Uses of Virtualization

Virtualization technology is used to make the hardware resources expandable without having to shift the software and data from one place to another.

Virtualization is also used to lower the costs of computer hardware as multiple virtual servers can be hosted on a single server hardware.

Virtualization can be used to setup separate environments for each software application so that one application cannot interfere with the other. This is especially useful when testing a software product on different environments. Rather than dedicating a separate hardware machine, one can easily setup virtual servers on one hardware machine.

Virtualization can be used as a standardization tool. This means that we can setup one Operating System environment as a standard and then replicate the same virtual machine as many times as we want.

What is Virtualization?

According to Wikipedia:

Virtualization (Computing) is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system, storage device, or network resources.

Let’s take a simpler example of Virtualization. If you are a frequent computer user, you should already be knowledgeable about the partitions of your hard drive. You can create more than one partition in your computer. In Windows, the partitions are named as C:\, D:\, E:\ etc. We call all the partitions as separate drives. We also know that our computer consists of only a single physical hard drive. These drives are logical partitions of the single physical hard drive. This can be termed as Virtualization as we are creating a multiple virtual versions of a single hardware.

Types of Virtualization

Virtualization is a term which can be used with wide variety of topics but the most popular subject in which Virtualization is used is Operating System Virtualization. Operating System Virtualization means that multiple Operating Systems are being run simultaneously on the same hardware. Other types of Virtualizations include Software Virtualization, Network Virtualization, Storage Virtualization and Server Virtualization.

We’ll discuss other types of Virtualization solutions some time later but in this post we will give the most popular Operating System Virtualization solutions available for Windows.

Operating System Virtualization terminology

Before we go to discuss the actual solution, let’s first get familiar with the terminology used in Operating system Virtualization.

• Host: The Operating System on which the Virtualization software solution runs is called the host.
• Guest: The Operating System which is run inside the Virtualization software is called the guest.

1. Microsoft Virtual PC

Microsoft Virtual PC, as the name implies, is a free Virtualization product from Microsoft. The latest version of Virtual PC is Virtual PC 2007. It can run almost any Operating System as a guest, but only a few hosts are supported, listed below:

• Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate
• Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition (32-bit and 64-bit supported)
• Windows XP Professional (32-bit and 64-bit supported)
• Windows XP Tablet PC Edition

Although Virtual PC does everything which a standard Virtualization software can do, it has certain limitations. It does not have USB device support and it cannot save multiple snapshots of the Virtual machine. Other than these limitations, Virtual PC is quite fast especially if you want to install any version of Windows as a guest Operating System.

Download Virtual PC 2007

Please note that Windows XP mode in Windows 7 is just an extension of Virtual PC. It will create a preset Windows XP environment in Windows 7 so that Windows 7 users may be able to run the programs which are only supported to run on Windows XP.

2. VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a Virtualization product from Oracle. The advantage of VirtualBox over Virtual PC is that VirtualBox can run on most platforms including Windows, Linux and Mac. VirtualBox is free and Open-Source. It supports resizing the guest Operating System screen according to the VirtualBox window. You need to have “scale mode” enabled for this purpose. If you click on the guest OS screen, your mouse and keyboard will be locked inside the guest OS so that you can use the keyboard and mouse in the guest OS without interrupting the host. To release the mouse and keyboard to be used in the host, just press Ctrl + left arrow key. This hotkey can be customized in VirtualBox options.

VirtualBox also comes with an extension pack which can be installed along with VirtualBox in order to get additional functionality like USB device support, remote desktop connection and PXE (network) booting capability for Intel NIC (LAN) cards.

Although VirtualBox runs in Mac OS but it has many problems and creates stability issues. So it should only be used in a home environment when Mac OS has to be used as a host Operating System. VirtualBox runs fine on Windows and Linux as hosts.

Download VirtualBox (All Operating Systems)

3. VMLite Workstation

VMLite Workstation is a Virtualization product based on VirtualBox (Open Source). It works very similar to Microsoft Virtual PC but gets rid of the limitations of Virtual PC. An interesting feature of VMLite Workstation is that it supports running of a 64-bit guest Operating System on a 32-bit host Operating System. So if you are running 32-bit Windows 7, you will be able to run 64-bit Windows XP with the help of VMLite Workstation.

