Step 1: Download, Copy, and Edit Repository File

This is a one-liner command that will download, copy, and edit the VirtualBox repository file at once.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘curl http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo > /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo; sed -i "s,enabled=0,enabled=1,g" /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo’
[/bash]

Step 2: Update Repository and Install VirtualBox-3.2

This command will update yum repositories to include the new VirtualBox repository file we copied in the last step and then it will attempt to install VirtualBox-3.2 with dependencies.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘yum update; yum install -y VirtualBox-4.0 dkms gcc’
[/bash]

Note: At this point, for me, the installer created the vboxusers group and then registered and started the VirtualBox module. I was able to move immediately to Step 5 and run the command VirtualBox to start VirtualBox and run a virtual machine. I’m going to hope your results are the same, but for the sake of being complete and robust, I’m still going to include the steps for manually running the VirtualBox driver setup and vboxusers group setup.

Step 3: Run VirtualBox Setup Script

This command will run the VirtualBox driver setup script (see small note below command).
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup’
[/bash]

If you’re having issues, try installing “kernel-devel” OR “kernel-PAE-devel” if the output of ‘uname -r’ contains the suffix of .PAE. Only install one or the other to avoid confusion.

Step 4: Setup Groups for VirtualBox Access

This command will add you to the vboxusers group. Replace “username” with your actual username found by using the whoami command.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘usermod -G vboxusers -a username’
[/bash]

If you find that you’re getting SELinux errors or denials, try adding VirtualBox.so as an exception with this command:
su -c 'chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox.so'

Step 5: Run VirtualBox

Finally, run VirtualBox and have fun with it!
[bash wraplines="true"]
VirtualBox
[/bash]

Appendix A: To Properly Backup the VirtualBox Machine (.vdi):

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI)

Appendix B: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image [Tutorial/Guide]

Appendix C: Shrinking a VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

Shrinking a Dynamic VirtualBox Disk Image

Step 1: Download, Copy, and Edit Repository File

This is a one-liner command that will download, copy, and edit the VirtualBox repository file at once.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘curl http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo > /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo; sed -i "s,enabled=0,enabled=1,g" /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo’
[/bash]

Step 2: Update Repository and Install VirtualBox-3.2

This command will update yum repositories to include the new VirtualBox repository file we copied in the last step and then it will attempt to install VirtualBox-3.2 with dependencies.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘yum update; yum install -y VirtualBox-3.2 dkms gcc’
[/bash]

Step 3: Run VirtualBox Setup Script

This command will run the VirtualBox driver setup script (see small note below command).
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup’
[/bash]

If you’re having issues, try installing “kernel-devel” OR “kernel-PAE-devel” if the output of ‘uname -r’ contains the suffix of .PAE). Only install one to avoid confusing the system.

Step 4: Setup Groups for VirtualBox Access

This command will add you to the vboxusers group. Replace “username” with your actual username found by using the whoami command.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘usermod -G vboxusers -a username’
[/bash]

If you find that you’re getting SELinux errors or denials, try adding VirtualBox.so as an exception with this command:
su -c 'chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox.so'

Step 5: Run VirtualBox

Finally, run VirtualBox and have fun with it!
[bash wraplines="true"]
VirtualBox
[/bash]

Appendix A: To Properly Backup the VirtualBox Machine (.vdi):

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI)

Appendix B: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image [Tutorial/Guide]

Appendix C: Shrinking a VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

Shrinking a Dynamic VirtualBox Disk Image

Step 1: Download, Copy, and Edit Repository File

This is a one-liner command that will download, copy, and edit the VirtualBox repository file at once.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo -O /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo; sed -i "s,enabled=0,enabled=1,g" /etc/yum.repos.d/virtualbox.repo’
[/bash]

Step 2: Update Repository and Install VirtualBox-3.2

This command will update yum repositories to include the new VirtualBox repository file we copied in the last step and then it will attempt to install VirtualBox-3.2 with dependencies.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘yum update; yum install -y VirtualBox-3.2 dkms gcc’
[/bash]

Step 3: Run VirtualBox Setup Script

This command will run the VirtualBox driver setup script.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup’
[/bash]

If you’re having issues, try installing “kernel-PAE-devel” or “kernel-devel”.

