Virtualbox performs quite well actually!

[tcies]

examples/evolConf.txt with 10 Generations took 14s native and 16s virtualbox, and here is what happens for the visualizer (it seemed to me like native was a bit faster without screencast recording):
http://stuff.titus-c.ch/robogen-vbox.avi
@loshchil was right, vbox isn't that bad! Of course, a similar check on windows and mac would make sense before jumping to conclusions.

[jauerb]

Cool! I can perform some more tests (can try with most both linux and windows hosts), but this would certainly be a simple solution.... we could package an image with a stripped down Ubuntu and just the dependencies needed to run RoboGen!

[jauerb]

I now have a virtual box image running LUbuntu that I have built RoboGen on.
(Fortunately I could build without issue against the newer versions of Boost and OSG that are available in the newest Ubuntu packages!! Seems to work without any problems)

I tested running this under a linux host and a windows host, and seems to work great. Actually goes a little faster unders my Windows host (same computer), which is strange, but in any case seems like distributing this could be a feasible solution.

Right now I have this virtual disk image with all the build dependencies + eclipse + gdb, so could have students fire up this image, open up eclipse and just click run to get going right away.

Only issue is that this virtual disk image, even with using LUbuntu and only downloading the necessary stuff is 6GB, so will not be such a quick download.

[tcies]

Infomaniak claims the account hosting robogen has no traffic limit, let's see how true that is :) .

[tcies]

I'm wondering how network communication works out between VBoxes on different PCs.

[jauerb]

Think it should be fine, you can run vbox with bridged networking which I believe gives the virtual box its own ip address. Will have to test this out though