As opposed to Virtual PC, VMLite supports saving of multiple live snapshots of the virtual machine. This is like versioning. If you don’t like the current version of the environment, you can always revert to a previous state using a previous snapshot saved by VMLite Workstation.

VMLite supports most of the Virtualization formats used in the industry like VMDK (VMWare), VHD (Microsoft), VDI (Sun) and HDD (Parallel).

VMLite comes with its own version of Windows XP Mode for Windows 7. It gives the same functionality as the original Windows XP mode and does not require any hardware Virtualization.

Download VMLite Workstation (Registration required to download the setup file)

4. VMWare Server

VMWare Server is a free Virtualization software from VMWare. Although its support has ended but it can still be downloaded and used for free. VMWare Server supports almost all the Operating Systems as guests or hosts but 64-bit guest OS cannot be installed on a 32-bit host. VMWare Server has support for USB devices and also supports bridged, NAT and host only network interfaces.

VMWare Server comes with administrative tools package which can be installed from the File menu. The administrative tools make it easier to communicate between the host and the guest Operating System without locking the mouse and enabling of cut, copy, paste and drag and drop operations across host and guest OS.

Download VMWare Server

Other Virtualization Solutions

While researching for this article, I have come across some very useful software which may not be free but are worth a look. While free solutions can be used for home and SOHO businesses, commercial products can satisfy the needs of large enterprises. I’m listing down the software that I came across during my research:

VMWare Workstation is very similar to VMWare Server but it is still supported by VMWare.

VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop are the perfect but paid alternatives to VirtualBox if you are using Mac OS as host Operating System. If you are looking for a free solution for Mac OS, try Boot Camp.

QEMU is another popular Virtualization solution but I couldn’t find QEMU for Windows. The downloads are only available for Linux.

Paragon Go Virtual was another good Virtualization software but it seems to have been discontinued. It can be downloaded from Majorgeeks.

I hope this article will serve as a good guide for Virtualization software. If I have missed anything or you have suggestions about this topic, please communicate via comments below.

Note: You may also be interested in our already covered topics on MTE about Virtualization:

How to run multiple linux distros without Virtualizations

A comparison between Virtualbox and VMWare Server

Image credit: Laptop In Laptop In Laptop by BigStockPhoto

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• How to Create a Ubuntu Virtual Machine With QEMU Manager
• 5 Reasons Why You Should Use VirtualBox Over VMware Server
• Review of Windows 8 Consumer Preview

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.

Installation

Installation will vary according to the operating system, but we will look at the Ubuntu installation to get an idea of what it entails. Since KVM requires hardware virtualization capabilities, you need to make sure your computer’s processor supports it.

Open a terminal and type this command:

egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo

The output will either be a “0″ or a “1″. A “0″ unfortunately means that you do not have hardware virtualization. If you get a “1″ and have virtualization enabled in your BIOS, you are good to go. Without hardware virtualization, you cannot use KVM extensions. You can still run virtual machines, but they will be painfully slow, as I discovered on my laptop with an old Intel T4200 processor.

If you want to double check the results, you can also run this command:

kvm-ok

If all goes well, it will return:

INFO: Your CPU supports KVM extensions
INFO: /dev/kvm exists
KVM acceleration can be used

Ubuntu has some meta-packages you can install to get the virtualization tools you need. With one command, you can install most of them:

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-virt

If you want to install each package manually, see the Ubuntu documentation. After the installation, you should have qemu-kvm and virt-manager (the graphical frontend) installed.

Post-Installation

After installation, you need to make sure KVM is configured and given the necessary permissions. Type this command:

groups

Among your user groups, you should see “kvm” and “libvirtd”. If either or both are missing, you can run these commands to add your local user to the groups:

sudo adduser `id -un` kvm

sudo adduser `id -un` libvirtd

The last post-installation step you need to take is to logout and log back in. If you do not, you will get a qemu error like this: “libvir: Remote error : Permission denied”

Create a Virtual Machine

Once you are logged back in, you can start Virtual Machine Manager. It should be in your applications menu. Alternatively, press Alt+F2 and type virt-manager.

On the first run, there will only be one available button to click labeled “Create a new virtual machine”. Click it and go through the creation process.

1. Name the virtual machine. It can be pretty much anything. It is only an identifier for you to remember what it is.
2. Choose the installation method. In this example, I am going to use a CentOS 6 LiveCD ISO. That requires the first option “Local install media”. After choosing, click “Forward”.



