VirtualBox is a powerful,free and easy-to-use x86 and AMD64/Intel64 Hypervisor/Virtualization solution. It is an extremely feature rich, high performance product for Enterprise, it is also the only Professional software that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). We are glad to announce that VirtualBox 4.0 final has been released for Ubuntu and is available in the repository as well.

Download :-

Ubuntu 10.10 32 Bit / 64 Bit.

Ubuntu 10.04 32 Bit / 64 Bit.

Ubuntu 9.10 32 Bit /64 Bit.

Install:-

Installing Virtual Box 4.0 is fairly simple. There are basically two best methods available.

1) Direct Install – The direct install is simply using the .deb file to install Virtualbox via Ubuntu-Software-Center or Gdebi-package-installer. Just a Double-click and installation will start. Those who had been testing Virtualbox 4.0 beta, they can directly upgrade to the newest version in the same way.

2) Terminal install :- Open the terminal and type :-

sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add this line and save the file :

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian maverick contrib

For Ubuntu 10.04 and 9.10, please replace ‘maverick’ from above line to ‘lucid’ & ‘karmic’ respectively.

Now add the key-file and continue with the installation.

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-4.0

and its done. Now you have VirtualBox 4.0 on your Ubuntu system.

Note:- Please Remove the older version of VirtualBox 3.2 in case you have it installed via Synaptic package manager. You may also need to install the extension packs. It can be done by running VBox 4.0 and selecting ‘Extensions’ tab from ‘Preferences’ in the ‘main menu’ .

Features :- VirtualBox 4.0 has come up after long time with a lot of new features, updates and bug-fixes.

1) Major changes to the GUI which is now called “VirtualBox Manager” :

• Redesigned user interface with guest window previews.
• New “scale” display mode with scaled guest display for better testing.
• The VM list is now sortable.
• Machines can now be deleted easily without a trace including snapshots and saved states, and optionally including attached disk images. A nice feature indeed.
• Desktop file shortcuts-support to start VMs in a double click. (#wow)

2) 32 Bit Memory support :- Support for more than 1.5/2 GB guest RAM on 32-bit hosts has been added.

3) Virtual Hardware :-

• Intel ICH9 chipset with three PCI buses, PCI Express and Message Signaled Interrupts (MSI),“Motherboard” tab.
• Intel HD Audio, for better support of modern guest operating systems.

4) Virtual Disks :- Imported disks can have formats other than VMDK. Bandwidth limitation for Disk images has also been added. Shared folders are now auto-mounted on Guest VMs.

5) Resource Allocation & Control :- Support for limiting a VM’s CPU time and IO bandwidth has been added.

6) Multiple Display :- This one is exclusively for Linux. Support for multiple virtual screens in Linux and Solaris guests using X.Org server 1.3 has been added.

7) Most prominent Bug-fixes :-

• Fixed Unity/Compiz crashes on Natty.
• Fixed OpenGL support for libMesa 7.9.
• Combined 32-bit and 64-bit additions into one file.
• GUI warnings don’t stop the VM output anymore.

With all these and many other new things coming in for Linux, we can say that VirtualBox 4.0 is the best VMM to be kept for testing/previewing OS inside Ubuntu machines.

Testing Lubuntu 10.10 with VirtualBox 4.0 :- Run VirtualBox 4.0 from Application>System Tools>Oracle VM Virtualbox.

1) Click “New”  from the menu to start ‘Virtual-machine-manager’ and click next.
2) Select VM name and OS-type.
3) Allocate Memory : You can allocate as much as you want but 512 MB is recommended.
4) Virtual Hard-disk : Select ‘dynamically expanding’ disk or ‘fixed-size’ disk according to your need. Now, allocate disk space where Lubuntu will be installed.(3.2 GB is min. but 5 GB is recommended).
5) Click finish and insert bootable CD of Lubuntu in the drive, a wizard will open and ask for ‘installation media’, select it and start testing.

Lubuntu 10.10 installation instruction can be found in our previous post.

For any queries regarding Virtual Box or any regarding Ubuntu can be asked here at the Forums.

Njoy !!