A Linux user who needs Windows for a single program (for work or school), could use VirtualBox to install Windows and that program.  To use it, VirtualBox simply needs to be launched, then Windows launched from inside it.  A new window appears, the user will see the typical Windows boot process, and in the end, Windows will be running inside of Linux.

It’s a nice system, and if the physical computer has enough power (both in processing and in RAM), then everything goes smoothly.  The only bottleneck, really, is that it can be a bit of a pain to first launch VirtualBox, wait for it to load, select the virtual computer you want to boot up, and finally wait for it to launch.  The subject of this article, an Indicator Applet called Indicator-Virtualbox, that’s simply not a problem.

To install it in Ubuntu, first open a Terminal.

Then type the following, as a single command:

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:michael-astrapi/ppa && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install indicator-virtualbox

This will add the PPA (personal package archive), update the software lists, and finally install the indicator-virtualbox package.

To launch it, simply find the new entry in the Applications menu, under System Tools.

As Indicator-Virtualbox loads, it creates a new icon in the notification area (or uses the Indicator Applet framework if present).  Clicking the icon reveals a list of all the virtual machines currently available in VirtualBox.

As you can see, the listings at the top of the menu are identical to the listings found in the left sidebar of the VirtualBox client.

To boot up one of the virtual machines, all the user needs to do is click the listing in the Indicator-Virtualbox menu.  This is the same as highlighting the listing in VirtualBox and clicking the Start button.  Instead of needing to open VirtualBox first, however, all you need is to access the option in the menu.  Soon, the virtual machine will boot, and you’ll see the process in a new window.

It’s a simple program, only mirroring what’s already available in the actual VirtualBox program (which obviously needs to be installed for this to work), but it is a time saver.  The only real drawback with it, at the moment, is that the menu listings appear to only change when Indicator-Virtualbox is started, which likely only happens when the computer boots, or when the Panel needs to restart for some reason.

This means that if the user starts VirtualBox while Indicator-Virtualbox is running, then creates a handful of new virtual machines, they’ll only appear in the Indicator menu on restart, and not as they’re being created.  Still, it’s a tiny quibble, and in spite of it, Indicator-Virtualbox is a very valuable time-saver.

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The open source edition (known as VirtualBox OSE), had some features – namely USB support – removed; a closed source version – with USB support included – was only available from Sun (the prior owner of VirtualBox).

VirtualBox is now completely open source, so if you download VirtualBox 4, you have the same VirtualBox that everyone else does.  The closed source bits, which also include support for remote desktop functions and the Intel PXE boot ROM, are not shipped with any version of VirtualBox, but only as an extension pack.

Here’s how to download and install VirtualBox in Ubuntu (so that you’ll always be kept up-to-date), and the extension pack, for full compatibility with USB 2.0 devices.

Add the Official VirtualBox Repository

The first step to installing VirtualBox is to add its repository to your list of software sources.  To do this, we need to open our sources.list file (as root), so open up a Terminal window.

Now type “gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list” (without the quotes), and hit Enter.  If you’ve recently run another program as root, then gedit will open up with your sources.list file; if not, you’ll be asked to enter your root password.

Once you’ve entered your password (if necessary), you’ll see this window:

Add the following line at the bottom of the sources.list file:

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lucid contrib non-free

Note: if you’re using Maverick or Karmic or Hardy, replace “lucid” in the above line with your version of Ubuntu (use all lowercase letters).

Once you’ve done this, save the file by clicking the Save button, then quit the text editor.

You’ll be taken back to the Terminal, where we will now install VirtualBox.

Installing VirtualBox

The first step to installing VirtualBox is typing this line, which downloads and installs the oracle public key.  This key ensures that all our downloads from this repository are signed and trusted.

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

Now type the following:

sudo apt-get update

This updates our software lists, so they are now aware of all the programs available in the new repository (as well as any updates from other repositories).  Once this is done updating, type the following line, which will install VirtualBox 4, along with any dependencies.

sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.0

The download will progress, and when you’re through, you’ll have a new entry in your System Tools menu.

Installing the VirtualBox Extension

First, we’ll need to download the VirtualBox Extension Pack, which is located at this link.

Note: this link changes with each version of VirtualBox, so if the current version is not 4.0.4, the link can be found on the VirtualBox downloads page.

Now launch VirtualBox.  When it loads, choose the File menu, then Preferences, like this.

Now choose the Extensions tab and click the little blue diamond.

Navigate to where you saved the Extensions Pack and select it.

Confirm that you want to install the Extension Pack; you will also need to accept the Oracle license agreement, then finally enter your administrator password (if asked for it).  The Extension Pack will load, and when the process is finished, you’ll see a confirmation that the installation was a success.

Congratulations!  VirtualBox is now ready to be used, and will have full support for USB, remote desktops and more.