3. Select the OS type and version. In my example, I chose “Linux” and “Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6″.
4. Select the amount of RAM you want to allocate and the number of CPUs to use.
5. Set your virtual disk size. This largely depends on the OS you are using and the amount of space you think you will need.



6. Set your network options. In most cases, the right option is already selected.
7. Click Finish

Virtual Machine Manager should immediately start booting your virtual machine. If you booted from an ISO, you can then install the OS as you normally would or even run it from the LiveCD. If you want to see real-time information about your virtual hardware, click the “show hardware virtualization details” button. You do not have to keep the virtualization window open to keep running your virtual machine. This is useful if you only intend to connect to it remotely and use it as a server.

For more information about Virtual Machine Manager, visit the online wiki. For more information about KVM, see the online documentation.

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Mac users are not limited to Boot Camp to run Windows on their Macs however, with applications such as VMware Fusion allowing the user to run Windows within OS X; as long as your Mac is powered by an Intel processor and has enough RAM to do so (4GB recommended, though less is possible), you can now seamlessly move between each OS’s flagship programs and enjoy the increase in productivity which this brings.

Read on to see how this process works…

Why Run Windows Within OS X?

There are various reasons you may wish to run a copy of Windows within your Mac – sometimes there’s that last piece of legacy software which you can’t let go of, a printer or other hardware peripheral not supported in OS X, or a job which requires you to run Windows software. Whatever the reason, we’ve got you covered, albeit with one caveat; though great strides have been made with running Windows-based games within a virtual environment, unless you have a powerhouse of a Mac, your machine may struggle with any but the more lightweight or previous generation Windows games.

Getting Started

There are a number of ways to go about running Windows within OS X but the leading three programs are:

• VMware Fusion
• Parallels
• Virtualbox

Each have their own strengths, weaknesses and method of use. My own experience with the trio on various platforms has led me to believe that Parallels is the strongest for gaming, Virtualbox is best for non-gaming use and is less intuitive to get running (though the fact it is free negates this point somewhat), while VMware Fusion is the finest all-rounder and easy to use too – so I shall be using VMware Fusion in this guide.

To get started, first head over to the VMware Fusion website and download a free 30-day trial, then go through the installation process and move on to the next step below.

Installing Windows

Launch VMware Fusion and, assuming you do not already have a BootCamp partition in place on your Mac (if you do, select it from the menu), choose the second option titled “Install Windows or another operating system in a new virtual machine“. Now either insert your Windows disc or navigate to the place on your hard drive where your pre-ripped disc image is located.

This done, be sure to select an “Easy Install” and then a decision must be made whether to create an installation which is “More Seamless” or “More Isolated”, depending on your needs and browsing habits. As you can see in the screenshot above, I chose the former, since I will keep a close eye on what my Windows install is doing and feel comfortable I can avoid any issues. If in doubt, choose “More Isolated”.

Further settings can be customised at will to suit your particular system. For instance, I upped Windows’ RAM allowance to 2GB since I have plenty to spare on my MacBook Pro, though the default preferences be safely left alone if you’re unsure which values to enter. Once this initial setting up of your virtual machine is done, press on the green play button to begin installing Windows, which will install as it normally would in a typical environment.

Note: Though I am using Windows 7 for this walkthrough, most iterations of Windows should work without issue within VMware Fusion

Running Windows Fullscreen

You may prefer to run Windows fullscreen, just as it would be if you were running a normal Windows computer, to do so is as simple as launching VMware and clicking on your virtual machine, then waiting while Windows ‘unfreezes’ – this is an important aspect of running Windows within a virtual machine to note: You need not shutdown and power off your virtual computer each time you access Windows, instead VMware will ‘suspend’ your Windows session in its current state and allow an ‘unfreezing’ of this later.

As shown in the screenshot above, Windows 7 runs perfectly well and Internet Explorer, Outlook and all the other Windows applications run as normal. Since I’m running OS X Lion and make use of the new Spaces layout, a four-finger swipe to the left is all that’s required to move me back into Lion’s environment. This is a handy method of using both operating systems at once, but if you only want one or two Windows applications running within OS X, it seems somewhat cumbersome, so read on to take a look at VMware Fusion’s Unity and Application Menu options.

