How to create a Linux virtual machine with VirtualBox

Linux is everywhere – in phones, smart devices, cloud storage services, cars, thermostats, and anything with embedded systems or major third-party services.

It can also be on your desktop. Linux is a great choice as a desktop operating system because it is extremely reliable, secure, and more flexible than any other operating system on the market. But for those who might be hesitant to install Linux on macOS or Windows, what can you do? One route that makes it easy to test and use Linux without doing anything to your primary operating system is the virtual machine route.

With that said, let’s get our virtual machine up and running.

Create virtual machine

1. Open VirtualBox

The first thing you will do is open VirtualBox from your desktop menu. Once the app is open, click Tools and then New (Figure 1).

2. Name your new guest OS

I will create a virtual machine for FerenOS, a Linux distribution. In the first window of the wizard (Figure 2), give the virtual machine a name, select the folder containing the files, select the operating system type for the new virtual machine and the version, and then click Next.

3. RAM Configuration

In the next window, slide the Memory Size slider to the right to increase the amount of RAM you want to allocate to the machine (Figure 3).

4. Create a virtual hard disk

Click Next and in the resulting window (Figure 4), click Create to create a new virtual hard disk.

In the next two windows, select VDI, then Dynamic Allocation. In the last window, slide the slider to the right to increase the size of the virtual hard disk as much as you need and make sure to select a folder to contain the drive (Figure 5).

Click Create and you will be returned to the main VirtualBox window.

Configure your guest OS

Now we can configure our guest OS. One thing you need to be sure to do (before doing this step) is to download the ISO file for the version of Linux you want to install.

1. Add ISO image to install

Select the virtual machine you just created from the left pane, then click Install. In the resulting window click on Storage and then left click the + associated with the Controller: IDE (Figure 6).

In the results window (Figure 7), click Add, and when your file manager opens, navigate to wherever you saved the ISO image for the Linux distribution you downloaded.

Once you have selected your ISO image, click Select and then OK. You should now find yourself back in the main VirtualBox window, where you are ready to run the virtual machine.

Start the installation

Select the virtual machine you just created in the left navigation and click the Start button, which will launch the bootable image and – depending on your chosen Linux distro – will take you to the live image (where you can test or install the guest OS) or install it immediately for the guest (Figure 8).

Make sure to go through the entire installation process for the guest OS you selected. In most cases, that will require clicking the Settings icon on the desktop.

Congratulations, you’ve just created your first virtual machine with Linux as the guest OS. Enjoy the refreshing feel of your new open source platform.