How to set up virtual box and 2nd OS Linux Mint?

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Hello ~ All,
I have VB installed and running Ubuntu 10.10 – works great. NOW, I want to install mint distro as a 2nd OS…
Can’t figure out how its done.!! Clicking NEW this the response:

Cannot create the machine folder mint in the parent folder C:/Users/user only me/VirtualBox VMs. Please check that the parent really exists and that you have permissions to create the machine folder.

I don’t know what that means? I’ve found nothing on the various forums for explanations?
However, I see on those sites many OS’s installed in VB on its left tree!! HOW to do it??

My system: win7 -64 / 8gigs ram
Thanks for help/suggestions.
John in Dallas

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You are doing the right thing in VB: I have 7 virtual machines for various tinkering and work use, all built and accessible from VirtualBox running on Win7 SP1 x64 – So I suspect it’s not a VirtualBox issue, but perhaps a system configuration problem.

The message you quote says C:/Users/Username/VitualBox VMs. That appears to be the xml path to your VM’s. Is that folder accessible through explorer? I wonder about the spaces in the path – because I’m not sure that xml likes spaces without being enclosed in quotes. Check the VirtualBox.xml file normally located at C:UserUsername.VirtualBoxVirtualBox.xml. Be careful to take a backup of this file before opening it: accidental changes could hose your VM’s.

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Go to File | Preferences, and on the General tab check the value of Default Machine Folder. Make sure that the folder identified there exists on your PC and that you have read/write access to that folder. If you don’t have the folder, switch to another folder.

Also, if you don’t have the folder, search for *.vbox, that should help you locate folder that has your virtual machines – the virtual machines will be in subfolders of the machines folder. For example, I have multiple drives on my PC and redirected this folder to F:VirtualBoxmachines. My virtual machines are at “F:/VirtualBox/machines/Ubuntu 11.04/Ubuntu 11.04.vdi”, “F:/VirtualBox/machines/Windows 8/Windows 8.vdi” , etc.

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Hello-Guys,
Appreciate your responses. I’ve checked out all your suggestions, and everything is OK ! All my settings are OK in VB and Ubuntu 10.10 runs great….
NOW-what I’ve done. I went into admin mode (which I never use–only work in standard mode) I had VB installed but never used it…So, I installed linux mint 11 and it work just fine???? Why?? As they say – Ubuntu done right..
This is defeating the very purpose of VB…Taking up space when….I should be able to install a variety of OS’s as all the screen shots show…
I can’t find any explanation of VB’s site or ubuntu and mint sites that address this situation. VB simply said ((( read the manual ))) How rude!!!!!
Is there some module or setting I haven’t found that will allow me to install multiple OS’s ???
Thanks for suggestions.
John in Dallas.

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I’m not sure what is happening.

Can you provide a screen shot of the error that you get. Maybe also a screen shot of that folder in Windows Explorer too? Might help figure out what VB is encountering that will make it through the error.

My VB installation is as plain vanilla: except for moving my vdi files to another drive everything is out of the box so to speak.

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Hope this screen shots helps? Not very good at these.
Thanks for your help.

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The images are mangled.

Did you insert the image using the insert image button from the Go Advanced reply?

29093-insert-image

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Hello-Guys,
This is defeating the very purpose of VB…Taking up space when….I should be able to install a variety of OS’s as all the screen shots show…

I have given up trying to follow your thoughts on this topic.
In case you have not yet realised, your expectations appear unrealistic.

Oracle VirtualBox only takes perhaps 200 MB to install,
but every Virtual Machine takes all the real space that is needed for a compressed image of the actual data content.
I installed Virtual Box in C:, but all my virtual machines are created on a secondary HDD so they do not affect Macrium Partition Image backups of the primary drive

I can’t find any explanation of VB’s site or ubuntu and mint sites that address this situation. VB simply said ((( read the manual ))) How rude!!!!!
John in Dallas.

I have always found they site to be friendly and very quickly responsive,
but that requires only a quick link to the appropriate documentation.

Please do not expect them to copy and paste the exact information for every need.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

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Tinto Tech,
If you’re on the board, here’s the best screen shots of attempts to create mint in existing VB as 2nd OS. Can’t seem to separate the shots, *.vbox is explorer is covered.
Hope this helps?
Thanks / John in Dallas.

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Yes, I’m still here lonestarone, but the images you are pasting appear to be raw images pasted into the text box. They are not images that can be viewed and are showing as random binary files in the email alerts I recieve. If you review your last couple of posts you can see no images in the forums.

The best way to paste an image is to use the Windows 7 sniping tool, take a screen shot and save it onto you PC somewhere. Then in the reply box in the Lounge, make sure you are in “Advanced mode” and click the insert image icon highlighted in the attached screen grab.