Making sure you quit any applications you do not need running in OS X will help VMware Fusion run quicker

Unity View

VMware Fusion also has the ability to integrate Microsoft Windows software within Mac OS X in a more seamless manner, even placing applications into OS X’s dock and making those applications behave as one would expect a Mac OS X application to behave, responding to Option-click ‘Quit’ commands. Running Windows in this way is called Unity View – to begin using VMware Fusion in Unity Vew, simply navigate to the view menu located at the top of VMware Fusion’s window and select “Unity”.

As you can see in the screenshot above, I have Windows 7′s Start Menu visible alongside OS X Lion’s Dock and can switch between Mac and Windows software without any noticeable lag.

Application Menu

Another useful tool within WMware Fusion’s feature set is the Application Menu. Sitting in the Mac OS X Menu Bar, the Application Menu serves as a shortcut to Windows’ Start Menu and enables applications to be launched without needing to first manually boot into Windows. Though there is some lag when initially using the Applications Menu, once Windows is fully loaded, it works quickly and unobtrusively. Utilising the Application Menu in this way is my own favoured method of launching Windows applications within Mac OS X.

Conclusion

Hopefully the above walkthrough will show you how surprisingly easy it is to have the best of both worlds and boot into Mac OS X’s stable and virus-free platform, while enjoying the ubiquitous software which can be found on Microsoft’s own OS. Though this is by no means an exhaustive guide to running Windows in OS X, it should serve as inspiration for your own experiments and a launching-off point to begin. The great thing about running operating systems in a virtual machine method as employed by VMware Fusion is that it does not require potentially destructive partitioning of your hard drive, so long as you’re careful, it’s a very safe and easy way to run Windows on your Mac

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• 4 Free Virtualization Software Solutions For Windows
• How to Get Windows 7 “Aero Snap” on your Mac
• 5 Reasons Why You Should Use VirtualBox Over VMware Server
• Sharing Files Between Ubuntu Host and Virtual Machines

Installation

VirtualBox works in all platforms, including Windows, Linux and Mac.

First, make sure that you have removed all your previous installation of VirtualBox. For Windows and Mac, simply download the installer (.exe and .dmg files respectively) and install them in your system.

In debian based Linux, you can add the following repository to your sources.list file:

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to the end of the file

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian maverick contrib

Save and close the file. Next, type

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.0

New GUI

The most notable changes to version 4.0 is the new user interface. From the dashboard, you can now view a screenshot of your saved VM. It is a nice to have feature, though I don’t find it very useful.

You can also drag to reorder your VM now.

When you right click on the VM, there is a new option to create a shortcut on your desktop. Clicking on this shortcut will start your VM.

Extensions

Almost every new applications nowadays come with extension support. In VirtualBox 4.0, they have also added the support for extensions, though there is one extension currently available for installation. The extension pack provide supports for USB 2.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP and PXE boot for Intel cards. Rather than calling it an extension pack, I think it is more appropriate to call it a mandatory install (unless you can do without the USB support).

To install the extension pack, first download it from here.

In your VirtualBox Manager, go to “Files -> Preferences“. On the left pane, click on the “Extensions” entry. On the right, click on the “Add Package” icon. It will then prompt you to choose the extension pack file to install.

New disk file layout for VM portability

In the past, Virtualbox stores all the VM setting files in one folder and the virtual hard disks in another. This make portability a difficult task since the files are scattered around. In version 4, all the files (.vbox and .vdi) are now stored in the “VirtualBox VMs” directory in your Home folder.

In addition, when you delete a VM, you can now choose to delete all files related to the VM, including the settings, snapshots and saved states.

Improved RAM support

VirtualBox 4.0 now supports more than 1.5/2GB of RAM allocation for your VM on a 32-bit hosts.

Support for new virtual hardware

VirtualBox 4.0 now supports Intel ICH9 chipset with three PCI buses, PCI Express and Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI). For those of you who are not sure what chipset is, It is the IC chip in the motherboard that determine the OS capability. Older chipsets don’t come with support for 64-bit system, HD graphics and audio etc. With this newer chipset support, you can now install a modern operating system (like 64-bit OS) and run it without any hiccups.

In addition, you can now choose between 1 – 4 CPU resources to allocate to the VM. (Note: You will need a physical quad-core CPU to be able to allocate up to 4 CPU resources).

New scale display mode

Virtualbox 4.0 can now run within a window in scale mode. What this means is that when you resize the window, the VM display will get resize as well. This allows you to check out other application while keeping your VM window in view.

