Virtualisation 2. The free world’s revenge.

Some time has passed since the last time I build a virtual box from scratch with vmware… Now, time has come to use some pretty GNU stuff: VirtualBox(1) is all you need.

Before anything else, I have to warn you that despite being outrageously easy to install, I only used it has a client with NAT configuration. Has I’ve seen on the web, you can configure it with host interface. It seems only a little bit more tiresome than vmware configuration.

Like I’d said, it’s really easy : download VirtualBox (1.5), Download the ISO image of your preferred OS (I’d choose the Debian Etch.)

Step 1: Basic installation (with X)

Step 2: Installation of the guest additions.
Download the kernel header files, the default gcc version (which appears to be the one needed to recompile the kernel). Mount guest additions ISO image and run the installation script.

Step 3: Pb…
- I had to change the X configuration file manually to enable the new video driver in the Device section : Driver “vboxvideo”. (In fact, I do not remember if I’ve done this by editing this file or by running a dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg command)

- Once done, I loose the mouse cursor (but the mouse was still active). This time, you really had to edit xorg.conf and change the InputDevice’s driver to “vboxmouse”. It seems to be a known bug.

Step 4: Enjoy.

Tools:
(1) http://www.virtualbox.org/