29100-screen-grab

Click Select Files, drill down to where you stored the screen grab and then select and upload it.

[Edit] Just noticed you don’t even need to be in Advance mode to upload an image[/Edit]

It’s late here in the UK, if you can successfully upload a couple of screen shots of the error and the context, I’ll take a look tomorrow, in the meantime others here may have inputs before then.

…/as a side note, I wonder if a mod could remove the huge binary files attached to earlier posts? ….they are slowing the page loading quite a lot.

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I think that you are running into a file permission issue. Try right-clicking on the VirtualBox icon (or start menu item) and choose the “Run as Administrator” option, and see if that lets you create another virtual machine.

Also, how much free disk space do you have on the C: drive? (I really don’t think that is the issue, but one never knows…)

P.S. Your stream of consciousness posts are really hard to follow. It is difficult to give exact instructions to help you if I have no idea what it was that you actually did. My replies so far are based on a lot of assumptions that I have made while interpreting your posts. (For example, you write “I had VB installed but never used it” and then “So, I installed linux mint 11 and it work just fine”. Did you install Mint 11 as dual-boot, or did you install it in VirtualBox? If the former, then I don’t get the point of mentioning it – it just confuses the “installing multiple OSes on VirtualBox issue.” If the latter, then you now have Ubuntu 10.10 and Mint 11 installed in Virtual Box, yet you then write “I should be able to install a variety of OS’s as all the screen shots show..” which implies that you don’t have multiple OSes installed in VirtualBox. So I am completely confused! Please help me to help you by writing clear posts.)

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Gentlemen,
Sorry for my “stream of consciousness” I do tend to ramble!!!
Apparently, I can’t upload images to your site. I get invalid file format from the screen shot saved to desk top?
I have a TB hard drive – 791 gigs free. NO dual boot.

I have installed VB in standard mode with ubuntu 10.10 working OK….I have installed VB in admin. mode running mint 11 OK.

That’s not the way VB should work…I should be able to install multiple OS’s in ONE running instance virtualbox.

I turned OFF UAC if that’s the permissions problem, didn’t help.
I can’t find any info. on VB’s site explaining how to install multiple OS’s.
Thanks / John in Dallas.

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If you save your screen grab images in .jpg format they should upload correctly.

Anyway, I run 7 virtual OS’s inside VirtualBox on a Windows 7 x64 host, so it definitely works. Having ruled out file permissions, and disk capacity, perhaps it’s a corrupt VirtualBox installation?

Something to try first though: This article shows the method to setup an OS in VirtualBox. Check you are attempting to configure VB to run a second OS in the same way.

If that fails, export your existing Ubuntu installation, save the vdi hard drive file somewhere safe, then uninstall the VB installation and remove all directories and files. Start from a clean slate: re-install VB from a new download. Then import your saved Ubuntu and try setup Mint as a second OS.

By the way, I would turn UAC back on if you haven’t already.

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I do not understand how you can install VirtualBox twice. The second installation should have overwritten the first installation. Does it really appear twice on the hard drive? On my box (Win 7, x64) it is installed at C:Program FilesOracleVirtualBox. If you installed VirtualBox as a standard user and then as an admin user, the program files probably went into the same location. However, if while logged on as a standard user you installed a guest OS, and then did the same while logged on as an admin user, then I could somewhat understand your statement.

Installing a second guest OS is no different from installing the first guest OS. In VirtualBox, click the New icon in the toolbar, follow the instructions in the wizard, making sure to select the Create New Hard Disk option. Once you are done with the wizard, select your new client and open the Storage settings. Select the empty CD item and browse for the ISO file that you will install the OS from. Then start the client.

As you can see, if have done this a number of times:

29111-vb

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@lonestarone: did you try follow the article in my link? Have you uninstalled and re-installed VB? Did any of those make a difference? As cafe00d notes you should just simply click the “New” button and setup the second OS excatly in the same was as the first. He has 9 and I have 7 virtualised OS’s running in VB, so it works out of the box.

It might help to try fix your screen grabbing issue in theLounge Test Area so we can start to see what the issue might be with you VB configuration. Can you also post a copy of your virtualbox.xml file here so we can see if there is anything odd – it’s to be found alongside you Machines and Hard Disks folders.

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29115-paint-screen-shot-mint-1129116-vbox29117-vdi-shot29118-xml-shotOK, Guys, finally found paint in this mess of win7, never used it before in sending screen shots….
Hope these pics. will help you in my dilemma?? I did look at your article on how to install VB, it looks exactly as I did…
Thanks for your help and patience.
John in Dallas.

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Excellent: the screen shots are good and help a bit.

It still seems odd, but let’s try a few things….