Step 4: Setup Groups for VirtualBox Access

This command will add you to the vboxusers group. Replace “username” with your actual username found by using the whoami command.
[bash wraplines="true"]
su -c ‘usermod -G vboxusers -a username’
[/bash]

If you find that you’re getting SELinux errors or denials, try adding VirtualBox.so as an exception with this command:
su -c 'chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox.so'

Step 5: Run VirtualBox

Finally, run VirtualBox and have fun with it!
[bash wraplines="true"]
VirtualBox
[/bash]

Appendix A: To Properly Backup the VirtualBox Machine (.vdi):

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI)

Appendix B: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image [Tutorial/Guide]

Appendix C: Shrinking a VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

Shrinking a Dynamic VirtualBox Disk Image

• Introduction
• Requirements
• Procedure
• Additional Information/Resources
• Notes from the Author

Introduction

This guide will assist in loading a pre-built VirtualBox image. The example used is a pre-built Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic Koala” guest image. Any VirtualBox image can be used however.

Requirements

This guide assumes that you have already installed VirtualBox successfully and will to walk you through how to setup and start your Linux guest (besides, if you’ve installed any program in Windows before, the process of installing VirtualBox is identical, painless, and easy). If you do need assistance, please refer to the VirtualBox user’s manual, Chapter 2, Section 2.1.

Installing and running a VirtualMachine is fairly basic and doesn’t have a lot of requirements. You will, however, need a computer with enough harddrive space to both install VirtualBox and have a minimum of 2.4GB free (which will dynamically expand as needed up to a max of 10GB) for the virtual machine image referred to in this guide. Other hardware requirements are as follows (source: VirtualBox FAQs)

• 32- or 64-bit Intel or AMD x86 CPU 1.5GHz or faster.
• 512 MB minimum available memory (1 GB recommended).
• Disk Space 30Meg + storage for guests.

You will need to download VirtualBox for Windows hosts from the VirtualBox website here: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/
Downloads.

You will also need to download the pre-built VirtualBox .vdi image containing Ubuntu 9.10 with guest additions installed. You can download this image here: ubuntu-9.10.vdi.7z. More pre-built images can be found at http://virtualbox.wordpress.com/images/.

When you have finished installing VirtualBox and you have downloaded the pre-built Ubuntu 9.10 image, you will need to 1) extract the ubuntu-9.10.vdi.7z file using 7zip, or a similar program, and then 2) move the extracted ubuntu-9.10.vdi image from the original download location on your harddrive to C:Documents and SettingsUsername.VirtualBoxVDI (Mac OS: ~/Library/VirtualBox/VDI)

Procedure

The procedure is accommodated with screenshots to help you visualize the process.

1. Open or start the VirtualBox application. You will be welcomed with this screen.



2. We want to create a new virtual machine, so click on the “New” button.



3. You will be directed to a “New Virtual Machine Wizard”. Click “Next >”.



4. Here, you will name your virtual machine. I chose “UbuntuVM”. Also, specify that you are using the Linux operating system and the Ubuntu version. This will set the values of the next few screens to the recommended default values for that particular virtual machine. Click “Next >”
5. Leave this at the recommended default level of 384MB RAM and click “Next >”



6. Here, you will choose your VirtualBox hard disk, or image. You will want to use the existing hard disk that you downloaded earlier called ubuntu-9.10.vdi, so click on “Use existing hard disk” and then click on the icon with the “up” arrow on top of the folder. This will open the next dialog window.



7. This is the Virtual Media Manager window that was opened from the last step. This is where you will add the ubuntu-9.10.vdi image to the list of virtual machine images, so click on “Add”.



8. Here, you will need to drill down in your directory structure to C:Documents and SettingsUsername.VirtualBoxVDI where the ubuntu-9.10.vdi file is located, highlight it, and click on the “Open” button. (Obviously, this was done on a Linux machine, so your Windows dialog box will look different).



9. You will now notice that the ubuntu-9.10.vdi file is included in the list of virtual machine images. Highlight ubuntu-9.10.vdi and click on the “Select” button.



10. You will now see that the virtual hard disk that will be used is the existing ubuntu-9.10.vdi file selected in the previous step. Click “Next >” to continue.