From the screenshot below, you can see my Windows XP running in a a small tiny window and still has the full-desktop view.

Better upgraded guest addition

The guest additions for Linux now support multiple virtual screens in Linux and Solaris guests. Also, the shared folders can now be marked as auto-mounted on Windows, Linux and Solaris guests. Best still, for Linux guest, the shared folders now support symbolic links. On Windows guest, automatic logon on Windows Vista/Windows 7 is now able to handle renamed user accounts.

Importing/Exporting

Importing and exporting of appliances now support OVA format. This will bundle all the files and settings in a single archive file.

Conclusion

Without a doubt, VirtualBox 4.0 is a much better build than its previous version. Most of the changes are geared toward its usability and all are welcome changes. It will not be capable of running an resource intensive 3D game yet, but for daily matters like web surfing, run office programs etc, it is more than sufficient to meet your needs.

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What do I need?

• First, be sure to have at least 8GB of free hard drive space on your Mac. Most Mac comes with pretty big hard drives, so this probably won’t be an issue; but if it is, clear the space before you start.
• Additionally, you’ll need internet access – wired or wireless. 
• You’ll also need the Ubuntu ISO (or disk image) for your Mac, which you can get here
• VirtualBox by Sun, which you can get here!
• Lastly, this process might take up to about an hour, so have a little free time handy to devote to the process!

Walkthrough

First, once you’ve finished downloading VirtualBox and Ubuntu from the links above, run VirtualBox. Once it opens, you’ll want to create a new virtual machine. To do this, click “New” in the top left corner.

The first thing you’ll need to do now is name your virtual machine (VM) then select Linux as the Operating System and Ubuntu as the version. Give it a good name to remember and that distinguishes it from other operating systems, as if you ever install another VM you’ll want it to be clear which one is which.

Now, select the amount of RAM you want to dedicate to your VM. Even though Ubuntu doesn’t need a ton, I still recommend you to dedicate at least 1GB of RAM, or 1024MB.

On the next screen, make sure that “Boot Hard Disk” is checked, and “Create new hard disk” is selected.  Then click “Continue”.

Next will come the wizard you’ll use to create the virtual hard disk onto which you’ll install and run Ubuntu. Choose Continue to begin, then select “Dynamically expanding storage” and click Continue. Here you’ll need to select how much hard drive space you want to dedicate to Ubuntu. This will come from your Mac’s primary hard drive’s space, so decide how much you want to give up (I used 5GB) and input that number, then click the Continue button, then Done.

Now we just need to tell the Ubuntu virtual machine to read from the Ubuntu ISO for the installation process, and thankfully, VirtualBox will help us to do this. Run the Ubuntu VM by double clicking on it on the left side of the VirtualBox screen. Now you’ll see the First Run Wizard, which let’s us install Ubuntu on the virtual drive we just created. Click continue to begin the setup process. On the “Select Installation Media” screen, click the folder icon on the right side.

In the window that comes up, select Add in the top left corner:

Now navigate to wherever you downloaded the Ubuntu ISO image to and select the ISO file. You’ll then see Ubuntu in your Media Manager window.

Select it and press the Select button.  You’ll then see Ubuntu as your selected installation media, and can click Next.

After clicking Next, click done, and you’ve finished the hardest parts!

Now comes installing Ubuntu! This will take about a half an hour. Once the installer loads, you’ll be greeted with this screen giving you the option to either install or try Ubuntu:

Pick your language, then click Install. At the next screen click “Download updates while installing” and “Install this third-party software“. This will ensure that when you’re finished your install, Ubuntu is up to date and ready to go, as well as ready to browse the internet to its fullest ability.

While the installation begins, you’ll be greeted with some options screens, like time zones, etc.  Just select whatever is appropriate for you and click Forward, proceeding through the process.

It will also ask you, during installation for efficiency, to set up your User Account. You’ll also name your computer here, so if you plan on networking, pick something that’s easily remembered and identified.

Once you get to the Guide slideshow, the bulk of the installation will be happening. This will take 20-30 minutes or so depending on computer speed and available resources. Scroll through the slideshow to see some cool stuff you can do with Ubuntu and how you can work it into your computing process.

Once installation finished and you restart the VM, which Ubuntu will prompt you to do, you’re all finished, and will be greeted with your new Ubuntu desktop after login!

Now just explore and enjoy! Mac users out there, what do you think of Ubuntu 10.10?

