Everyone now days knows how important it is to test software, or even just have a simple sandbox to install, tweak or manipulate your software and operating systems.  For those that don’t know, I just told you.  Now you know its important!

Why? Ok, maybe not for everyone.  But if you work in any sort of business as an IT professional, it is extremely important to know how the applications you deploy react and behave in your environment.  This is where Virtual Machines come in, VirtualBox to be specific.  Sun Microsystems unleashed this fancy little gem on the public June 30th of 2009.  And up to this point, it is a hit!

For a couple years now I’ve become quite familiar with VMWare and Parallels.  Both I’ve always felt were somewhat lacking in performance.  But I was OK with that, I knew it was a virtual machine and that it would never be as fast as a real PC.  Until I came across Sun’s VirtualBox 3.0.  Now before I brag about how much faster it is than the other two I am speaking in regards to desktop performance.  There is no server speak here. I have to say that performance wise I am much happier with VirtualBox 3.0 over VMWare.  I’m not going to go into the details of the performance.  There’s tons of resources for that available via a quick google search.  The purpose here is simply to install it and use it under Ubuntu or Kubuntu.

  1. Add the VirtualBox Repository.
    2. $ sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian jaunty non-free' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"
  2. Add the Sun public key for the VirtualBox Repository.
    3. $ wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
  3. The key fingerprint should be the following.
    4. AF45 1228 01DA D613 29EF  9570 DCF9 F87B 6DFB CBAE
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (xVM VirtualBox archive signing key) <info@virtualbox.org>
  4. Update the package database to include our new repository.
    5. $ sudo apt-get update
  5. Install VirtualBox 3.0 and dkms.
    6. $ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-3.0 dkms
  6. As the install progresses you will be prompted by the installer that it will create the vboxusers group.  The host network interfaces will also be assigned to this group.
    7. Press OK to continue.
  7. Next you will be prompted that a “precompiled module for the current kernel” could not be found.  Steps 7 and 8 did not come up on my machine but I’ve heard that it can on some systems.
    8. Press OK to continue.
  8. The installer will then ask if it should compile the vboxdrv kernel module now. Depending on your computer’s configuration it may also ask for vboxnetflt and vboxnetadp to be compiled as well.
    9. Press YES to continue.
  9. After everything is all said and done, you must add any user’s that will need to run VirtualBox to the “vboxusers” group.
    10. $ sudo usermod -G vboxusers YOURUSERNAME
  10. Reboot!

And that is all!  VirtualBox 3.0.2 should now be installed assuming there were no problems along the way.  If you are running Ubuntu you should be able to see “Sun VirtualBox” listed in your Applications > System Tools menu.

As a footnote, I would also like to let you know if you want to install an older version of VirtualBox for your own reasons. This can be achieved by using the following instead of step 5 listed above.

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apt-get install virtualbox  // This will install version 1.6.6
apt-get install virtualbox-2.0  // This will install version 2.0.8
apt-get install virtualbox-2.1  // This will install version 2.1.4
apt-get install virtualbox-2.2  // This will install version 2.2.4

And For those of you who are using something other than Jaunty, here are the other repositories available

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian jaunty non-free
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid non-free
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian hardy non-free
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian gutsy non-free
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian dapper non-free
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian lenny non-free
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian etch non-free
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian sarge non-free
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian xandros4.0-xn non-free

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