How to Setup Ubuntu on VirtualBox

The first thing to do is visit http://www.virtualbox.org and download the program using the Downloads link, located in the lefthand panel of the web page. Then, choose the version to download from the choices of Windows, Intel Macs, Linux, or Solaris. For example, as I write this, the Windows version is 3.1.4 and is 71 MB in size.

Once you have downloaded the file, you should run it to bring up the installer, as shown in Figure 2.14.

Figure 2.14. Installing VirtualBox

Click Next, and then agree to the license before clicking Next again. After that you can choose the support and networking features you want. If in doubt, just click Next to continue using the defaults. Then click Next one more time, followed by clicking Yes and then Install to start the installation.

A window with a progress bar will appear to keep you up-to-date on the installation. When finished, click the Finish button. After that, the program will run, presenting the window shown in Figure 2.15.

Figure 2.15. The VirtualBox main screen

You are now ready to create a virtual machine, so click the New icon at the top left. Then, when the New Virtual Machine Wizard window opens, click Next to bring up the window shown in Figure 2.16.

For name, enter the name of the operating system, such as Ubuntu 9.10, and then select Linux for the operating system. The version of Linux will then default to Ubuntu, which is what you want, so click Next to get to the Memory screen (see Figure 2.17).

I recommend you accept the default of 384 MB shown here. However, if you have plenty of memory (say, 2 GB or more), you could increase that to 1000 MB or thereabouts. Then click Next to move on to the hard disk screen shown in Figure 2.18.

Ensure that “Boot Hard Disk” and “Create new hard disk” are both checked, and then click Next, then Next again on the following screen, to get to the Hard Disk Storage Type screen (see Figure 2.19).

Figure 2.16. Creating a virtual machine

Figure 2.17. Setting the virtual machine’s base memory size

Figure 2.18. Creating a virtual hard disk

Figure 2.19. Selecting Dynamically expanding storage

Here, I recommended you select the “Dynamically expanding storage” option, and then click Next. The reason for this is that you don’t actually need to create a large hard disk in VirtualBox, because it has the ability to increase a hard disk’s size as necessary. The only downside to this is that the upper limit to how large it can grow is your physical hard disk’s size. If you think you will be using a lot of disk space in your virtual machine and this may impinge on the space you need for your original operating system, you may wish to choose “Fixed-size storage” instead. This will ensure that the virtual hard disk will never grow any larger than a set size.

On the next screen (see Figure 2.20), you get to choose the virtual hard disk’s starting size (or exact size if you chose “Fixed-size storage”).

Figure 2.20. Choosing the maximum virtual hard disk size

Here, you can also choose the location and filename for this disc, which by default will have the same name as the virtual machine. Click Next when you are done, and then click Finish to complete the creation of the virtual hard disk. If you enter a location and filename that is already in use, you will receive an error message and should enter a different one instead.

Otherwise, click the Finish button that will be displayed on the summary screen that appears. Your virtual machine will now be created and ready to use (but powered off), as shown in Figure 2.21.

Figure 2.21. The virtual machine Ubuntu 9.10 is now created

To start up your new virtual machine, double-click its icon in the lefthand pane. The first time you do this, it will call up the First Run Wizard (see Figure 2.22).

Click the Next button to start the wizard and bring up the screen shown in Figure 2.23, where you have the opportunity to choose to install an operating system on the virtual machine from either the optical drive or an ISO file.

If you click Next at this point (while Host Drive is selected), the CD or DVD in the drive will be used as the installation media.

Alternatively, you can choose an ISO file to boot from by selecting the Image File option. You must then click the Browse button, locate the required file, and click the Add button at the top left of the next screen (see Figure 2.24).

Here, you can see I have added the image file ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso. Once you have added an ISO file, click the Select button to return to the previous media selection screen, and then click Next, followed by Finish to commence the installation process.

The familiar Ubuntu startup screen shown earlier in Figure 2.1 will then be displayed, waiting for you to select a language.

Figure 2.22. The First Run Wizard

Figure 2.23. Selecting the installation media

Figure 2.24. Adding a disc ISO image

From here onward, you can consider the new “machine” to be a complete PC in its own right, and you can either run the ISO or disc in Live mode or go right ahead and install the operating system. I recommend the latter because you can then power up the virtual machine any time you like and start up where you left off work before.

There’s more information on using VirtualBox in Chapter 3, Configuring.