Installing Ubuntu Linux 9.10 in VirtualBox
Tarek Taha
February 17, 2010
The steps below outline how to install Linux under Windows (as a virtual machine).
This install of Linux is going to be like installing a regular Windows program.
It does not need any special steps such as formatting or partitioning your harddrive.
You will need at least 5GB of free space on your harddisk.
1. Download the Ubuntu Linux ISO from here (650 MB).
2. Download VirtualBox for Windows from here.
3. Install VirtualBox.
4. Start Virtualbox.
5. Click New.
6. Click next.
7. Put in a name, and choose the values shown in the drop down boxes.
8. Click next.
9. Click next.
10. Click next.
11. Click next.
12. Click finish.
13. Click finish.
14. Click start.
15. Click next.
16. Click the browse button shown.
17. Click the Add button.
18. Browse to the Ubuntu ISO you downloaded.
19. Click the Ubuntu ISO and then click select.
20. Click next.
21. Click Finish.
From this step onwards, you will be in the virtual machine window. You can escape the window by pressing the right-ctrl button on your keyboard.
22. Hit enter
23. Choose Install Ubuntu and then hit enter.
24. Click Forward
25. Click Forward.
26. Click Forward.
27. Click Forward.
28. Fill in the username and password boxes. You can choose anything, but make sure you write them down for future use.
29. Click Install.
30. After installation is finished, click restart now.
31. Press enter to restart.
32. After the login window appears, click your name.
33. Put in your password and click log in.
34. Press the right Control button to escape the linux window and choose "Install guest additions" from the main menu as shown.
35. Click OK.
36. Double click the desktop CD icon.
37. Double click autorun.sh
38. Click Run in Terminal.
39. Put in your password and click ok.
40. After installation is complete, hit enter.
41. Click on the name on the top right.
42. Click restart...
43. Click restart.
44. After restart is complete, login to Ubuntu. Now you can resize the virtualbox window and move the mouse out without pressing Right-Ctrl.
Your installation of Ubuntu is now complete. The following optional steps will enable you to share files between windows and linux. A folder is set up that is visible under both windows and linux:
45. Create a folder in your Windows system. I will use C:\lin_share as an example.
46. Click Devices -> Shared Folders from the VirtualBox menu.
47. Click the add shared folder button.
48. Fill in the Windows path to the shared folder in the top box, and the equivalent Linux folder in the bottom box (we will call the Linux folder win_share). Choose Make Pemanent. Click ok.
49. Click ok.
50. Open a terminal in Linux.
51. In the terminal type: mkdir ~/win_share
52. Everytime you log into Linux, you will need to type the following into a terminal:
sudo mount -t vboxsf win_share ~/win_share
Files in ~/win_share (under Linux) and c:\lin_share (under Windows) will now be shared.
53. An alternative to running step 52 everytime is to make a one time change to the /etc/fstab file.
This will make the sharing permanent.
Open a terminal and type: sudo gedit /etc/fstab
Add this line to the end of the file opened in the editor and save (replace YOUR_NAME):
win_share /home/YOUR_NAME/win_share vboxsf defaults 0 0
Files will be shared after restarting your linux system.
