Setting Up Virtual Box For an OS

In this post you will learn what Virtual Box is all about.

VirtualBox is a software virtualization package that installs on an operating system as an application. Virtual Box allows additional operating systems to be installed on it, as a Guest OS, and runs in a virtual environment.

Lets get started, First you'll need the Virtual box software which can be easily downloaded from the link given below, Download the software based on your system architecture.

Also download VirtualBox 5.1.8 Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack we will come to this extension pack later on in the guide.

Download Virtual Box

Setting up Virtual Box for an OS:

Once Virtual Box is installed on you system run it and select new.

A Create Virtual Machine window will open up.In this window the name type and version of the OS you want to install must be specified. (Today we will be installing Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 32-bit OS) once done click next.

Now we must allocate memory size for the virtual machine. Give a minimum of 2GB for the Virtual Machine you desire to install. Once done click next.

The next step is to create a Virtual Hard Disk. This creates a file on your hard drive which is used by Virtual Box to act like its own separate hard drive, allowing you to install an operating system without erasing your existing data.

In this step we need to choose our hard disk file type. Select the Virtual Box Disk Image option and click next.

Now we need to select our storage on the physical hard disk.

You’ll be asked if you want to create a “dynamically expanding” disk or a “fixed size” disk.
The great thing about a dynamic disk is that it’s only as large as the data that it has on it, you can assign plenty of space without having to worry about whether you’ll use or not.
They’re also a lot faster to create than a fixed disk of any significant size. So we suggest you to select the "Dynamically allocated" option and click on next.

Now we need to give our new virtual hard disk some suitable storage size. We recommend you to use at least 30GB of storage for the OS you install. Once done click create.

Now that all this is done you can see your guest OS on the left hand side of the screen.
Finally its time to load the ISO file of the OS onto the Virtual Machine.
Click on the settings icon on the top.

Select the storage option on the left hand corner of the menu.

Now you will notice a small CD icon stating EMPTY, click that option.

Once done you will notice another CD icon at the end of the Optical Drive option.
Click on it and from the drop down menu that follows select the choose Virtual Optical Disk File option and then browse for your ISO file of the required OS and click on open.

Once done click on OK and you will have successfully loaded the OS onto the Virtual Machine.

Now all thats left to do is to install the Virtual Box Extension pack that we have downloaded earlier on.
This extension provides the Support for USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 devices, VirtualBox RDP, disk encryption, NVMe and PXE boot for Intel cards.