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There may be some keyboards, like laptop keyboards, that do not have a Right Ctrl key. If you are in this situation, or you would just rather use a different key as your Host key, this post describes how to change which key on the keyboard is used as the Host key.

To change the Host key, open VirtualBox. Select Preferences from the File menu.

The Settings dialog box displays. Click the Input option in the left pane. On the Input screen, click the box next to Host Key. Type the new desired key.

NOTE: Alphanumeric, cursor movement, and editing keys cannot be used as the Host Key.

The new key displays in the box next to Host Key. Click OK.

The Host key is displayed in the lower, right corner of the VirtualBox status bar, in case you forget what key you chose as your Host key.

On the Input screen you can also choose to automatically capture the keyboard when you open a virtual machine. To do this, select the Auto Capture Keyboard check box. This means all keystrokes are directed to the virtual machine until you press the Host key to return control of the mouse and keyboard to the host machine.

by Lori Kaufman

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The menu bar and status bar prevent you from running at the maximum resolution (unless you use seamless mode). If you are using a computer with a small screen, such as a netbook, your screen real estate is very limited and you need to claim every inch of space you can.

There is a hack that allows you to switch off the menu bar and status bar and get your virtual machine to run in the maximum resolution.

NOTE: When you apply this hack, be sure there are no virtual machines running.

Open a command prompt (Windows) or a terminal window (Linux) and type the following command:

“C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe” setextradata global GUI/Customizations noMenuBar,noStatusBar

NOTE: The path to VBoxManage.exe may be different on your computer. Use the appropriate path. Be sure to use the quotes around the path to the executable if there are spaces in the path name.

The menu bar and status bar are now gone.

With the menu bar and status bar hidden, it might be helpful to know some VirtualBox keyboard shortcuts so you can quickly access the menu options.

To being up the VirtualBox menu options, press the Host key and the Home key on the keyboard. When the status bar is available, the Host key is displayed in the lower, right corner of the virtual machine window.

The menu options display with the keyboard shortcut listed for each.

To show the menu bar and status bar again, enter the following command in the command prompt or terminal window:

“C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe” setextradata global GUI/Customizations MenuBar,StatusBar

Again, remember to use the appropriate path to the executable file.

by Lori Kaufman

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If you’ve had any experience with virtualization software, you’ve probably also heard of VMWare and Virtual PC. I’ve previously used Virtual PC from Microsoft for all my needs and one feature that I really liked was the ability to easily share files and folders between the guest and host operating system.

In Virtual PC, all you had to do in order to share files from the host OS to the guest OS was drag and drop onto the desktop. Super easy. When I switched over to VirtualBox, I realized that sharing folders in VirtualBox is not as simple as dragging and dropping.

This was really annoying to me at first and it took me a little while to figure out exactly how to do it! In this article, I will walk you through the steps for sharing folders between guest and host OS in VirtualBox.

First, you have to install VirtualBox Guest Additions in the guest OS. You can do this by going to Devices and clicking on Install Guest Editions.

Once installed and your guest OS rebooted, you need to create a virtual shared folder. You can do this by going to Devices again and clicking on Shared Folders.

Now click on the Add New Shared Folder button on the right.

In the Folder Path box, click the down arrow and then click Other. Browse to the folder on the host OS that you would like to share with the guest OS. In the Folder Name box, give your share a name. You can choose to make it read-only and to make the shared folder permanent.

Click OK and the new shared folder will show up under Machine Folders if you chose to make it Permanent, otherwise it will show under Transient Folders.

Now click OK to close the Shared Folders dialog. You have to do one more thing in order to be able to actually access the folder on the host OS. Depending on whether the Guest OS is running Windows or Linux (Ubuntu, etc), the method is different.

Windows Guest

In this case, you can either browse to the shared folder by going to My Network Places – Entire Network – VirtualBox Shared Folders or you can map a drive letter to that shared folder. I prefer the second method to make it easily accessible.

net use x: \\vboxsvr\sharename

To do this, open an command prompt and type in the above command. Simply replace sharename with the Folder Name you used when adding a share. Note that you do NOT need to change vboxsvr.

Linux Guest

To mount a shared folder in a Linux Guest OS such as Ubuntu, type in the following command:

mount -t vboxsf [-o OPTIONS] sharename mountpoint

Replace sharename with the name of the share and mountpoint with the path where you want the share to be mounted (i.e. /mnt/share).

That’s it! You should get a message like “The command completed successfully” like shown below:

Now when you go to Explorer or My Computer, you’ll see the new drive mounted and ready for access!

Not too hard eh? Of course, if you didn’t know you had to do all this, it could get quite frustrating! Now when you need to share files or folders in VirtualBox, you’ll be able to do it easily. Enjoy!

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