A virtual machine is a program that emulates a computer inside the user’s operating system.
VirtualBox is a full-purpose emulator for x86 hardware. It is the only professional virtualization solution that is also Open Source Software.
Virtual Box is an application that aims to help us when we need a computer that meets certain hardware and software specifications quickly and easily.
Thus, following simple steps, we can create virtual machines with any operating system different from the one we have on our personal computer.
In addition, after we have created our own virtual desktops with the desired specifications, we can make copies of them, or clone them and use them on any other computer.
Virtual Box is also not dependent on the operating system so that it can be installed and used on any platform.
Installation is simple and requires almost no user intervention.
To create a new virtual computer, click the New button. Once pressed, a wizard is released that helps us define a new virtual machine step by step:
Click the Next button and go to the window where we select the operating system we want to host in this virtual machine (and the version of that OS). Suppose we want to install a Linux OS, say Ubuntu.
In this window, we also specify the name of the virtual computer that we define. Once again click the Next button. In the window that follows, we choose the amount of memory we want to allocate to the newly created PC.
Depending on the OS selected in the previous window, Virtual Box recommends the optimal memory (in his opinion) for this OS. But this value can be changed.
Next, we define the virtual machine’s HDD. A new HDD may be created, or an existing one may be used. Since it is the first run of the application, I assume there is no HDD and a new one needs to be created. There is a wizard that helps us do that.
In the next window we choose how the space on the physical HDD will be allocated:
We choose dynamic allocation. That means I can create a 100Gb HDD without VirtualBox creating a file (virtual HDD means a file) of that size from the beginning, but a file that grows as the data is written to the virtual disk. In the next window choose the desired size and click the Finish button to create the virtual disk.
We get back to the point where we are left to build a virtual computer where we see a report about the computer to be created.
All we have to do right now is to install the operating system.
To do this, press the Start button. To install an OS, we need the installation disk. Insert the CD (or DVD) into the computer’s physical CD/DVD drive and then press Start. From here on, everything goes like any other installation made on the physical machine.
First, with Virtual Box we can have machines with different configurations and operating systems, which can be started simultaneously. This helps us a lot when we have to test app behaviors on different platforms. In addition, Virtual Box allows us to save machine statuses (Snapshot), then return to them without them being changed if we made a wrong development in the current version.