Leveraging virtualization possibly replacing multiple boot

Support & Help Requests
#1

I currently have a multiple boot scenario that I’m thinking about switching to virtualisation. I’ve not found answers to my questions on line. My idea is install Ubuntu on SSD and run Win 7 and test linux as a guest OSes. The prime motivation is to simplify.

Existing configuration:

  • SSD hosting Windows 7 and programs - I boot by selecting in BIOS
  • 12 GB memory, Intel core i7 CPUrecovery partition on SSD [no Win7 physical media]
  • internal HDD for shared data storage [NTFS]
  • Ubuntu 14.04 LTS will replaced with UM 16.04 LTS after release
  • test partition deleted plan on installing guest OSes
  • ESATA 1TB drive for backups and additional storage

So here are my questions:

  1. Is it possible to install Windows 7 into a virtual environment from a self created iso image ?
  2. If possible can Windows be maintained running as guest os? Can Windows swap be on non-bootable drive?
  3. Can software installed be properly maintained and upgraded?
  4. Will installing multiple guest OSes drastically decrease the life of SSD?
  5. most appropriate virtualization software for my situation?

And of course any advice on how to proceed will be considered!

#2

I’m not sure on all your answers. But I work for an IT company that requires me to use Windows all day long. I run Windows 10 pro in Virtualbox and use it full screen as a desktop pretty often. I gave it 6g Ram and 256m Video memory. I can do pretty much all my work stuff without realizing i’m in a VM… I run Labtech, MS Office(multiple open windows), a browser, connectwise CRM, Skype, and a couple various other tools.

As far as my system… System76 GalagoUltraPro - i7, 16g ram, 1tb ssd with intel iris graphics…

I also test distros in VM’s …There are a couple a really like to play with but aren’t production ready enough for me to use full time. Again, same results in usage…pretty much hard to tell they are VM’s when full screen.

An add is in Virtual box you can drag and drop across host and guest, and create shared folders…

I babbled a bit, but I hope it can give you an Idea of what a VM can handle.

Note…I don’t play games in the VM’s…

Cheers,
Tim

2 Likes
#3

Having used VirtualBox and VMware Player (now called Workstation Player) for a while, I will try and answer your questions.

  1. First a question, how do you plan on generating a self created ISO image? If happy with your current Windows 7 install, you can use a free tool (VMware offer one) which converts a host Windows install into a guest OS (virtual machine). There’s one caveat, you will need to reactivate Windows, same license cannot be used on two machines (virtual machine appears as different hardware), same goes for most software requiring registration, Adobe products can be legally unregistered on old system (host), for use on your new virtual (guest) system.

  2. Absolutely! By “Windows swap” I guess you mean ‘Virtual memory’ paging? You can set-up as many virtual hard drives as you need. Some can be on host SSD, such as your boot drive (C:), others can be located on a secondary host HDD. Within the virtual machine, you can then assign which drive to use for ‘Virtual memory’ paging, drives will appear as they do on a host Windows install, such as C:, D: E: and so on.

  3. Yes, as long as (mentioned above) software requiring activation has been taken care of.

  4. Modern SSDs operate complex wear levelling, helping prolong the life of SSDs by invisibly moving data around. There is something you can further do to help in this regard, and which also helps while backing up guest machines to another drive on your host system. While creating a virtual drive, choose VMDK disk type and select “Split into files of less than 2GB” (VirtualBox). On an HDD this may cause a slight decrease in performance, but on SSD it’s hardly noticeable.

  5. Used to always use VMware Player, but now mostly use VirtualBox, both have their strengths and weaknesses. If wanting to game or use complex 3D applications, then probably VMware Workstation Player (free for non-commercial use), for most other needs I would highly recommend VirtualBox, VirtualBox guests also boot faster.

2 Likes
#4

I haven’t ignored your first question - I’ve been experimenting with virtualization. I’m posting this from my first success - I failed a few time with other products. Oracle VM VirtualBox installed and I have a ubuntu gnome 15.10 guest os running! I hope my learning curve going forward isn’t quite as steep as it’s been up to now :wink:

#5

Be sure these three packages are installed in the guest.

vBoxGuest.png749×71 12.1 KB

Can you go full screen (toolbar>view)?

1 Like
#6

Absolutely not a problem. Congratulations on your first success! :slight_smile:

Have noticed a few issues with VirtualBox version 5.0.18 and Guest Additions version 5.0.18. If you’re on 5.0.16, I’d hang on for a few days!

