Whoa… VirtualBox! VirtualBox is a fantastic program for creating virtual instances of your everyday regular computer machines. We normally use the program to pop up virtual Linux distribution machines like CentOS and Ubuntu so that even when we’re using a Windows or Mac machine, we can still have a window that is running Linux.
1) Download VirtualBox
You can find the latest virtual box at the following link:
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
We’ll select the Windows hosts latest option, which is about 106 MB.
2) Download Linux distribution image of your choice
You can Google for any Linux distribution. I’ll take Arch Linux!
https://www.archlinux.org/download/
Download the latest iso file.
3) Install VirtualBox program
The set-up is quite simple. Proceed through the directions, prompts, and install.
4) Open VirtualBox
VirtualBox will have any old settings from previous installations of the program.
We will make a New virtual machine by first clicking on the New button at the top left.
5) VirtualBox settings
We will use the default settings for RAM, but make sure that you give enough hard drive memory for your virtual machine.
By default, the hard drive space for a VirtualBox Disk Image (VDI) will be 8 GB. I’ll expand my VDI to 50 GB.
6) After configuring settings, we want to right click our machine and make sure it loads the iso
Right click the virtual machine on the left side and click on Settings (CTRL-S). This will pop up the machineName – Settings.
7) Click on Storage option on the left
Underneath Controller: IDE, click on Empty. Make sure that the check box that says Live CD/DVD is checked.
Click on the Disc icon and click on Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file. For me, I’ll find where I saved the archlinux.iso that I saved earlier.
Click OK.
8) Allow access to the internet for your virtual machine
Still in the settings window, click on the Network option on the left sidebar. By default, you’ll see Attached to NAT for Adapter 1. Leave this the same. Click on Adapter 2, enable the Adapter and click on the dropdown for Attached to Bridged Adapter. Leave the Name by default. This setting will enable your virtual machine to use the wi-fi or wired connection of your main machine.
9) Click on the machine on the left sidebar and click Start
10) After installing your Linux distribution, you’re all set
You can now use your Linux machine on your other operating system. Arch Linux is installed and ready to go!
