Is it better for me to install OpenSolaris onto bare metal or into VirtualBox?
It depends. • The advantage of installing on bare metal is better performance and better user experience (you get accelerated graphics, Compiz visual effects, etc.). The disadvantage is that some drivers may be missing for your computer and you need an extra primary partition. • The advantage of installing into VirtualBox is that it overcomes all driver issues (you leverage drivers from your main OS) and you don’t need to create a new primary partition. The disadvantages are worse performance (especially if you have less than 2 GB of RAM), worse user experience and you have to boot OpenSolaris if you want to use it, so you will probably use it less often than if you would install it on bare metal – optionally available, optionally used. However VirtualBox is the safest and easiest solution, so if you prefer an easy way, this is the way to go. You can find out whether your hardware is supported by running the Device Driver Utility.
