Virtualbox to Boot Wubi inside Windows

[horse_dung]

32-bit version for lucid is now available at drop.io/vboxwubi...

Performance tests: performance on two of my three test machines is fine, about 10% slower than native which is pretty much standard for virtualisation.

My last test machine is a Atom processor based netbook. While it works, it is rather slow - it took about 3 minutes to boot and then its about 100% slower than native.

I'll start working on 9.10 next...

[gksmithlcw]

Okay, I've got WUBI Ubuntu 10.04 LTS running from Windows 7 under VirtualBox 3.1.6 on 64-bit hardware. I could do with some BETA TESTERS that are willing to try this out.

If you want to try this as an end user then:

1. Go here http://dropbox.io/vboxwubi and download the .ovf and .vdmk files.

2. From virtual box click on File - Import Appliance and point to the .ovf file you downloaded

3. Edit the virtual machine settings, under the display section, change video ram to 32M

4. Edit the virtual machine settings, under shared folders, add new shared folder called "/vbox-wubi" that points to the root of the hard disk which has WUBI installed. For most people this will be "C:\". Note that both the name and the directory examples given here shouldn't have the quotes entered, but the slashes should be entered as seen.

5. Fire up the Virtual Machine and wait for your WUBI Ubuntu 10.04 to appear.

I got this up and running with no issues. The only problem I have now is that I don't appear to have any of the VBox video drivers installed. I keep getting a warning about a Low-Graphics Mode.

Is there a quick and easy way of getting these drivers installed?

[horse_dung]

While running Ubuntu inside of Virtual Box you need to click on the "Devices" menu and select "Install Guest Additions...". This will connect up a virtual CD-ROM with the device drivers on them. If it doesn't appear look in the "Places" menu at the very top of the screen for "VBOXADDITIONS_....".

You need to run the "autorun.sh" script as the root user. If you hit any problems then take a look at the VirtualBox documentation on installing Guest Additions.

Mike

FYI: Sorry for the delay for those people waiting for the older Ubuntu flavours. I'm looking at changing everything around to use CD-ROM images rather than virtual HDD images.

[sungohan]

I have a question, what is the downloaded .vmdk file for?
In your instruction, you did not mention where to use .vmdk file.

And my ubuntu 10.04 is installed on H:\, so I shared H:\
I am using 32 bit windows 7.

And I got an error while starting the virtual machine on black screen.

The error picture is in here,
http://my.picresize.com/M6GQSHZCTE

Okay, I've got WUBI Ubuntu 10.04 LTS running from Windows 7 under VirtualBox 3.1.6 on 64-bit hardware. I could do with some BETA TESTERS that are willing to try this out.

If you want to try this as an end user then:

1. Go here http://dropbox.io/vboxwubi and download the .ovf and .vdmk files.

2. From virtual box click on File - Import Appliance and point to the .ovf file you downloaded

3. Edit the virtual machine settings, under the display section, change video ram to 32M

4. Edit the virtual machine settings, under shared folders, add new shared folder called "/vbox-wubi" that points to the root of the hard disk which has WUBI installed. For most people this will be "C:\". Note that both the name and the directory examples given here shouldn't have the quotes entered, but the slashes should be entered as seen.

5. Fire up the Virtual Machine and wait for your WUBI Ubuntu 10.04 to appear.



If you want to try this as a developer/hacker:

1. Go here http://dropbox.io/vboxwubi and download make.image

2. Beware: the script calls various tools like GRUB and Parted and, while it would be very unlikely, there is still potential for this script to destroy your Ubuntu install, your Windows install, any other operating systems you have installed and you credit rating.

3. Run ./make.image as the root user to build a VirtualBox virtual machine.

If the script doesn't work then run it again with "-v -v" to get more output and post back. Enjoy...! This should work fine for 32-bit. This definitely won't work with 9.10 or earlier as I had to make some changes to get it to work with 10.04. This will probably break whenever the host gets a new kernel and you will need to re-run the setup script.

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

FYI: Sorry for the delay for those people waiting for the older Ubuntu flavours. I'm looking at changing everything around to use CD-ROM images rather than virtual HDD images.

No worries, from the look of things it will be worth the wait!

[Jucali]

Okay, I've got WUBI Ubuntu 10.04 LTS running from Windows 7 under VirtualBox 3.1.6 on 64-bit hardware. I could do with some BETA TESTERS that are willing to try this out.

If you want to try this as an end user then:

1. Go here http://dropbox.io/vboxwubi and download the .ovf and .vdmk files.

2. From virtual box click on File - Import Appliance and point to the .ovf file you downloaded

3. Edit the virtual machine settings, under the display section, change video ram to 32M

4. Edit the virtual machine settings, under shared folders, add new shared folder called "/vbox-wubi" that points to the root of the hard disk which has WUBI installed. For most people this will be "C:\". Note that both the name and the directory examples given here shouldn't have the quotes entered, but the slashes should be entered as seen.

