You can leave the default answer checked if you don’t plan to use this virtual disk with other virtualization software. If you do create a virtual disk, you’ll have to choose the disk file format.

When you just want to test a live operating system, without installing, you can skip this step and choose “Do not add a virtual hard disk.” In the next step you can create the new virtual disk where the operating system will be installed. Keep in mind, though, that if you move the slider past the green line, things can dramatically slow down. Text-based server distributions can run with 1GB of RAM. Operating systems that include a graphical user interface will need at least 2GB of RAM. If time and Internet bandwidth don’t allow a download of a few gigabytes, you can download a very small Ubuntu ISO image for a quick test.Īfter naming your new virtual machine and selecting the operating system type and version, click on “Next.” “Live” means you can try it even without, or before, installing. For example, from this link you can download a Debian live image with your favorite desktop environment. First, though, you need to download a bootable ISO file. In other desktop environments, such as LXDE (Lubuntu), VirtualBox appears under the “System Tools” category.Īfter launching the utility, you’ll see a button labeled “New” in the top-left corner.Īfter clicking on this button, you are guided through a few easy steps to create your first virtual machine. Type “virtualbox” and click on the icon to launch the program. In Ubuntu’s default desktop environment, just press the Super key (usually the one with the Windows logo). VirtualBox should now appear in the applications menu. If, for some reason, you find it missing, you can install it manually with sudo apt install virtualbox-qt. This is the package that shows us a graphical user interface for VirtualBox. Normally, “virtualbox-qt” should install automatically alongside other dependencies. It’s more universal, works the same way anywhere and you can see what is going on.Īfter opening a terminal emulator, you can easily install virtualbox with this command: sudo apt update & sudo apt install virtualbox Install VirtualBox through Ubuntu’s Software Center application. Let’s see how we can install and run virtual machines on Ubuntu with VirtualBox.

Installing ubuntu on virtualbox