Sharing Folders with VirtualBox

Here is a step by step on how to set up shared folders for accessing Windows folders in a Linux guest.

1. Assign the host folders to share through the VM settings in VirtualBox. No need to setup shares in Windows Explorer itself.

2. Create mount points for the shares in the guest (as root):
mkdir /mnt/share
mkdir /mnt/share/music
mkdir /mnt/share/videos
mkdir /mnt/share/pix
mkdir /mnt/share/dox
mkdir /mnt/share/down

3. Setup sudo (as root):
Add the following at the end of /etc/sudoers:
user ALL = NOPASSWD : ALL
Replace "user" with your username.

4. Create a script to mount your shares:
mkdir ~/scripts
nano scripts/shared-folders
#!/bin/sh
sudo mount -t vboxsf music /mnt/share/music
sudo mount -t vboxsf videos /mnt/share/videos
sudo mount -t vboxsf pix /mnt/share/pix
sudo mount -t vboxsf dox /mnt/share/dox
sudo mount -t vboxsf down /mnt/share/down
The names after "vboxsf" are the ones you set for your shared folders in step 1.
Make shared-folders script executable:
chmod +x shared-folders

5. Add the script to Gnome startup programs:
Desktop > Preferences > Sessions > Startup Programs
Now your shared folders will be ready as soon as your Gnome desktop loads.

BEWARE: currently the content at the root of shared Windows Vista folders featuring a "Location" tab in their properties window cannot be deleted or edited from the guest, neither new files or folders can be created at that level. Anyway, these limitations do not apply for their subfolders.

VirtualBox Installation Tips

Installing VirtualBox is pretty easy, but there are a few steps that are now such straightforward or obvious.

First of all, you will not be able to run vboxmanage, VirtualBox's powerful command line interface, untill you append its path to Windows' System environment PATH variable. These are the steps:

• Open the Windows menu and right click on "Computer"
• Select "Properties"
• Select "Advenced system settings"
• Select "Environment variables"
• Select the "Path" variable and click Edit
• Append this: ";C:\Program Files\innotek VirtualBox" wighout the quotes

After you installed some Linux distro in a new VM, you better install the VirtualBox Additions, which will improve the mouse and keyboard integration between the host and the guest, among some other performance enhancements. These are the steps:

• A couple packages are required to build the Additions program: linux-headers for your current kernel version (check with "uname -a") and the C compiler gcc.
• Mount the Additions installation CD in your guest OS desktop: in the VM window menu select Devices > Install Additions
• cd /media/cdrom
• (as root run) sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run
• That's it, that simple!

Lastly, remember that whenever you install an updated version of VirtualBox, your VMs' settings have to be updated also, using the command line: vboxmanage updatesettings

VirtualBox vs VMware Player

Hace unos días que he remplazado a VMware Player por VirtualBox y la verdad que no me arrepiento de haber probado primero el Player, porque así ahora puedo apreciar todas las ventajas que tiene el otro, las cuales detallo rápidamente continuación:

• VirtualBox es más de diez veces más liviano
• ¡mantiene el reloj del guest sincronizado!
  
• permite crear y modificar VMs a partir de CDs, DVDs, o imágenes de ambos formatos, mediante una intuitiva interfaz gráfica
  
• permite guardar snapshots y agruparlos en forma jerárquica
• soporta dispositivos USB como impresoras y escáneres (aunque por ahora un mouse o teclado USB sólo funcionan bien si los emula como PS/2, que es lo que hace por omisión)
• no necesita modificar el host para acceder a sus carpetas
• puede operar más de una VM a la vez
• es grátis y la mayoría de su código es abierto

Sin duda que debe tener otras ventajas para usos más avanzados, así como ya me he topado con tres problemas de configuracion menores, pero por ahora, con estas diferencias me alcanza para adoptar a VirtualBox como mi plataforma de virtualización preferida.

Tips for Host Partitions

When the time comes that VMware player tells you it can't exit because you don't have enough space in your host partition to store the virtual machine state, yo will have no other choice than shut down Debian itself and start looking what has eaten your partition space and how you can free some without resizing the partition.

StepTree is a tool I recommend to see a 3D overview of what folders and files are taking the most space in your partition. By scaning the partition I placed my VM in, I could crearly see that a lot of space was taken by the contents of a system folder named System Volume Information. I had not seen that in Windows Explorer because I had previously set in Tools/Folder Options to hide system files from view, which renders a more clean view of special locations like your user folder.

The recycle bin folder was empty because I had already disable this feature for this partition. The setting can be reached by right clicking in the recycle bin icon in the desktop and selecting Properties.

If the recycle bin is not emtpy and you disable it right away, its contents will remain in the bin and you may not be able to delete them manually any other way than clearing all partition's recycle bin data in a single click. The propper way to disable a single partition recycle bin and get rid of its content is to first set the partition recycle bin size to "0", apply the change and then finally, disable the bin and apply.

In the case of the System Volume Information (SVI) folder, it should be empty since it uses FAT32 file system, which is not compatible with Windows' system restore feature. It turns out that I could not delet it manually because the folder was created and populated with restore data back when the partition was using a NTFS file system; the fact that now the partition is FAT32 prevents that any file inside is removed because the folder properties dialog is missing the Security tab, which is where you can change ownership of the folder to be able to delete files.

So having no other choice, I created an archive of my VM folder into another partition --using no compression so as to do it faster-- and formated the hosting partition, this time as a NTFS file system. Then right click on "Computer", select Properties, than System Protection, and check that your host partition is not selected in the list of protected partitions. Restore the archived VM, test run it, delete the archive if you need the space and you are done, now you are claiming the maximum available space you could get from your partition.

KVM Premiere

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is the newest virtualization technology implemented in recent Linux kernels. The main advantage, apart from improved virtual machine performance is that unlike VMware, it requires no modification to guest operating systems. But I repeat, KVM is a Linux host technology, so it does not apply to a Windows host - Linux guest scenario, but it is worth to know about it for the time come you have finally migrated to Linux and want to virtualize Windows.

Here are some introductory articles from Phoronix:

• Linux KVM Virtualization Performance
• Fedora 7 KVM Virtualization How-To

Virtual Desktop Linux System Requirements

So, what hardware do you need in your host PC to get a smooth virtualized desktop Linux experience? In my experience, as a user of Windows Vista Ultimate, I'd suggest meeting the following specs before you try general purpose virtualization:

• 2 Gigabytes of RAM memory. Windows Vista and your set of regular apps will probably use 50% of that memory most of the time when not using VMware.
• a 5 Gigabyte partition for your virtual machine files. That leaves about 2 Gigabytes of headroom to let the virtual disk images grow as you install new apps or update your virtual operating system.
• a relatively new, low end double core processor like the AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ will do just fine.
• a screen resolution of 1680x1050 is the lowest you will want to prevent your standard 1024x768 virtual machine window from bloking all your host desktop.

I still have to test some 3D app or game in my virtual Linux to see if my graphics card is supported.