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VirtualBox -- Create VM for Booting Live ISOs/CDs/DVDs

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gold_finger:
You can just install same LL version to the VM and have a clean, new install to test things on.

If you mean that you did some custom settings, installed extra programs, etc. and want to make a duplicate of that, there is an old program called "remastersys" that can do that.  Last I checked it has not been maintained for the last 1-2 years; but I did use it as recently as 3-6 months ago on Linux Mint 16 and it worked fine.  I haven't tried it on anything based on Ubuntu 14.04, but it might work.

There are probably other ways to do make an ISO from your current install, but I haven't explored anything other than remastersy myself.  Maybe someone else has a better idea or another method for you.

Let me know if you need something like that -- maybe I'll have time to test it out for you over weekend.

Wirezfree:
Hi gold_finger,

Another nice tutorial... excellent.

What I'm trying to read up on,
Is creating a VM from my nice clean LL2.0 installation before I start doing to much on it.
That way I can test things in the VM before I do it on my actual install.
In windows it was very easy with the application disk2vhd.
But in Linux all I have found is lots of things with lots of commands that are just bit to much,
and I don't want to break my nice install  :'(

Dave

gold_finger:
This is additional information on using VirtualBox once it is installed.  For the basics on installing, creating VMs (virtual machines), and enabling USB support for VBox -- see Help Manual -> Software page -> Software Tutorials page link.



Creating a Dedicated VM for Live ISO/CD/DVD Booting

Sometimes you may not want to install to a virtual hard drive.  You may just want to test something, take a look at an OS before deciding to install it, or you may just not want to use all of your disk space for virtual drives of various OSs.  Whatever the reason, it is handy to setup a VM specifically for just booting live OSs.  The example below describes how to do that and is setting it up to boot 64-bit versions of Linux.  (Adjust settings as appropriate for the OSs you might be booting.)

From main VBox window, click New to make a new VM.

Fill-in Name, Type and Version.

* Name = Live64DVDs  (you can name it anything you like)
* Type = Linux
* Version = Other Linux (64-bit)
* NOTE:  these settings can be changed later if necessary.  After VM is created, just highlight it and click the Settings button.
* Click Next to continue.
Set the amount of memory (RAM) to dedicate to the VM.

* Between 512MB - 2GB should work for most situations.
* DO NOT allot more than half of your memory to the VM.
* You can adjust the dedicated memory any time later if you need to change it.
* Click Next to continue.
On the Hard drive page, click "Do not add a virtual hard drive".  It will warn you that you are creating a VM without a hard drive.  Hit "Continue", because that is what you do want in this case.

Your "Live64DVD" VM will now appear on the main VBox window.  When a VM is highlighted on the left, a summary of its settings will be shown on the right.

* Highlight your new VM for live disks.
* Notice that under Storage it is showing the CD/DVD drive for booting and that it is Empty.  That is telling you that nothing is currently selected to boot the VM from.  So if you were to click Start at this point, nothing would boot.
* If you want to boot a CD or DVD, just load it into the tray and it will boot when you start the VM.
* If you want to boot an ISO file you have downloaded to your hard drive, you need to go into the settings for your live VM and tell it where that ISO file is and to use it for booting.
* Highlight the VM and click Settings button
* In Settings window, click "Storage" along left side
* Under "Storage Tree", click the word "Empty" under "Controller: IDE" (there will be a CD icon next to "Empty").
* Under "Attributes" (right side), click to check box for "Live CD/DVD"
* Now click the CD icon just above that to the right.
* Select "Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file"
*
* That will open a window for navigating to the ISO in your file system.  Find the one you want, select it and click "Open".
* It will now show up in the Storage Tree under "Controller: IDE"
* Click "OK"
* Back on the main VBox window and you will see that the ISO file is showing in the "Storage" settings for your VM.
*

* If you would like to adjust the Display settings to enable 3D or 2D acceleration and/or give the machine more video memory, go ahead and do that.
* When done adjusting settings, click the greenStart arrow and it will boot just like you computer would if you were using a live CD/DVD.
With this VM created, you no longer need to create a new virtual hard drive just to test out an ISO/CD/DVD or run something live if you need to for some other reason.  Just select your live disk VM, change the settings to point to the correct ISO (or load your CD/DVD in the tray), and hit Start.


Tip:  If you frequently try out both 32-bit and 64-bit OSs, make a VM for each so you don't have to remember changing that setting when moving from one to the other.

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