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Test Drive is a package for Ubuntu that allows you to test drive the daily build of Ubuntu with little effort on the user side. With a single click (Well, to be exact, there are several clicks on the first run), you can get the application to download the ISO from the web and run it in your virtual machine. While it is meant for non-technical Ubuntu users to test and provide feedback on the current Ubuntu release under development, it can also be used for any Linux distro as long as you provide it with the ISO URL.

Installation

For Ubuntu Lucid users, you can easily install with the following command:

sudo apt-get install testdrive

For users using older version of Ubuntu, open the sources.list file

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/testdrive/ppa/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/testdrive/ppa/ubuntu YOUR_UBUNTU_VERSION_HERE main

Lastly, type the following to install:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install testdrive

Usage

Once installed, you can find the entry at Applications -> System Tools -> Test Drive.

At first run, it will configure your system and check if you have Virtualbox installed. Next it will prompt you to download the Ubuntu version that you want to test. Currently there are Ubuntu 10.10 desktop, server, netbook edition etc.

if you intend to test other Linux distro, you have to enter “6″ when prompted, and enter the URL of the distro’s ISO file.

When you have selected your ISO image, testdrive will download the image to your system. You will need to have at least 1GB of free disk space to contain the ISO image.

One good thing about TestDrive is that it uses rsync to download the file, so the next time you run this application, it will only download the part that have changed since last download.

When the download is completed, it will automatically launch Virtualbox and run the ISO. No configuration is required. One thing though, it only works with Virtualbox 3.0.x or 3.1.x. If you are using the version 3.2, you will have to downgrade your Virtualbox to the older version.

Once it is running in the Virtualbox, you can choose to install to a virtual disk or simply run it in LiveCD mode.

* In case you are wondering, the ISO image are stored in the /home/username/.cache/testdrive/iso/ directory. You can delete the ISO file after you have finished testing to free up some hard disk space.

Has this software been useful to you? Let us know in the comments.

Image credit: Toyota UK

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Getting Android

While it’s true that the needed files are available on the Google Code project page, I’d recommend downloading with this torrent link instead. This is because the project page has the ISO file split into two parts that you’d have to manually join together. That torrent is the same files, pre-joined by Yours Truly for convenience. It’s about 173MB. The torrent is new so until I have some other seeders, it may be a little slow.

Preparing VirtualBox

With that downloads, Windows, Linux, and Mac users can all get their system’s version of VirtualBox here. Follow the website’s instructions to install, and start the program. Once ready, you should have something like this:

Choose New in the top left corner. After hitting Next, you’ll be taken to the first config screen where you can enter the information as shown in the screenshot below.

The Name field can, of course, be anything you like.

The next step on the following page is to set Base Memory Size. Go ahead and leave this at the default. On the page after that, you’ll be presented with an option to boot a hard disk. Since we’ll be running solely from the live image, a hard drive image is unnecessary so go ahead and remove the checkbox leaving that page blank, as shown below.

VirtualBox may give you a warning about no hard drives, but that’s ok for what we want to do. Ignore the warning, and hit Finish on the final page. This should take you back to the main screen, but this time it’ll show LiveAndroid 0.3 in the left pane.

Booting LiveAndroid

Before you click Start, we have to tell VirtualBox to boot from the LiveAndroid file. If it has finished downloading, click the Settings button in VirtualBox. Choose CD/DVD Rom on the left. With the config screen open, check the box for Mount CD/DVD Drive and ISO Image File. You can click the folder icon to choose the downloaded ISO file, as shown here.

When finished click OK and you should be returned to the main screen, but this time it should show liveandroidv0.3.iso under the CD/DVD ROM section in the right hand panel.

If all is well and good, you can now hit Start and boot into your very own local Android OS.

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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.

It doesn’t matter if you are using Windows/Linux host. The instructions for a Windows and Linux guest are slightly different though. (I have not tried this on a Mac host yet. Theoretically it should work, but do it at your own risk.)

For Windows guest

If you are using Windows guest, do the following:

• Uninstall all unnecessary applications
• Perform a hard disk defragmentation. If you are using WinXP, you You can access the inbuilt disk fragmenter from Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmenter.

Download sdelete and extract it to your desktop.

Open a command prompt and cd to the sdelete directory. Type in the following command:

sdelete -c c:/

This will add zeroes to all the free space in your C: drive.

