Virtualization has many uses. You can use it to test another operating system, run applications that your OS does not support, or even maintain virtual servers within one or more virtual machines.
KVM (kernel-based virtual machine) is a Linux virtualization tool that makes use of hardware-assisted virtualization (also called native virtualization) using processor technology such as Intel VT-x and AMD-V. Red Hat’s Virtual Machine Manager now has support for KVM, making it easy to setup a virtual machine with a free graphical interface. It is also available for Fedora, Gentoo, FreeBSD, Ubuntu, and many other operating systems.
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Out of the many virtualization software, VirtualBox is my
Ubuntu is all the rage lately in the tech world. While Linux has been largely an operating system for hobbyists and geeks, its popularity is growing with every new release of Ubuntu. From its simple installation to its touch screen friendliness and built in social networking features, Ubuntu is more viable an option today than ever before. For Mac users, there is no easy way for you to dual boot your Mac and Ubuntu, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get your hands on one. Here, we will show you how you can run Ubuntu in your Mac, via
If you want to test drive a Linux distro, what will you usually do? Download the ISO file, burn it into a CD/USB drive and boot it up in your PC. Alternatively, you can also run the ISO file in virtual machine such as Virtualbox or VMWare. What if you are not a geek and have no ideas how to carry out the above stuff? What if there is a 1-click solution that allows you to test drive a Linux distro without having to go through the above steps?
Google’s Android OS has been making consistent progress in the smartphone world. If you’re anything like me, you may have been curious about this mobile OS but not willing to spend much on a phone. Fortunately, the LiveAndroid project on Google Code provides a bootable LiveCD image that can be run on your home computer. With the free virtualization program VirtualBox, we can try it out on Windows, Linux or Mac without even burning a CD.
While using Virtualbox, one thing that I have found is that the size of the VM (a file with .VDI extension) expands over time. If you have selected the “Dynamically Expanding Storage” option when first creating the VM, you will find that the file size expands whenever you install new applications in the VM. That is perfectly normal. However, when you uninstall or delete applications in the VM, the file size does not shrink or return to its previous size. That is to say, if you are constantly installing and uninstalling applications in your VM, the VDI file could be taking up more space than it is actually using.
For some of you who have setup Windows Vista as the guest VM in your Ubuntu Virtualbox, you might have some difficulties in getting the Vista guest to access the shared folder in your Ubuntu host. If you are having this problem, here is the way to mount the shared folder on your Vista guest.