So I've got Ubuntu's latest and greatest installed, Intrepid Ibex, 8.10, and I want to get Vista up and running using Virtualbox. There's a few hurdles, caveats, and other stuff to watch out for, which I'll document here as I did with my Vista host and Ubuntu guest comments.
Firstly, the fully open source version of Virtualbox that can be installed straight away from Ubuntu (sudo aptitude install virtualbox-ose vboxgtk) is ok, but the GUI lacks significant functionality found in the Sun distribution - for example, being able to mount ISO images. The solution is to install the packaged distribution, but the Virtualbox Linux Downloads page does not list Ubuntu 8.10 "Intrepid Ibex". Fortunately you can find packages in the virtualbox download directory with a bit of URL mangling, including virtualbox ubuntu intrepid i386.
Once VirtualBox 2.0.4 is installed, you can go ahead and create a virtual machine and start the Vista install. One thing I noticed is that the initial black DOS screen with "Loading Windows" takes a long time - but stick with it, and eventually you'll be in the graphical installer.
When you've completed the Vista install, you'll find you have no networking. Apparently Vista does not support the VirtualBox virtual network device out of the box (see Windows Vista on Virtualbox, Vista guest on VirtualBox, Vista on Ubuntu using Virtualbox, Set up Vista networking). There's lots of talk about downloading drivers from the AMD website, creating an ISO, and mounting that. In fact, the solution is far simpler: just change the network adapter from PCnet-Fast III Am79C973 to Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop, and the network will work again.
Once you've installed the guest tools, you can use shared folders. These don't appear to be mapped automatically, however, so you need to click on Computer, then Map network drive, then enter \\vboxsvr\YOURSHARENAME and click Finish.
You can now relax as Windows Update gets busy - which for my machine involved an initial 30 updates, 116.2 MB total. Welcome to the wonderful world of Vista!
Posted by savs at November 4, 2008 11:05 AM"Wonderful" world of Vista? LOL. I see your point though.
Posted by: Andrew at January 1, 2009 8:04 PM