5. Fire up the Virtual Machine and wait for your WUBI Ubuntu 10.04 to appear.



If you want to try this as a developer/hacker:

1. Go here http://dropbox.io/vboxwubi and download make.image

2. Beware: the script calls various tools like GRUB and Parted and, while it would be very unlikely, there is still potential for this script to destroy your Ubuntu install, your Windows install, any other operating systems you have installed and you credit rating.

3. Run ./make.image as the root user to build a VirtualBox virtual machine.

If the script doesn't work then run it again with "-v -v" to get more output and post back. Enjoy...! This should work fine for 32-bit. This definitely won't work with 9.10 or earlier as I had to make some changes to get it to work with 10.04. This will probably break whenever the host gets a new kernel and you will need to re-run the setup script.

Hey horse_dung,

It's great what you did; I will find this VB version of Wubi really useful... that is, if I ever get it to work.

I followed the instructions you posted but when I try to launch the machine, I get a black screen with nothing but a static cursor on it... that's it. It doesn't boot or change.

I was wondering if anyone could give me a clue as to what might be wrong; I've been playing with the settings and I've checked all of them and it's still not working.

I'm using Windows 7, with the 64-bit files.

Thank you!

[codemastercode]

Hello,

I've been trying to follow your instructions for running Wubi Ubuntu on VirtualBox.
I'm running 10.4 Ubuntu 64-bit, and VirtualBox is running on Windows 7 Professional.
I downloaded the "vbox-wubi-lucid-64.ovf" and "vbox-wubi-lucid-64.vmdk"
I changed the settings accordingly, and tried it, but I just shows me a blank screen.
I gave it 1500 RAM, and I'm not sure how long it should take to startup...any estimates?

[SomeoneElse.jp]

I got the install to work splendidly with Ubuntu, however I'd rather be running LinuxMint which uses a variant of wubi, unfortunately the LinuxMint version of Wubi uses the x:\LinuxMint\ directory instead of the x:\ubuntu\ directory to store the disk images etc. I figured that there would be some way to edit the scripts inside the host virtual machine but try as I might I can't find, and thus launch any editors... I've tried the common suspects, but I admit I may be missing something vital.

Is there any way to get a version of the host virtual machine which has a text editor on it? or perhaps a modification of the script which allows you to specify the full path to the wubi install rather than just the host drive's root?

thoughtfully perplexed

[codemyster]

I'm having a bit of trouble with this now.

I imported the appliance and it showed the settings, and when I hit "Finish", it threw an error about the hard disk not existing. So I copied the virtual disk to the folder it was complaining about, and then received an error saying "Failed to import appliance: File (path to vhd) exists". So it doesn't work either way I try it.

Is there a solution to be had?

EDIT: Nevermind, I'm an idiot. I misread the path that it was saying didn't exist. Everything works now.

[danmiddle2]

Okay, I've got WUBI Ubuntu 10.04 LTS running from Windows 7 under VirtualBox 3.1.6 on 64-bit hardware. I could do with some BETA TESTERS that are willing to try this out.

If you want to try this as an end user then:

1. Go here http://dropbox.io/vboxwubi and download the .ovf and .vdmk files.

2. From virtual box click on File - Import Appliance and point to the .ovf file you downloaded

3. Edit the virtual machine settings, under the display section, change video ram to 32M

4. Edit the virtual machine settings, under shared folders, add new shared folder called "/vbox-wubi" that points to the root of the hard disk which has WUBI installed. For most people this will be "C:\". Note that both the name and the directory examples given here shouldn't have the quotes entered, but the slashes should be entered as seen.

5. Fire up the Virtual Machine and wait for your WUBI Ubuntu 10.04 to appear.



If you want to try this as a developer/hacker:

1. Go here http://dropbox.io/vboxwubi and download make.image

2. Beware: the script calls various tools like GRUB and Parted and, while it would be very unlikely, there is still potential for this script to destroy your Ubuntu install, your Windows install, any other operating systems you have installed and you credit rating.

3. Run ./make.image as the root user to build a VirtualBox virtual machine.

If the script doesn't work then run it again with "-v -v" to get more output and post back. Enjoy...! This should work fine for 32-bit. This definitely won't work with 9.10 or earlier as I had to make some changes to get it to work with 10.04. This will probably break whenever the host gets a new kernel and you will need to re-run the setup script.

Works perfectly for me, this will be extremely useful, thank-you!