Main issues are (right) Ctrl+F (switch to full screen) not working as it should, works instantaneously with 5.0.16, while with 5.0.17 / 5.0.18 there’s a real lag, or screen doesn’t resize at all, then while trying to switch back to window mode the screen doesn’t resize. Also noticed file drag and drop issues.

Before someone asks, this is with Guest Additions version 5.0.18 installed and drivers activated. Even tried keeping Guest Additions 5.0.16 with VirtualBox 5.0.18, while Ctrl+F works, drag and drop no longer works. :slight_smile:
Will see about creating a bug report.

In case helpful, here’s a few VirtualBox guest machine settings tips:

System -> Motherboard

  • Don’t add too much memory straight away, for example (if you have enough host system memory) you will probably find you are able to accomplish most things with 2GB (2048), increase as necessary, but never beyond the illustrated green line.

System -> Processor

  • Never assign more than half of available processors (illustrated by green line). Adding more greatly improves guest performance.

Display -> Screen

  • Increase Video Memory to at least 128 MB (maximum for GNU/Linux guests)

  • Try tests with / without Enable 3D acceleration selected, find which works best for your preferred guest applications. While 3D acceleration is useful, it (currently) has a few issues, or can even prevent some applications from working correctly.

  • Enable 2D Video Acceleration is only available for Windows guests, 2D acceleration is used for video overlays.

1 Like
#7

@anon42388993 Thanks - I possibly don’t have those - I installed from Oracle’s site since the version available for 14.04 was 32 bit only. I’ll check when I get to that machine. I’m testing this on Ubuntu 14 LTS with gnome flash back because there’s plenty of room in that partition. I expect that once I install UM 16 LTS there won’t be many, if any, problems.

@DaveB Thanks Dave, your input will certainly shorten my learning curve - which started by updating my bios, trying gnome-boxes [utter failure for me], and finally getting VirtualBox working [I installed directly from Oracle’s site and choose the 64 bit version for Ubuntu 14].
Now that I have one guest os installed and running I’m pretty certain, with guidance from this forum, I’ll be able to proceed with my experiment. From your ear;lier question about Windows - I think spending a little time might disuade me from my original goal of running Windows 7 [I never play computer games] as guest os and installing UM on SSD. There might not be enough space to support the other part of my goal - to eliminate dual booting completely and test to my heart’s content in virtual environments.

#8

If referring to comments left on Ubuntu Software Centre? Think there’s been some misunderstanding, they are not supplying a 32bit only version, description describes CPU code architecture x86, meaning it’s built to run on Intel and AMD (x86 and x64) CPUs.

Before Oracle released a version compiled for 16.04 (VirtualBox 5.0.18 is the first), I’ve been using the Ubuntu Software Centre version, happily running my x64 guest machines. So saying, VirtualBox is one of the exceptions where I prefer/recommend downloading from Oracle, their version includes most files in one .deb (Guest Additions being one example).

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#9

Those are still needed packages regardless of the download source :slight_smile:

1 Like
#10

@anon42388993 Thanks - these 3 packages were NOT included when installing from Oracle’s site. They will obviously make things a bit better, but did not prevent a successful test last night. I haven’t tried and not certain exactly when toolbar is ;-(

@DaveB the version installed by Oracle when choosing Ubuntu 14 is Version 5.0.18 r106667

#11

I have a Windows 7 “live” disk that boots as guest OS in VirtualBox. I also have a Win 7 “system image” available on a dvd as well as a NAS - thus far I’ve not discovered how to identify either from the guest window. My plan was to install Win 7 fully into using one of the system images. Any suggestions?

TIA

#12

I would recommend using kvm/qemu. From my experience it seems to be a little bit less resource intensive than virtualbox.

#13

Apologise for reply delay!

Not quite sure I understand what you mean by not being able to identify from within the guest window? Probably not what you’re meaning (but just in case), while creating a virtual machine I add custom information in the ‘Name:’ field to help identify various similar OS guests.

If virtual machine is already created, you can edit a guests name using Settings (General -> Basic -> Name:), difference being previously created (virtual) hard drives will retain the original guest name. Unless using the 2GB split option, this can be changed after.

Also apologise if above information is completely off the mark! :slight_smile:

#14

I’ve also used (and like) QEMU. Recommend VirtualBox as it’s simpler to set-up and use, especially for those new to virtualization.

