The feature isn't enabled by default, you'll need to set linked_clone to true:
"SudoAlex" adjacent has the correct answer. We'll make it default at some point in 1.8.x. We decided last minute to remove the default so that any bugs that are found can be flushed out. So far, none on this feature. But yeah, you have to enable it.
After you enable it, you'll have to `vagrant destroy` before you see the benefits though. Linked clones are from scratch.
The announcement is a bit misleading then:
> Linked cloning will happen automatically if your system supports it. Providers other than VirtualBox and VMware can be updated outside of Vagrant to support linked cloning automatically.
It concerns imports, not booting.
Re:Vagrant 1.8 released
by rowofpixels on Tuesday December 22, 2015 @09:53AM
(#10778021)
Since they're talking about the "import" maybe they're not talking about from the halted state? Maybe just the initial `vagrant up`?
That's correct. Each time you make a new VM, instead of copying the base box's disk image it creates an new disk image that will only store the differences between your VM's disk and the base box's disk.
Any idea how this feature will work with base box's images that are regularly updated? I've been using ubuntu/trusty64 and it seems to get an update at least once a week.
I tried this, but it does not seem faster to me. All my projects set up on vagrant from halted state (`vagrant halt`) to up (`vagrant up`) take same amount of time as it was with `vagrant 1.7`.
Or I am doing/understand this wrong?