Once it is done, shutdown the VM.

For Linux guest

If you are using Linux guest (this tutorial assumes you are using Ubuntu and is running on ext2/ext3 filesytem. It does not work on ext4), here is what you need to do:

• Remove any unused applications.
• Clean up your Linux VM

Install zerofree

sudo apt-get zerofree

Restart and boot your Linux VM into Recovery mode. (This is generally the second option in the Grub boot up screen.)

In the root shell prompt, type

df

This will display all the available filesystem in your OS. Record down the filesystem where the main directory lies. (it should be in /dev/sdaX or /dev/hdaX format)

Mount the filesystem in read-only mode with the following command:

mount -n -o remount,ro -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /

replacing the /dev/sda1 with the filesytem info that you have recorded just now.

Next, type the following command to zero out all the free space.

zerofree /dev/sda1

Once again, replace the /dev/sda1 with your own filesystem info.

Once you are done, shutdown the Linux VM:

shutdown -h now

Shrinking the VM

Now that we are done with clearing up the VM and zero out all the free space, it’s time to shrink the file size using the VboxManage command.

If you are still using the older Virtualbox 2.0.x version, you can easily shrink the hard disk with the following command:

VboxManage modifyvdi /path/to/your/VM.vdi compact

If you have upgraded your Virtualbox to the 2.1.x version, you will find that the above command will no longer work. There is a bug in the software that disable the use of the modifyhd command. An alternative solution is to use the clonehd command to creat a smaller clone copy of the original VM.

In your terminal (or command prompt), type the following:

VboxManage clonehd name-of-original-vm.vdi name-of-clone-vm.vdi

This will create a clone of the original VM with the name that you have specified in the command above.

Result

After shrinking my VM, I manage to shave 45% off the size of the oirginal VM and free up a whopping 4.5GB of hard disk space to store my other stuff.

The original VDI: 10GB

The cloned VDI: 5.5GB

Importing the clone VM into Virtualbox

The whole process is not finished yet. You still need to import the clone VM into Virtualbox and remove/delete the original VM from your system.

In your Virtualbox console, click on the New button.

Follow the instructions to create a new VM. When it reaches the screen to ask you to choose the hard disk, select Existing.

In the Virtual media manager window, click Add to add the newly cloned VM.

Highlight the newly added VM and click Select.

Back to the Hard disk selection window, you should see your new VM in the dropdown selection. Click on Next to finish up the import.

Once everything is in place, run the newly added VM to make sure that it is working fine.

On the main Virtualbox screen, highlight  the original VM and go to Machine -> Delete. This will remove the entry from the console.

Go to File -> Virtual Media Manager. Highlight the original VM and click the Remove button. When prompt if you want to keep the file, select Delete. This will delete the vdi file from your system.

That’s it.

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Summary of steps involved and software needed:

1. Download QEMU manager and Install on windows platform

2. Create Linux Virtual Machine and Install Ubuntu on virtual hard disk

3. Run the Virtual hard disk from windows platform.

4. QEMU manager and Ubuntu ISO image are needed as software requirements.

Steps to Install QEMU manager and Create Virtual Machine

1. Download QEMU manager and install on Windows platform. Screen shot of QEMU manager with virtual machines are shown below.

Click to enlarge

2. Create a new Ubuntu Virtual machine by clicking Options -> Create New Virtual Machine or by clicking the ‘+’ sign.

3. After creating the virtual machine, configure the virtual machine by setting the memory size required and choose the location of the ISO image which is to be installed into the virtual machine. Set the boot option as shown below

4. Once boot parameters are configured properly, click the ‘Run‘ virtual machine icon to launch the virtual machine.

5. QEMU will run the emulator and boot Ubuntu from the ISO image. Follow the onscreen instructions to install Ubuntu

6. Proceed with the standard Ubuntu installation procedure by choosing the keyboard map, region settings as per your preference.

7. Select Guided partition option and click Forward to proceed further

8. Enter your login option and proceed to install Ubuntu to the virtual hard disk.

9. Once the installation is completed, you will be able to run the virtual machine from the virtual hardisk. Make sure you select the correct boot parameters .

Note : The keyboard shortcut to switch focus and return back to Windows is CTRL +ALT .

Some of the advantages of using QEMU:

1. Easy to use and run with minimal system memory, say 512MB RAM.

2. There are option that allows you to create VMware virtual disk.

3. Plenty of options provided for optimal virtualization.

As for the disadvantage, there is no option for you to save the state of the Virtual machine  or to pause the virtual machine and shut the system.

