What would you use VirtualBox for?

[Setpoint]

I have just installed VirtualBox on my PCLOS 64-bit OS, and will play around with it to learn how to use it.

It is on a newish PC with a 500 GB HD, 6 GB of RAM, and an AMD quad processor.  The PC came with Windows 7, which I  erased from the HD (after making recovery disks), and then installed PCLOS.  (I already have a similar, second newish PC that still has W 7.)

Some questions:

1. How much of the 6 GB of RAM should be allocated to the guest OS?

2. Is the guest-allocated RAM used only when VirtualBox is running?

3. When I set up the guest OS in VirtualBox, how much HD space should be allocated to it?  I suppose that depends on the specific guest OS to be installed, and the types of applications to be installed, too.

4. Since I already otherwise have a W 7 PC (a necessary evil, so to speak), there is no reason to install Windows as the guest OS.  Through time, on various PCs, I have tried about a dozen different Linux distros, including the usual major ones, but have come to prefer PCLOS.
   Using VB could allow playing around with Linux on the guest OS side without disco hopping with the host OS.
   Any suggestions for which Linux OS to install as the guest OS?   I do not intend to use it for games.

5. I don't know yet what I would want to do with VirtualBox.    So, in addition to the question of which guest OS to install, which application software(s) would you suggest using in VB and why?
   Perhaps I could use the isolated format of the guest OS to play around with a volatile, non-stable OS such as openSUSE Tumbleweed edition, so if something went wrong, there would be no consequences.  I assume that I could just install (overwrite) another OS onto the guest OS partition(s) dedicated to the faulty guest OS—correct?

[µT6]

"1. How much of the 6 GB of RAM should be allocated to the guest OS?"

you shouldn't give more than the half of your ram to the virtual machine, now, you have 6 gbs, if the virtual machine lets you give 4, then linux can run stable with 2 but why wouldn't you need 4 gbs of ram in a virtual machine?  i think that if you are not going to do much with the virtual machine then 2 gbs are just fine

"2. Is the guest-allocated RAM used only when VirtualBox is running?"

afik, no, when you set the amount and run the virtual machine, the ram is taken for the virtual machine and won't be available for linux untill you close the virtual machine

"3. When I set up the guest OS in VirtualBox, how much HD space should be allocated to it?  I suppose that depends on the specific guest OS to be installed, and the types of applications to be installed, too."

for windows xp and basic programs i would say that 10 to 20 gbs, for vista, windows 7 or windows 8, i would say that 40 gbs is the minimum ideal, install of the os uses from 12 to 20 gbs

for other linux installs, all are very similar, 5 to 7 gbs for / and whatever you wish to give for swap and /home

"4. Since I already otherwise have a W 7 PC (a necessary evil, so to speak), there is no reason to install Windows as the guest OS. "

i would do it to avoid restart the machine to windows and don't bother having a dualboot for specific purposes, also if i don't plan on playing games with the windows install

"5. I don't know yet what I would want to do with VirtualBox.    So, in addition to the question of which guest OS to install, which application software(s) would you suggest using in VB and why?"

you use virtualbox to run the apps that doesn't exist on linux natively but exist on windows and that wine can't run well enough, also for games but if you don't have a reason to run a virtual machine now, probably you are just learning about the concept but you won't need it or use it really

usually most people use virtualbox after fighting with wine, tired of dualbooting or because there is no linux counterparts for those apps required

that from windows to linux approach, on a linux - linux approach i wouldn't bother doing that, most distros worth to test have livecds and you don't need or want virtualbox to test them

[kjpetrie]

There are lots of things you can use it for. Running Windows within Linux is the obvious one, but others use it for packaging RPMs for pclos, because it's easy to take a snapshot of the machine state and revert to it later, learning about networking, because you can set up virtual networking between the virtual machines if you use lightweight operating systems that only use a small amount of RAM, running small servers sandboxed from your main machine, installing other distributions of Linux to play with without shutting down the main OS, installing non-repo programs into a special environment where they won't endanger your main install...

Virtualbox will let you turn your single computer into a hub of smaller machines you can use for anything you want.