[*]Can you confirm the location that you are trying to create the new Linux Mint VM exists? In the second attachment, some data appears to be in your Music folder/library rather than where I might expect it.
[*]
[*]Assuming the default location as specified does exist, in the place you expect it, can you check the permissions on that folder? Are they set so that the user logged in when running VB can read and write to that folder? Perhaps set VB to run as Admin?
[*]
[*]Failing that, in your Preferences window (General Settings), change the location of the Default Machine Folder to some other place, e.g. c:usersusernameVMs. Does it work then?
[*]
[*]Finally, something a little odd – I notice in your preferences that your VRDP authentication library is set at VBoxAuth. Mine is VRDPAuth. I doubt that will make a difference as I believe it is a setting related to the remote desktop access, but it is a difference. see attached

29119-VBox

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29126-mint Well, Tinto Tech…..Thanks so much for sticking with me and your suggestions. As you can see I NOW have a good working mint installed!~!! I have no idea HOW!! All I did is in general,preferences I think, I did reset??? That allowed me to install mint? Ubuntu is still there and working, too.
Now I have to find out how to adjust screen fit, I’m constantly hitting Host key to move up or down. Don’t have that problem in ubuntu, though…That’s a minor problem. Guest additions are installed??? They are in synaptic mgr. so I installed them? I think…. Doesn’t that control screen sizes?
Anyway, I’m excited in getting things running…
Thanks for your patience,
John in Dallas

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Excellent! now you can install and play with as many OS’s as you host storage will allow.

Not sure what the reset was – I don’t think I have that in my settings tab, but the main think is that it installed as expected now.

A couple of things that you may note:

I see from your screen shot that the guest OS’s are configured as Windows 7 x64 – they should both be Linux. To be honest I’m not sure if that makes any difference to the Virtual Machine or if the installation of the VM takes care of any kernel changes necessary.

To adjust the screen size and resolution in Mint, you could follow this article, with the exception that I found the VBox Guest Additions was not as described at /media/cdrom0, but at /media/VBOXADDITIONS_4.0.12_72916 instead. Other than that it worked fine for me.

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I see from your screen shot that the guest OS’s are configured as Windows 7 x64 – they should both be Linux. To be honest I’m not sure if that makes any difference to the Virtual Machine or if the installation of the VM takes care of any kernel changes necessary.

Where this matters is when you go to Devices | Install Guest Additions. The OS type you selected in VirtualBox will decide which of the various ISOs containing guest additions that VirtualBox will mount. @lonestarone, you really should install the guest additions that come with VirtualBox, not the ones accessible via the package manager as they will be older. But you must identify the correct OS type. For Mint, that would be Ubuntu because Mint is based on Ubuntu.

And you need the guest addition to adjust screen size. Once they are installed, reboot Mint and then you should be able to drag the edges of the guest OS window to resize Mint’s desktop.

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Hi-Tinto Tech,
Thanks for all your HELP!! Would have fought this for days, I’m sure!! Finally got guest additions installed, properly…The fact they were in pkg. mgr., didn’t mean they were installed… I didn’t remember such a hassle in Ubuntu, but mint is different..Apparently G.A. in pkg. mgr. were correct for my setup…
When VB offers an upgrade – as it’s now doing, what’s the best way…I did have a terrible time installing an upgrade in ubuntu…I’m afraid to ruin my new mint system, can one upgrade inside VB? or is it really necessary?
Thanks for all your help here….This forum ROCKS!!
John in Dallas

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Glad you got it working!

I’ve had mixed success with updates to VBox. I’ve not seen any problem when upgrading VBox running on Windows. However, with VirtualBox running on a Linux host, a kernel recompile was necessary on a couple of occasions (it was fully automatic and painless, if a little scary to watch lines to text scroll up the screen and have no control over what it was doing).

I guess it depends on what the changes are and how important the VM is to you as to whether you decide to install the update. To be safe, take a copy of the .vdi virtual hard drive file in the Windows host and a full image backup of the host machine. This gives you the opportunity to roll back to the previous installation without hassle.

Sorry got to go – 12:45am in Scotland and sleep is calling……ZZzzzz

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Hello- Tinto Tech, I’m so pleased how VB and mint works on my win7 system, NOW, I’d like to do the same on my laptop..Compaq amd,turion 64…I did have it partitioned and have a dual boot with ubuntu 10.10. I’d like to delete those linux partitions and regain the space for XP.. I’m sure from what I’ve read, it’s more complicated than just deleting those partitions in disk mgmt??? Won’t that corrupt the MBR ? since Grub is now the boot sequence.. Just a venture I’d like to accomplish in the future. Thanks for suggestions. John in Dallas

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It’s fairly easy to accomplish the removal of a dual boot and replacement or edit of the Grub boot manager.

However, it might be best to raise a new thread about that in the General Windows or Windows XP sections because that question is more perhaps aligned to general Windows tweaking than other OS’s or Virtual Machines.

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