#15

Certainly no need for an apology. :relaxed: The option presented after the Win Repair Disk is running as guest os is to recover from an image previously created. The Image is stored in 3 places:

  1. NAS
  2. local physical internal drive that is NOT the boot drive
  3. DVD
    I’ve not been able to select any of these.
    Maybe this makes more sense ;-(
#16

[quote=“DaveB, post:6, topic:5097”]
Have noticed a few issues with VirtualBox version 5.0.18 and Guest Additions version 5.0.18. If you’re on 5.0.16, I’d hang on for a few days!

Main issues are (right) Ctrl+F (switch to full screen) not working as it should, works instantaneously with 5.0.16, while with 5.0.17 / 5.0.18 there’s a real lag, or screen doesn’t resize at all, then while trying to switch back to window mode the screen doesn’t resize. Also noticed file drag and drop issues…[/quote]

As an update to my (above) previous post snip-it. Had chance to try further tests. Seems 5.0.16 is also partially broken with 16.04 LTS, while screen resize works correctly with 5.0.16, drag and drop no longer works.

Current, best advice is to use VirtualBox 5.018, but make sure guest machines only use Guest Additions version 5.0.16 (virtualbox.org download link for Guest Additions 5.0.16 ISO).

While VirtualBox versions 5.0.16 and 5.0.18 no longer support drag and drop due to 16.04 LTS changes, at least using Guest Additions 5.0.16 allows screen resize to work as expected until a fixed VirtualBox version is available.

#17

Yes, thanks (or at least I hope so!). :smiley:

Couple of points: First, would be very surprised if a previously created host system image will work if restored within a guest. Just to clarify, the image will restore but most likely will not boot into Windows even after trying to fix using a Windows repair option.

Second, Unless a physical storage device is connected to the guest via USB or network (easiest option is USB), it’s not possible for a guest to know storage devices exist containing a system image. For your DVD, have you changed guest Optical Drive settings to Host Drive?

#18

Thanks for your continued help! Well I’m at a loss here … especially with point 2 … point 1 about which you’re absolutely correct [quote=“DaveB, post:17, topic:5097”]
First, would be very surprised if a previously created host system image will work if restored within a guest
[/quote]Did I mention that I’m using Ubuntu 14.04 lts with gnome flashback for my virtualization experiment [UM 16 is in a test partition - too small for this]?

[quote=“DaveB, post:17, topic:5097”]
Second, Unless a physical storage device is connected to the guest via USB or network (easiest option is USB), it’s not possible for a guest to know storage devices exist containing a system image. For your DVD, have you changed guest Optical Drive settings to Host Drive?
[/quote] I am completely at a loss about how to connect a guest to anything :weary: after menu selection prompted by guest…Maybe I’ll adjust my original goal and ignore replacing the SSD Win 7 with UM. I’ve been totally successful with installing a bootable linux iso in a guest session. Since I use Win7 for some really cpu intensive tasks it might not be such a good idea to run it as a guest. My tertiary goal was to test Win10 which I’ve also failed miserably [I thought that by booting a Windows 7 repair disk as gurest I would be able to select win10 iso … not!]

#19

You’re welcome!

I had forgotten you’re using 14.04, if want to try with 16.04 this also possible even with a small partition, unless you literally have no space left on the partition. Way to accomplish this is as follows…

  • Boot Ubuntu MATE 16.04
  • After installing VirtualBox 5.0.18, on main VirtualBox window go to
    File -> Preferences -> General -> Default Machine Folder: (click the drop-down) and select Other, locate your 14.04 /Home and find your previously created virtual machines.

My personally preference is to store VirtualBox VMs folder on a separate SSD partition, away from host OS, it’s then easy to share guest machines with different host operating systems, plus you don’t lose virtual machines if perform a clean host OS install but possibly forgot to backup the guests beforehand.

If trying to connect a USB storage device to a guest while using a GNU/Linux host, this is not possible unless you first add yourself to vboxusers (ignore remainder of this post if already completed this step)…

Control Centre -> Users and Groups -> Manage Groups

…from the list select vboxusers, click Properties, click the blank box next to your username so a tick appears. After clicking Okay, restart the host OS, you will then be able to use USB devices within guest machines.

#20

Thanks for the suggestions. I hadn’t considered storing having a separate area … hmmmm since I have TONS of disk space available can I store virtual machines in a NTFS partition? - this would enable me to also test or trouble shoot Ubuntu problems while running Windows.

I’d like to use a separate SSD partition, but I don’t have any extra space on my SSD. I do have a 1 TB eSata drive formatted NTFS that I keep permanently attached [hence the question above].

Any ideas about how to create a VirtualBox bootable Win7 iso?