T6's estimates of space required are rather generous. I have Windows Server 2008 running on a VM with 512 MB RAM and a 20GB virtual HDD and although it is a little slow it is usable. My main machine only has 2GB RAM so I can't give the VMs more than about 1GB total. Sometimes my system swaps if I start two VMs at once.

[Just17]

I use VBox mostly for running other OSs in Live mode to see what they are like .......  I rarley find one that attracts me enough to warrant an install.

You can use the ISO and run it live in VBox, just as you would run it live from a DVD.

[ThirdOfSix]

I have a high resolution Canon scanner that has no Linux drivers that I run using XP in VirtualBox.

Also, my main use is to run NetFlix on an XP guest install.

NetFlix has no equalizer for audio and I need one with my hearing to understand the dialog on a lot of movies.

I have a SIIG USB 7.1 channel external sound interface that has a really good windows only user interface with equalizer that allows me to set the sound depending on the movie.

The linux drivers for that interface only provide very basic stereo sound.

Also, I sometimes run one of the USB to  video modules from the guest in VirtualBox. This allows me to have a totally separate application with its own sound and video running with no impact on my host install of PCLOS.

I say no impact because it is on a fast quad core machine with lots of memory.

[bicol_willem]

"The PC came with Windows 7"

With thanks and regards from Microsoft.
After all they don´t want you to run Windows per se, they just want you to pay.... 

I used to run VB with Windows for a scanner that had no Linux driver till it died and for fun (see the faces of "strangers to Linux" seeing pop up their beloved OS "just like that" in Linux)

[Linuzoid]

I use VBox to test my themes for PCLOS. I can install a grub background and make sure it looks and works right. Same with the KDM's. VBox is very handy. 

[matrix]

I user VBox to run IIS in my devlopment for cross platform testing on a 2 gb system allocate 512 mb for the 2008 server

[Setpoint]

Thanks to all for the useful information and ideas.

[mellon]

I'm using it run win7 on my desktop.

The amount of disk space depends on how you would use Windows. You can use a single Virtual disk and partition it in three or more disks in Windows. That is one VDI file that would hold system, data and program files. You can also use three virtual disks; one for OS, one for data and one for executables. The advantage is that you can back up the data vdi separately and keep it limited in size.  That is what I did.
In addition I have two larger NTFS formatted partitions on my Linux host which I link as shared folders in VB. This allows me to copy data from the data disk in Win7 to a Linux host partition and from there back it up.

I allocate 4Gb out of 8Gb to the guest

I use the windows guest for:

• Downloading e-books via Adobe editions
• Maintaining Genealogical data in Legacy family file. I also use Gramps on Linux, but Legacy has far better reporting options and has an Access file as database which makes it easier to do some quick queries and updates.
• Maintaining the Dutch Helpfile of the Legacy family file program using Helpscribble
• Use Visual Studio to maintain a VisualBasic tool I developed for the company I work for.

Usage? About once a week.

Recently saw a youtube link showing how to install Android in VirtualBox. May try that that just for fun.

Mellon

[Setpoint]

I'm a little unclear about some of the underlying principles here, so here are four more questions. The starting point is that the PC is all Linux (PCLOS 64-bit) and VB has been installed, but a guest has not yet been set up:

1. If, out of a total of 6 GB of RAM, I designate--say--3 GB of RAM for the guest OS, can I still use the full 6 GB of RAM for the host OS (PCLOS) if I have not yet started up VirtualBox?  That is, when I start up the PC, do I get the entire 6 GB available for use by the host OS, unless--after I start up the PC--I then start up VB, which action would then would allocate the 3 GB of 6GB of RAM to the guest OS for that session?

2. When a guest is created with VB, is that reallocated portion of the HD erased and reformatted (as specified by the user) for the new VB partition(s)?   Or does the newly created VB guest portion of the HD still retain its portion of the original file system installed on the entire HD (e.g., ext4 for a Linux OS)--at least until the user decides whether to reformat and install something over it, such as an OS?

3. To use the guest "portion" of VB, do I always have to install an operating system in it?  Or, can the guest portion be used without an OS being installed there--for example, just for storing files or data?  Or, when a guest is created with VB, must an OS always be installed in the guest side?  Would not application software be needed to access, edit, or use files, and would not use of application software require an OS?