Have you tried QEMU before? How do you find it?

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First of all, make sure you have already installed both VirtualBox and Windows Vista guest. If you have not, here is the complete installation guide.

Secondly, make sure you have updated your VirtualBox to the latest version (2.0.4). There are some issues in the earlier version which will cause the mounting to fail.

In your Ubuntu machine, open up Virtualbox (Applications -> System Tools -> virtualBox).

Highlight the Vista VM entry (make sure that it is in Powered off state) and click on the Settings icon at the top.

On the left, click on the Network. On the right, make sure that the Enable Network Adaptor and Cable Connected are checked.

On the left, click on the Shared Folders. Then, click on the icon on the far right.

Select the folder that you want to use as a share point. Give it a name.

Click OK to close the Settings window.

Boot up your Vista VM.

Install the guest addition. (Skip this step if you have already done so)

Restart the Vista VM.

Open your Windows Explorer, click on the Map Network Drive

In the Folder input text, enter

\\vboxsvr\sharename

where sharename is the name of the share folder that you add just now. Make sure that the Reconnect at logon is checked. Click Finish

You should now see the shared folder mounted as a network drive.

That’s it.

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1) File size

How long do you need to download a 20MB file with a broadband connection? A snap of finger! Yes, that is how small VirtualBox is: slighly over 20MB where you can download it in a snap. VMware server? About 102MB, well…not too long either, mayber after you have finished your tea session.

2) Installation

Ubuntu users can simply install VirtualBox from the repository. Simply open the Synaptic Package Manager, check the VirtualBox and click Apply to install. For other Linux disro, there is also debian and rpm package available for download. For VMware server, only if you like to compile and build the source code from command line.

3) Speed Boost

The real advantage of VirtualBox over VMware server lies in its performance. VirtualBox apparently runs faster than VMware server. A timed experiment of an installation of Windows XP as the guest OS took 20 mins in VirtualBox and 35 mins on VMware server. A similar test on the booting time of the guest OS also shows favor to VirtualBox with a timing of 45secs compared to 1min 39 secs on VMware server.

4) Remote File Sharing

When I was using VMware server, I have to install and configure Samba on my Ubuntu host so as to access the files in my guest OS. In VirtualBox, the remote file sharing feature is built right in the package. Setting up remote file sharing is easy and you only need to do it once: point the file path to the directory that you want to share.

5) Integration with Host OS

In VirtualBox, there is this mode call ‘seamless mode‘ where you can integrate the guest OS with the host OS. With this mode on, you can access the applications from the guest OS right from the host’s desktop. There is no need for you to traverse between the guest and the host. VMware server does not have this feature, although you can find the ‘unity‘ mode that does the same thing in VMware Workstation.

My Feel…

I have not tested VirtualBox on a server setting, thus I can’t comment on its performance for corporate use. However, for personal use, I would strongly recommend VirtualBox over VMware server because of its faster speed and user-friendliness.

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Luckily, there are several solutions to this.

1) Transfer files using a USB drive.

Open up your VMware Server Console. Make sure that your VM is powered off (not in suspend mode). Click “Edit Virtual Machine Setting”. Under the Hardware tab, click Add -> USB Controller. This will install the USB driver and allow you to connect up to two USB devices to your VM.

Insert in your USB disk and power on your VM. Once the VM has finished loading. On the menu bar, Click VM -> Removable device -> USB Device -> your USB drive name.

Done. You have now access to your USB disk from your VM. A point to note is that you can’t access your USB disk from the host desktop and the VM at the same time. If you are adding USB disk in your VM, the host will automatically dismount your USB disk. Thus, if you want to transfer files between host and VM, you will need to transfer files from host to USB disk, then dismount USB disk from host and add removable device in VM.

2) Setting up networking via Samba

All virtual machines use shared networking to gain network access from the host. Thus, if configured properly, you can create a shared network to share files between the host and the VM. Here is a detailed instruction to configure file sharing via samba.

3) Buying license software
If you rely heavily on your VM for work, then you want want to consider buying a licensed VMware. This paid software enables you to access your virtual machine from the host desktop and you can even drag and drop your files from your VM to anywhere in the host without any further configuration. Parallels (another paid VM solution) also offers this service.

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