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.

If you have a great deal of hard disk space to spare, you can simply ignore this. However, if you find yourself always running short of hard disk space, you might want to consider shrinking the VM and free up unused disk space.

This tutorial will go through the steps to shrink your Virtualbox VM.

QEMU is a CPU and process emulator which allows you to create virtual machines that can run on any platform. QEMU manager uses this emulator to virtualize Linux on windows systems. In this post we show you how to create an Ubuntu virtual machine on Windows using QEMU manager.

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.

Ever since I started using Ubuntu two years back, I have been an avid user of VMware server. It fascinated me to a great extent that I could actually run an OS inside an OS. Recently, I tried out VirtualBox, another virtualization software like VMware server, and I was greatly impressed by it. Even though I love VMware server, I can’t deny the fact that VirtualBox actually runs faster and smoother, with less crashes. Here is my top 5 reasons why VirtualBox is better than VMware server.

After installing Windows Vista on Ubuntu using VMware, one of the problems that you’re likely to face is that your virtual machine has completely no access to your host folder. This means you cannot view/edit your favorite photos (or any other files) in your Vista VM. Come to think of it, what is the use of installing a VM if you can’t access your local hard disk where all your documents are kept?

Luckily, there are several solutions to this.