4. If I decided to delete the VB guest OS, could I also delete the associated VB partition(s)?  If so, could those "deleted" partition(s) be integrated back into the Linux partition(s) on the host side where it/they originally came from? (By using, say, gparted?)  Or, would that/those partition(s) be available for use only by VB?

[µT6]

"1. If, out of a total of 6 GB of RAM, I designate--say--3 GB of RAM for the guest OS, can I still use the full 6 GB of RAM for the host OS (PCLOS) if I have not yet started up VirtualBox?"

i think that while the machine is running the ram is used by the virtual machine but not before or after

if this didn't happened, then how could you run multiple virtual machines if you already gave all your ram to one vm and the second needs more ram?

"2. When a guest is created with VB, is that reallocated portion of the HD erased and reformatted (as specified by the user) for the new VB partition(s)?   Or does the newly created VB guest portion of the HD still retain its portion of the original file system installed on the entire HD (e.g., ext4 for a Linux OS)--at least until the user decides whether to reformat and install something over it, such as an OS?"

remember that you are using a virtual machine, it doesn't have full access to the the system, only to ram and cpu, the rest is virtualized, including hard disk, the vm doesn't have any access to the real hard disk, the entire vm access only a file, this file contains the virtual hard disk containing the os, each time that you create a new vm, you can or reuse a previously created hard disk for the vm or create a new one

"3. To use the guest "portion" of VB, do I always have to install an operating system in it?  Or, can the guest portion be used without an OS being installed there--for example, just for storing files or data?"

remember that the virtual machine is just a emulated pc without a os, if you don't have a os, how could you copy and paste files inside it?  when the vm starts it is just like a pc without os or hard disk, it will tell you that it didn't found a os to do anything

the whole idea is put a os inside this virtual machine and do things that you can't or don't want to do in linux

"4. If I decided to delete the VB guest OS, could I also delete the associated VB partition(s)?  If so, could those "deleted" partition(s) be integrated back into the Linux partition(s) on the host side where it/they originally came from? (By using, say, gparted?)  Or, would that/those partition(s) be available for use only by VB?"

there is no partition, it is just a file store inside your home folder, you can keep it or delete it

remember that if you created a hard disk for a virtual machine of 100gbs, fixed size, then you have a 100gb file in your home folder, something to consider if you make multiple machines

[Old-Polack]

In addition to what µT6 said, you can also create and store your VM .vdi files on a separate partition, designated for that purpose. That keeps them out of the normal user's $HOME directory/folder. This is what I do, and it works quite well.



Each or the files shown is a virtual hard drive for a different VBox VM. The Safe directory holds backup copies of the virtual hard drives shown. If I screw up a VM, I can shut down that VM, delete the associated .vdi file, then create a new one by copying the backup file from the Safe directory to the one shown. When I restart that VM, it will be just as it was before I screwed it up.

[kjpetrie]

It's unlikely you'd want to give a VM 3GB. If you're going to do something that needs that much RAM you'd probably be better using a dual boot, as VMs run a little slow compared with a native installation and have less access to hardware resources. They can't give high performance, but are very useful where moderate performance will do and the added flexibility is worth the price. Windows 7 or 8 insists on having 1GB of RAM and that or a little more is probably enough for a VM. For most other OSes 512MB or even 256MB is adequate, though a little more (perhaps 50%) will improve things a little. When you choose the virtual machine OS on creating the machine, VB will select default values for you. In general it's better to increase these a bit if you can, but there's no point going mad. You can always change these values later if you want to experiment. In fact, that's one of the advantages - the ease with which you can change things round.

VirtualBox is an application and, like all applications, only uses RAM and CPU time when it's running.

[deathromantik]

On my Mac: To run Linux, I am going to upgrade it to 16GB of RAM soon so I can dedicate 8GB to VMs.

On a Linux PC: To run OSX purely for music related stuff like Abelton Live 8, Logic 9 and some AU Virtual Instruments again HUge amount of RAM will be built into that PC once I get funds to build it. I may install Ubuntu or Debian to try out Linux Stream.
Also to set up a freindica server so I will be free of Facebook!