Virtualization for Beginner

[Richard Shaw]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Daniel B. Thurman <dant at cdkkt.com> wrote:

> 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?


Sorry, I was WAY off... it section 9.10 in the user manual. The suggested
method allowing only access to the partition is 9.10.2. My bad.

Richard
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listman.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/attachments/20090425/c3e53891/attachment-0001.htm>