Virtualization As An Alternative To Dual Booting Part 2

Overview

• Article 1 covers installing and configuring my virtualization platform of choice, the Sun xVM VirtualBox.
• Article 2 covers installing Windows XP on VirtualBox and configuring system hardware and peripherals.
• Article 3 covers the pros and cons of using a virtual machine as well as for which types of projects they are suited.

Alright, it’s time to pick up where I left off in article 1.  Now that virtualbox is installed and I have a virtual machine configured to store the windows operating system, it’s time to install windows.

Installing Windows XP on VirtualBox

1. So from the Sun xVM VirtualBox main menu, I highlight the virtual machine I want to configure and click settings.

   

2. Under settings I click the CD/DVD Rom option so I can mount the dvd drive from which windows will be loaded and click ok.

   

3. Now I’m back at the main virtualbox screen, and I click Start to launch the virtual machine and begin installing windows.

   

4. Now the windows operating system cd should boot and the windows setup installation should start.

   

5. The windows setup will detect the 10GB partition that was created to store the virtual machine.

   

6. I just format the partition using the Quick NTFS option.

   

7. The installation should coast along now.

   

   

   

Getting Control Of the Mouse

Now that Windows is installed and running, it becomes apparent that I don’t have control of the mouse and have to go through the initial configuration screens solely using the keyboard.

When I try to click anywhere in the windows virtual machine, I get the following message.  However I still do not have control of the mouse until the Guest OS Additions are installed which provides the virtual machine with mouse integration support.

Installing Guest Additions

1. Once windows fully loads up, with the mouse, navigate to the virtual machine menu and click the Devices tab.  Under this tab, select the install Guest Additions option.

   

2. Now I’m presented with the following setup screen.  It’s a simple install.  I just have to used the keyboard to install it as the mouse won’t be working inside the virtual machine until this software is installed.  After the install, reboot the virtual machine.  When it starts again, I have control of the mouse.

   

   

   

   

   

   

Now that the mouse is no longer an issue, I must now tackle the fact that I don’t have access to any of my usb peripherals.  I don’t know if this is an issue on other linux distros, but it is with ubuntu 64bit hardy.  This is basically because virtualBox expects to find the usb devices in a different location than the location where ubuntu stores them.  Trying to right click on the usb icon at the bottom of the virtual machines, the usb devices may be visable but grayed-out.  I also received some usb related error messages.

Getting USB Devices Working

1. The first thing I had to do was enable usb support on the virtual machine.  From the the main window of the virtual machine, click on settings.  Choose the usb option from the menu and enable usb and usb 2.0 controller support.

   

   

2. The next thing I had to do was go to the Users and Groups option in the administration tab located under the ubuntu system menu.  From here I unlocked the menu using my admin password and clicked manage groups.

   

3. A list of groups appeared and I scrolled down until I saw vboxusers.  I double-clicked on the group and found out its group id which I will need for later steps.

   

   

4. Next I had to edit the fstab file.

   sudo gedit /etc/fstab

5. I added the following line at the bottom of the file to mount the usb file system(/proc/bus/usb) on the mount point usbfs where virtualbox expects to find it.  The devgid should be changed to whatever group id was determined in step 1.

   none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=126,devmode=664 0 0

6. Now that I have a mount point established as usbfs, I need to actually set it up to mount automatically so virtualbox can use it.  To do this, I start by editing the mountkernfs.sh file.

   sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountkernfs.sh

7. Add the line,

   domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev,devgid=126,devmode=664

   right above the line,

   # Mount spufs, if Cell Broadband processor is detected

   Save and close the file.

8. Next edit the mountdevsubsfs.sh file by uncommenting the following lines.

   #mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
   #domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
   #ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
   #mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

   to read

   mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
   domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
   ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
   mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

   Now save and close the file.

9. After all this is done, restart ubuntu.  Start the windows virtual machine again.  Now when right-clicking on the usb icon on the bottom of the virtual machine, I am now able to click on the usb devices I have available on my machine.  After clicking on a given device, windows will either automatically install it or require additional software drivers to be downloaded to enable device functionality.

   

Summary

This article focused on installing the Windows XP operating system on the virtualization platform, getting the mouse working, and enabling usb connected devices.  During this stage, I didn’t run into many installation issues.  It was pretty straightforward. The focus of the next article will detail my particular experience with the wacom intuos3 tablet and performance issue that come up when using a virtual platform.

Check back soon for Part 3 of the series where I’ll be examining the performance issues that arise with using a virtual platform.

Kim Jackson

Related Articles

• Virtualization As An Alternative To Dual Booting Part 3
• Virtualization As An Alternative To Dual Booting Part 1
• How To: Dual Booting Linux & Windows On Separate Hard Drives Part 3
• How To: Dual Booting Linux & Windows On Separate Hard Drives Part 2
• How To: Dual Booting Linux & Windows On Separate Hard Drives Part 1