11. This is a review of the settings for this virtual machine. When ready, click the “Finish” button.



12. You will now see that your vitual machine “UbuntuVM” is available in the main screen of VirtualBox. Click on “Start” to jump into and start using the virtual machine (or Linux guest).



13. You will see a splash screen that resembles a typical BIOS bootup and then you’ll see Ubuntu loading. Lastly, you’ll find yourself at the Ubuntu login prompt. The pre-loaded username is “ubuntu” and the pre-loaded password is “reverse”. Use this information to login.



14. This is the screen that you will be greeting with. You may resize the window, make it fullscreen, and move your cursor in and out of the VirtualBox window seamlessly to navigate between your Windows host and Linux guest.



15. For the first item of business, let’s change the password. To do this, we need the terminal window open, so click on Applications -> Accessories -> Terminal” to open the terminal window.



16. In the image below, you can see the common “echo” command being used as well as the “passwd” command being used to change the password. After you change your password, you are ready to start using and taking advantage of the Linux guest. Congratulations.



17. As a final note, there are some utilities that are not available for Windows users and must have a Linux box at hand. For example, the “dd” command to copy a .dd image to an SD card. You can share the hardware of your Windows host machine so that
    the Linux guest machine can use it. Simply right-click on the appropriate USB icon and select the hardware you would like to use from within the Linux guest machine. Here, I am selecting the SD to USB card reader.

Congratulations! You have successfully utilized a pre-built virtual machine image to run a Linux OS on top of your Windows OS. Now, get to learning!

Additional Information/Resources

I would like to follow through on how to copy a .dd image to an SD card by mentioning the required commands. You will probably want to setup a shared folder between the guest and host so that you can access the .dd image that you probably downloaded onto the host machine. Section 4.7 of the user’s manual will assist you in this. When you have access to the .dd image, follow the steps below.

   1.) In the terminal, find the required information about the SD card
       inserted.  Most importantly, the /dev/sd* location.
        * sudo fdisk -l
   2.) Once found, you will want to copy the .dd image to the entire SD card.
        * sudo dd if=theImage.dd of=/dev/sdb
       -- Or, alternatively, you can write an image to a single partition of the
          SD card.
           * sudo dd if=partition2_image.dd of=/dev/sdb2
   3.) Furthur, you can mount the SD card manuall using the following commands
        * sudo mkdir /mnt/sdcard_part1
        * sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/sdcard_part1

Additional resources are listed below

• Ubuntu manual/guide can be found here:
  https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-
  manual
• A decent looking guide on Linux from the perspective of a Windows user:
  http://www.
  reallylinux.com/docs/windowstolinux.shtml
• More .vdi Images:
  http://virtualbox.wordpress.com/
  images/
• VirtualBox Homepage:
  http://www.virtualbox.org/
• VirtualBox User’s Guide:
  http://
  download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.1.2/UserManual.pdf

Notes from the Author

Image locations, website addresses, and programs may change in time so do not follow this guide verbatim too far past the date it was created on. It may be updated once and a while, but it is not guaranteed. Even if things change, the principles and steps shown in this guide will probably remain the same.

I am not responsible for any damages and/or headaches this guide could have caused. I am providing it in hopes that it will be useful to people.

You may be wondering why I chose to use the Ubuntu Linux distribution. Well, I wanted to offer the most user-friendly and popular Linux distribution so that it was easy and quick for people to start and run a VirtualBox guest image with the smallest learning curve possible. Ubuntu has been flaunted and deemed as such by the majority of the Linux community.

VirtualBox version used in this guide: 3.08-r53138

1.) Install “zerofree” on your virtualbox guest machine.
2.) Boot to safe mode (recovery mode) where you can access your root partition (/dev/sda1).
3.) Mount the root partition as read-only (mount -o ro /dev/sda1 /mnt/tmp)
4.) Run “zerofree /dev/sda1″
5.) Shutdown the virtual machine and run “VBoxManage modifyhd –compact /path/to/virtualboximage.vdi”

In-Depth Guides:
http://maketecheasier.com/shrink-your-virtualbox-vm/2009/04/06 — Keep in mind that zerofree does in fact support ext4 (I think this article is a tiny bit dated, but it’s a great one).

