VirtualBox 5.1 (to give the software its full name) improves support for multi-channel audio, adds a new bug reporting tool, and, of note for those of you reading this, comes with better Linux integration.

What does that mean? To quote Oracle’s press release: “Automatic modules deployment in case of a Linux Kernel upgrade and improved systemd integration for the latest releases of popular Linux distributions.”

Technical sounding, but likely to help improve the performance of running Linux guest machines on Linux hosts.

Elsewhere the release notes tout ‘significant’ performance improvements for multi-CPU virtual machines and networking; new logging capabilities for guest Virtual Machines; and support for ‘different USB devices’.

Support for High Definition Audio support on newer Linux guests, on-demand timers to help performance, and finer volume control in AC’97 emulation mode also feature.

Another new feature of note is Flash storage emulation. The new NVMHCI storage controller is able to emulate Flash storage on guest Virtual Machines.

Download VirtualBox 5.1

You can download VirtualBox 5.1 from the project’s official website. Binaries are provided for all major operating systems and Solaris.

Visit the VirtualBox website

Just want the download?

Download VirtualBox 5.1 for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (32-bit)

Download VirtualBox 5.1 for Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (64-bit)

Older builds of VirtualBox and VirtualBox OSE are available through the standard Ubuntu package archives.