I have been wanting to try out using a virtual install of windows on my Linux install. I saw that innotek offered VirtualBox as an open source solution and decided to try it out. VirtualBox is offered for various platforms and offers binary files for many flavors of Linux.
I first added the entries into my /etc/apt/sources.list
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sudo vi /etc/apt/sources.list
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and added in the lines at the bottom
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deb http://www.virtualbox.org/debian etch non-free
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Then install the public key
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apt-key add innotek.asc
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now update the repositories and install VirtualBox
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apt-get update
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apt-get install virtualbox
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After VirtualBox is installed, users who will be using the software will need to be added to the vboxusers group
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adduser username vboxusers
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username being the user who will be using VirtualBox.
After the user is added, one must log out and then back in for the group access to take affect. For My virtual install I used windows XP. After creating a new virtual machine, I proceeded to install my new Virtual Windows XP install. The installation was identical to a standard Windows XP installation but in a window.
VirtualBox also proves a set of tools called “Guest Additions”, which show up as a CD device, that help with capturing mouse movements, window resolution, copy and paste between client and host, as well as a few other things to make the virtual install easier to use. The software provides the ability to create a virtual share folder to share files between the client and host. In windows this shows up as a network drive.
Overall I am impressed with the software and think VirtualBox is a useful alternative for many applications which are problematic in WINE or require other windows services. I haven’t tried running any games in the virtual machine yet but being able to access to Windows without a restart is nice.
