Oracle Virtualbox tips

Hi all!

Thank you for viewing my first blog post. Before starting off I would like to thank my loving husband Prabath for encouraging me to start a blog. This would never be written without you.

Introduction to oracle virtualbox

Oracle Virtualbox allows users to run another operating system on top of their existing operating system. For me it's always been ubuntu on top of windows. The existing operating system is usually called as the 'host' and the operating system runs on host is called as 'guest'. Download Oracle virtualbox.

Issues

Getting the full screen

One of the common problems oracle virtualbox users face is the small display. Installing guest additions will give the solution.

1. From virtual machine's Device menu select 'Install Guest Additions'.

2. In the guest start a console and type the following command and run it to install guest additions.

sudo /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run

Creating a shared folder

Another problem is how to pass data between host and guest. Simple solution is to have a shared folder. Before moving on to this solution one should have installed guest additions or it will give an error unknown file system vboxsf .

1. From virtual machine's Device menu shared folder create a folder and give a name you want.

eg: share

2. Create a directory in the guest with a name you want.

mkdir vshare

3. Run the following command to mount

sudo mount -t vboxsf share ~/vshare

Make sure to use different names otherwise it will probably give a protocol error.

As the shared folder's access type is root, users may face troubles when moving or copying files and directories to the shared folder within the guest. Unless user is logged as the root, he/she will have to use sudo commands which allow to execute a command as the superuser. For an example if the user wants to move a file in the guest to the shared folder the command should be,

sudo mv [path of the file] [path of the destination]

Using USB devices inside the guest

1. Select the virtual machine you want and click on 'settings'(this should be done before starting up the virtual machine).

2. Click on 'USB', check 'enable usb controller' and 'enable usb 2.0 controller' and add usb device filters you want to have in guest.

3. Start the virtual machine, usb device's folder will appear on desktop.