The purpose of this article is to introduce the average PC user to VirtualBox. Terminology may be simplified to make it easier to understand for the non-Geek.
This article contains 3 sections and covers installing VirtualBox Hosts and Guests under Windows and openSUSE.
VirtualBox is virtualization software that runs under most modern operating systems. What this means in layman’s terms is that you set up an environment that pretends to be an actual computer, this is a “virtual machine” ( VM for short). With that virtual machine you can run another operating system in a window just like you would run another program. For instance, if you are using Windows 7 you could run Ubuntu in a window at the same time (see screenshots below for examples). To be clear, only the machine (computer) is virtual, you are actually running this other operating system.
The advantages of using virtual machines are many. For the home user these would include trying out new operating systems and the ability to run programs from different operating systems.
You can run many Windows games under Linux, or use Microsoft Office. You could try the latest Windows 7 SP beta, test new programs, tweaks, and configurations. You can try the latest Linux distros in an environment that is more realistic than a Live CD.
My favorite way to use VirtualBox is to run Windows under Linux. More specifically, I run Windows XP and 7 under openSUSE 11.3 (more on this later).
Security is also an advantage. The main operating system is separate from the one running on the virtual machine. For the most part viruses, malware, crashes, bugs, etc. are all contained inside the OS running in that VM. This of course does not relieve you of the responsibility of using safe computing habits. Lets say you download a file that contains a virus while under an Ubuntu VM and then run that file in Windows you could get infected.
6 Responses to “New Article Up – Using VirtualBox 4”
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Dear Eric,
First of all, allow me to congratulate you for the good work you pursue with great spirit. Since many years, I’ve learned a lot to tweak my dozens of XP machines through your guide.
Coming to the VM4 questions:
1) First, I would like to try VM4 with XP but I’ve got SP2 CD. Is this OK to go ahead with the Floppy (f6flpy-x86) driver?
2) Could we install VM4 on IDE drives too?
3) I use Windows 7 too, along with Parallels Desktop 4.0 to run my Linux Distros. How the VM4 performs in Win 7 vs Windows XP?
4) Any plans to do a comparison between VM4/Parallels/VMWare on Windows 7?
PS: could you please provide “Print” feature in your articles, i.e, viewing all pages in one html files so it would be great to print or save.
Thank you.
@Could we install VM4 on IDE drives too
I meant, is it possible installing on 160GB disks? Earlier I remember I ran into issues Windows XP supporting more than 120GB disks on my somewhat old machines. So I wanted to make use of those machines to test the VM4 before using it on any regular PC.
Thanks again.
Hello Dr. Sunil,
1 – I see nothing in the Release Notes requiring any SP for the F6 drivers.
2 – Yes to IDE drives. The large disk issue may be a BIOS limitation (you’ll have to research it).
3 – Altough I haven’t benchmarked anything, VirtualBox 4 seems a little quicker in Windows 7 rather than XP.
4 – I’ve not tried Parallels, but may give it a shot. VMWare (player) I may write something on later.
- I will look in to the Print thing
Very good article and explanations.
If you use the network control panel you can set the nic to bridged mode and assign the virtual machine an ip and mac address. this will allow you to utilize the virtual machine on your network like any other server. I run my network intrusion detector that way so it appears as one of the 9 other machines on the network. Very useful.
Thanks for the article.
But I am having a little bit of trouble getting Fedora 12 to work. It seems to install ok. But as it is loading up (dark blue, light blue and white lines along bottom the screen) it appears to get to the end and just does nothing. Is there anyway to troubleshoot this? where should I start looking?
Host OS: Windows 7
Guest OS: Fedora 12 (64bit)
Settings: same as you have described in your article
Yes I am a Linux Noob…
Hi Sublym3,
The only thing I can suggest is to try Fedora 14. It’s the one I used and had no issues
The best place to find answers or get help would be the VB Forums (see section Linux Guests):
http://forums.virtualbox.org/