http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/UserManual.html — The all important VirtualBox Users Guide.

http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?p=29272#29272 — Another good reference for VirtualBox

This is a step by step tutorial on how to get VirtualBox 3 up and running on Fedora 12. Specifically, this guide was written using the VirtualBox 3.0.8 version and an i386 CPU (32-bit). It can be adapted to upcoming versions and different CPUs (64-bit). The folks at VirtualBox have made it easy to install for Fedora users and I’m going to show you how in a few easy steps. Right, open a terminal window and let’s get to it…

1.) Become privileged
su -

2.) Get the VirtualBox repo installed (you may need to install wget)
wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/rpm/fedora/virtualbox.repo && cp virtualbox.repo /etc/yum.repos.d/

3.) Install VirtualBox (along with a few other needed packages)!
yum install -y VirtualBox dkms gcc
Just so you know, DKMS will “ensure that the VirtualBox host kernel modules (vboxdrv, vboxnetflt and vboxnetadp) are properly updated if the linux kernel version changes during the next kernel update” and gcc is required in order to start the VirtualBox kernel module.

4.) Run the setup file for VirtualBox:
/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup
If you’re having issues here, try installing “kernel-PAE-devel”

5.) Add yourself to the “vboxusers” group and fix the SELinux Permissions (just in case):
usermod -G vboxusers -a <yourusername>
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox.so

6.) Run, and enjoy!
VirtualBox

Appendix A: To Properly Backup the VirtualBox Machine (.vdi):

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI)

Appendix B: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Setup a Pre-Built VirtualBox Guest Image [Tutorial/Guide]

Appendix C: Shrinking a VirtualBox Guest Image

Please refer to my other page here:

Shrinking a Dynamic VirtualBox Disk Image

Appendix D: To Get Sound Working:

Highlight your virtual machine and click on the “Settings” button. Click on the “Sound” category, and then check the “Enable Sound” option. In the drop-down box, select “PulseAudio”. You should now have sound.

That’s it! If you find yourself with problems, feel free to comment below or ask for assistance on the fedora forum thread that I have created located here. If you have something to add, or need some clarification, let everybody know!

Sources:

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

This is a tutorial on how to get VirtualBox up and running on Fedora 11. Also, this tutorial is for the 32-Bit version of VirtualBox, so you’ll have to customize a little more to get the 64-bit version running. Everything in the “code” sections should be copy/pasted/typed into the terminal. Right, let’s get to it:

PreStep.) Open the terminal and get into super user mode:
su -

1.) Get the latest VirtualBox package (as of now, 2.2.4) from the VirtualBox website for Fedora 11 and install it.  The following command should download and install the application:
wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.2.4/VirtualBox-2.2.4_47978_fedora11-1.i586.rpm && rpm -ivh VirtualBox-2.2.4_47978_fedora11-1.i586.rpm

2.) Get the kernel-devel and other needed packages:
yum install make automake autoconf gcc kernel-devel dkms

3.) Run the setup file for VirtualBox:
/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

4.) Add yourself to the “vboxusers” group and fix the SELinux Permissions:
usermod -G vboxusers -a username
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox.so

5.) Run, and enjoy!
VirtualBox

6.) To Get USB Support:

1 – create a new group called “usb”;
2 – locate file usbfs: in my case is /sys/bus/usb/drivers (I suggest to find the file with a usb device inserted;
3 – modify file /etc/fstab inserting a line containing the right path and the number corresponding the “usb” group :
none /sys/bus/usb/drivers usbfs devgid=503,devmode=664 0 0
4 – command mount -a;
5 – start VB and try…;

Source: Fedora Forums

7.) To Properly Backup the VirtualBox Machine (.vdi):

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI)

8.) To Get Sound Working:

Highlight your virtual machine and click on the “Settings” button. Click on the “Sound” category, and then check the “Enable Sound” option. In the drop-down box, select “PulseAudio”. You should now have sound.

That’s it! If you find yourself with problems, feel free to comment below or ask for assistance on the fedora forum thread that I have created located here.

