| 1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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| 2 | <!DOCTYPE topic
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| 3 | PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA Topic//EN" "topic.dtd">
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| 4 | <topic xml:lang="en-us" id="virtintro">
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| 5 | <title>Some Terminology</title>
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| 6 |
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| 7 | <body>
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| 8 | <p>
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| 9 | When dealing with virtualization, and also for understanding the
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| 10 | following chapters of this documentation, it helps to acquaint
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| 11 | oneself with a bit of crucial terminology, especially the
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| 12 | following terms:
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| 13 | </p>
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| 14 | <ul>
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| 15 | <li>
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| 16 | <p>
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| 17 | <b outputclass="bold">Host operating system (host
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| 18 | OS).</b> This is the OS of the physical computer on
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| 19 | which <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> was installed. There are versions of
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| 20 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Oracle Solaris
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| 21 | hosts. See <xref href="hostossupport.dita#hostossupport"/>.
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| 22 | </p>
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| 23 | <p>
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| 24 | Most of the time, this manual discusses all <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/>
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| 25 | versions together. There may be platform-specific differences
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| 26 | which we will point out where appropriate.
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| 27 | </p>
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| 28 | </li>
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| 29 | <li>
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| 30 | <p>
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| 31 | <b outputclass="bold">Guest operating system (guest
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| 32 | OS).</b> This is the OS that is running inside the
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| 33 | virtual machine. Theoretically, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> can run any x86
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| 34 | OS such as DOS, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. But to
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| 35 | achieve near-native performance of the guest code on your
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| 36 | machine, we had to go through a lot of optimizations that are
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| 37 | specific to certain OSes. So while your favorite OS
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| 38 | <i>may</i> run as a guest, we officially support
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| 39 | and optimize for a select few, which include the most common
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| 40 | OSes.
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| 41 | </p>
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| 42 | <p>
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| 43 | See <xref href="guestossupport.dita#guestossupport"/>.
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| 44 | </p>
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| 45 | </li>
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| 46 | <li>
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| 47 | <p>
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| 48 | <b outputclass="bold">Virtual machine (VM).</b> This is
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| 49 | the special environment that <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> creates for your
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| 50 | guest OS while it is running. In other words, you run your
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| 51 | guest OS <i>in</i> a VM. Normally, a VM is shown
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| 52 | as a window on your computer's desktop. Depending on which of
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| 53 | the various frontends of <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> you use, the VM might
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| 54 | be shown in full screen mode or remotely on another computer.
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| 55 | </p>
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| 56 | <p>
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| 57 | Internally, <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> treats a VM as a set of parameters
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| 58 | that specify its behavior. Some parameters describe hardware
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| 59 | settings, such as the amount of memory and number of CPUs
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| 60 | assigned. Other parameters describe the state information,
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| 61 | such as whether the VM is running or saved.
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| 62 | </p>
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| 63 | <p>
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| 64 | You can view these VM settings in <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/vbox-mgr"/>, in the
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| 65 | <b outputclass="bold">Settings</b> window, and by
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| 66 | running the <userinput>VBoxManage</userinput> command. See
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| 67 | <xref href="vboxmanage.dita#vboxmanage"/>.
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| 68 | </p>
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| 69 | </li>
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| 70 | <li>
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| 71 | <p>
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| 72 | <b outputclass="bold">Guest Additions.</b> This refers
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| 73 | to special software packages which are shipped with
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| 74 | <ph conkeyref="vbox-conkeyref-phrases/product-name"/> but designed to be installed
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| 75 | <i>inside</i> a VM to improve performance of the
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| 76 | guest OS and to add extra features. See
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| 77 | <xref href="guestadditions.dita#guestadditions"/>.
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| 78 | </p>
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| 79 | </li>
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| 80 | </ul>
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| 81 | </body>
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| 82 |
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| 83 | </topic>
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