Virtualization for Beginner

[Daniel B. Thurman]

Richard Shaw wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 12:21 PM, Daniel B. Thurman <dant at cdkkt.com> wrote:
>   
>> das wrote:
>>     
>>> Hello Friends
>>>
>>> As a member of a local linux group called GLT, a few different distros
>>> of GNU-Linux we have to handle. One or two versions of each Fedora,
>>> Ubuntu, and OpenSuse.
>>>
>>> Earlier, I installed more than one Linux on the HD just for getting
>>> some suggestion when someone is in problem. Gradually, due to the UUID
>>> and all this is becoming problemsome. One brute way out is to rewrite
>>> 'fstab' with device-names in place of UUID-s. But people say these
>>> days a lot of applications read the UUID-s, so this may get
>>> problemsome.
>>>
>>> So, after some friends suggested, I now want to go into
>>> virtualization. And I know nothing. I have a really huge amount of HD
>>> space, and 4GB memory. And my CPU has the virtualization flags. I am
>>> myself using Fedora 11 Beta and I want to have virtual installations
>>> of Ubuntu and OpenSuse on my system.
>>>
>>> Can you people please suggest me from where to start, some good
>>> documentation, and not too technical. We are a Linux-User group,
>>> mainly teachers in profession.
>>>
>>> Thanking You
>>>
>>>       
>> Ok, I followed that wonderful guide, installed VirtualBox,
>> and chose XP as my first Virtual Machine, but I was
>> perplexed with "Virtual Hard Disk" menu.
>>
>> It seems that VM Wizard wants to create an "image", but my
>> problem is, that I already have a multiboot setup with XP in
>> it's own primary partition.
>>
>> The choices I have is to:
>> 1) Create new hard disk
>> 2) Use existing hard disk
>>
>> and then it has a drop down for `media'
>>
>> What exactly does it mean by choice (2)?
>>
>> Do I have to use the XP CD/DVD and create a NEW
>> hard disk partition or what?  What are my options?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Dan
>>     
>
> Take a look at section 4.1 or 4.2 in the manual I can't remember it
> exactly. Or search the mailing list as this has been discussed
> recently. To use an existing partition you create a .vmdk file using
> the command line, sorry no graphical method yet that I know of. You
> can add access to the whole disk (not recommended) or just to that
> single partition (recommended).
>
> Richard
>   

I looked around for VirtualBox command line in the PDF manual
and could not find it.  However, I found this blog on how to do it,
however, the showstopper for me was being able to create a file
mbr such as winXP.mbr, which is a required step and this blog uses
debian's mbr package (for Ubunto).  Is there a Fedora equivilent for
creating an mbr file?

Here is the blog link on how to do it:
http://mesbalivernes.blogspot.com/2008/01/virtual-box-booting-from-existing.html

If there is a better howto, please let me know?