On Tue, 01 Dec 2009 11:43:44 -0800 Tim Wescott <[email protected]> wrote:
> Does anyone have any experience with VirtualBox? How'd it go? Any > gotchas? Anything I should know before I just start happily installing > software? Is there a way to import an already-working hard drive image, > or do I just have to install Windows fresh in a new virtual machine? VirtualBox works great in Ubuntu. I have Windows 2000 and Windows XP installed as virtual machines. I recommend the open source edition (OSE), because it works fine and makes me feel better. However, I have heard from others that some features don't work for them in the OSE version. You will have to reinstall Windows in VirtualBox; I'm pretty sure it can't use a disk image. If I'm wrong about that someone else will chime in, I'm sure. In any event, installing Windows on VirtualBox is no more difficult than on a hard disk. As you noted, VirtualBox is listed in Synaptic, so just install it. When you launch it the buttons are pretty clear, like click on "New" to create a new virtual machine. There are dialog boxes with Forward and Back buttons to walk you through the process. When you get to the end of the dialog boxes your virtual machine will be created, but Windows won't be installed yet. To install Windows just start your virtual machine. This will give you a black window on your desktop that looks just like a DOS black screen. Put the Windows install disk in your CD drive. In a few moments the Windows installer screen will come up in the virtual machine window. From there on the Windows installer will proceed exactly the same as if you were installing it on a hard disk. That is because the magic in VirtualBox creates a virtual C:\ drive, so Windows thinks it has a hard disk to install itself on. Once you get Windows installed you need to install the Guest Additions. The Guest Additions allow seamless use of the mouse and allow you to change the resolution in your virtual machine window. Either before or after installing Windows you need to go into the configuration panel for your virtual machine (with the virtual machine not running) and create shares for the folders on your Linux machine that you want Windows to be able to access. Windows will see these as network shares. The only thing that doesn't work automatically is USB drives. You have to insert the drive, let VirtualBox get its serial number, then enable it for the virtual machine. From then on Windows will see it as soon as Linux does. There can also be issues with other devices like scanners and cell phones. Printers have to be installed in Windows the same as if it was a standalone operating system. Once the printer is set up in Windows you can print to it the same as from a regular Windows installation. I mean the Windows driver will do the imaging for the printer and the data is sent directly from Windows to the printer. For example, on more than one occasion I couldn't get a PDF to print from Adobe Reader 9.1 on Linux, but it will print fine from Adobe Reader 9.1 on Windows because Windows processes the file with its own driver. I recently discovered another cool thing. I have been installing different distros lately. I discovered that my virtual machines and all their settings are in a ~/.Virtualbox folder. So after I install a new distro I install VirtualBox, then copy this folder from my old disk. When I launch VirtualBox in the new distro, there are my virtual machines. I started them up and they were identical to what I had previously. I have read a lot of discussions about the relative merits of VirtualBox v. VMWare. The bottom line is that VMWare has more features that would be useful if you are running a server. But for desktop users VirtualBox wins because it is dead simple. _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
