Linux getting started Tutorial: Virtual Machine experience in VirtualBox

Linux getting started Tutorial: Virtual Machine experience in VirtualBox

The first two articles experience QEMU and QEMU accelerated by KVM, and experience the third-party Virtual Machine Management Tool virt-manager, we have seen the strong open source community and the high quality and high performance of Open Source Virtual Machine Software. This article analyzes VirtualBox. VirtualBox is currently the most powerful Virtual Machine Product in the open source field. On the Linux platform, it is basically chosen as the preferred Virtual Machine Software. VirtualBox is not powerful. After all, its back-end is a rich Oracle company. VirtualBox's willfulness is not covered. It does not use the open-source components I mentioned earlier, such as qemu, kvm, and libvirt, used by various virtual machines, its front-end, back-end, and kernel acceleration modules are all self-developed. Only the VNC required by Remote Desktop uses libvncserver.

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I mentioned in the title that VirutalBox is a classic architecture. The so-called classic is mainly embodied in the following aspects:

1. The virtual machine and the System (Guest System) in the virtual machine are still running on the master operating System (Host System), but only accelerated through the kernel module of the master operating System;

2. in the classic Front-End architecture of Unix systems, in VirtualBox, the graphic interface of VirtualBox is only the graphical packaging of the Virtual Machine Software VBoxManage on the command line interface, it also provides command line tools such as VBoxSDL and VBoxHeadless. For example, VBoxHeadless can run a virtual machine that does not display the Virtual Machine desktop. to display the desktop, you can run a Remote Desktop Connection. One advantage of frontend and backend separation is that desktop users can use the front-end graphical interface to simplify operations, while enterprise users can use the command line tool to build automated scripts, even when the system starts, the VM runs automatically.

I didn't like VirtualBox in the first place. A small episode almost missed such a good Virtual Machine Software. Originally, I first saw VirtualBox put in the first place in various Linux forums, rather than the overwhelming KVM and Xen in the news. I thought VirutalBox may not be professional enough, when VirtualBox is used for the first time, it is found that it cannot forward Ctrl + Alt + Fx (x = 1 ~ 12), it is found that some of its configurations cannot be completely set in the graphic interface, you need to manually change the configuration file, and then I will give up. It wasn't until I had mastered the correct methodology of tossing Linux and read its 369-page user manual that I really understood its power and fell in love with it.

First, it is very easy to install VirutalBox In Ubuntu. You only need a sudo apt-get install virtualbox.

After installing VirtualBox, you can check the "Classic Architecture" that I mentioned earlier. The commands and running results are as follows:

The lsmod command shows that after VirtualBox is installed, several kernel modules are installed in the main operating system to accelerate virtual machines. I will not post any images of using the kernel module to accelerate virtual machines. Please refer to my previous article. You can use the dpkg-L command to check which command line tools VirtualBox provides. Finally, we can see through the dpkg-S command that the VirtualBox executable program actually belongs to the virtualbox-qt package, and it is only a graphical encapsulation.

Start VirtualBox, create a VM, and install the operating system. The graphic interface is powerful, and the execution is correct step by step. After WinXP is installed, the running effect is as follows:

The figure shows that the CPU recognized by WinXP is an accurate Intel Core i7-4770K, although I only assigned it two cores. However, the video card cannot be accurately identified. This is because there is no driver in the WinXP system. Therefore, you need to install the VirtualBox client system enhancement tool. On the menu bar, choose to install the enhancement function, for example:

Then VirtualBox will install a virtual disc for WinXP. Double-click the disc to install the client system enhancement tool in WinXP, for example:

The client System enhancement tool is installed in the Guest System. It can be considered that the client System enhancement tool mainly contains the drivers required by the customer's operating System because these drivers are not available, the customer's operating system may not be able to recognize virtual hardware, such as virtual graphics cards. Of course, the features of the client's system enhancement tools are far more than that, such as graphics 3D acceleration, shared folders between the main operating system and the customer's operating system, and the best, that is, let the customer's operating system enter the seamless mode. For example, after installing the user enhancement tool, you can identify the video card type and have different resolution options, such:

Press the Host + L key to enter the seamless mode. For example, you can see that windows in Ubuntu and windows in WinXP coexist in Ubuntu:

For more details, please continue to read the highlights on the next page:

 

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