This is a tutorial on how to get VirtualBox up and running on Fedora 10.  Also, this tutorial is for the 32-Bit version of VirtualBox, so you’ll have to customize a little more to get the 64-bit version running. Everything in the “code” sections should be copy/pasted/typed into the terminal. Right, let’s get to it:

PreStep.) Open the terminal and get into super user mode:

su -

1.) Get the latest VirtualBox package (as of now, 2.0.6) from the VirtualBox website for Fedora 9 and install it (generally, after a few months, the Fedora 10 link will be available).

wget http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.0.6/VirtualBox-2.0.6_39765_fedora9-1.i386.rpm && rpm -ivh VirtualBox-2.0.6_39765_fedora9-1.i386.rpm

2.) Get the kernel-devel package:

yum install make automake autoconf gcc kernel-devel dkms


3.) Run the setup file for VirtualBox:

/etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

4.) Add yourself to the “vboxusers” group and fix the SELinux Permissions:

usermod -G vboxusers -a username
chcon -t textrel_shlib_t /usr/lib/virtualbox/VirtualBox.so


5.) Run, and enjoy!

VirtualBox

6.) To Get USB Support:

1 – create a new group called “usb”;
2 – locate file usbfs: in my case is /sys/bus/usb/drivers (I suggest to find the file with a usb device inserted;
3 – modify file /etc/fstab inserting a line containing the right path and the number corresponding the “usb” group :
none /sys/bus/usb/drivers usbfs devgid=503,devmode=664 0 0
4 – command mount -a;
5 – start VB and try…;

Source: Fedora Forums

7.) To Properly Backup the VirtualBox Machine (.vdi):

Please refer to my other page here:

How To: Properly Backup a VirtualBox Machine (.VDI)

8.) To Get Sound Working:

Highlight your virtual machine and click on the “Settings” button. Click on the “Sound” category, and then check the “Enable Sound” option. In the drop-down box, select “PulseAudio”. You should now have sound.

That’s it!  If you find yourself with problems, feel free to comment below or ask for assistance on the fedora forum thread that I have created located here.

Other useful links:

Release Notes: http://docs.fedoraproject.org/release-notes/f10preview…
Feature List: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/10/FeatureList
Mirrors: http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/publiclist/Fedora/10-Preview/
Artwork: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Artwork/F10Themes

Introduction:

This guide is intended to help users fully install VirtualBox and all of it’s features which don’t work out of the box such as USB support.

Download VirtualBox:

As of this writing, there is no specific download for 8.04LTS (Hardy Heron), so you will be downloading the version built for 7.10 (Feisty Fawn).

Goto the VirtualBox download hompage, scroll down to the bottom, click on the “Platform” drop-down menu, and select “Ubuntu 7.10 i386″ to download the package. Note: If you have a 64bit computer, download the “Ubuntu 7.10 AMD64″ package.

Install VirtualBox

Double-click on the package you just downloaded and you will be prompted to install it.

Setup Permissions:

This can be done in two different ways.  The graphical way or the command line way.

Via Command Line:

[In Terminal] sudo usermod -G vboxusers -a username

Via Graphical Menus:

Goto System -> Administration -> Users and Groups.

Click on the “Unlock” button and then enter in your password.

Click on the “Manage Groups“ button.

Find the “vboxusers” group which is probably at the very bottom of the list, highlight it by clicking again,  and click once more on “Properties”.

Make sure there’s a check mark next to your user’s name.

Setup USB:

USB is disabled by default, so you’ll probably want to enable it.  Otherwise you’ll get an error when you go into the “Settings” of your virtual machine.  To  correct this, you’ll need to edit the mountdevsubfs.sh file:

[In Terminal] sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh

Inside, you’ll see a block of code that looks like this:

#
# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
#mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
#domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
#ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
#mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

Change it to look like this (uncomment out the region by deleting the “#’s”):

#
# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

Save the changes, log out, and then log back in again for the changes to take place.

Properly Backup Your VirtualBox .VDI File:

I have written a guide specifically for this purpose.  It is located here:

http://derekhildreth.com/blog/index.php/2007/11/how-to-properly-backup-a-virtualbox-machine-vdi

Minor Troubleshooting:

With these instructions, I was able to get my virtual machine working perfectly in VirtualBox.  If you have any problems, please let me know by commenting below.  I will help to resolve your issue and then place it with the solution in this section of the tutorial.  Thank you.