VirtualBox: a new user's experience

[vmsda]

Thought of sharing with you a post submitted to VirtualBox's own forum:

"A few days ago I decided to join the VirtualBox bandwagon: I have been a long time Ubuntu user, but must use Windows for two or three apps. Having long ago given up on Wine as a credible/reliable solution, impatient with the rigidity of the Grub way, the VirtualBox concept appealed to me for its elegance and, I hoped, for its realism.

Having been an IBM Systems Engineer for almost 30 years (although never in the area of the Alt+Ctrl+Del systems), I was somewhat familiar wih VM, and thus the initial VirtualBox appeal.

I started by reading and re-reading and cross-reading the first four chapters of the User Manual, with an occasional foray into subsequent or more advanced chapters.

The means to an end: my Samsung Ultrabook NP900X3A (which I upgraded by swapping the 128Gb SSD for a 256 from Crucial, and an extra 4Gb of DDR3 for RAM); Ubuntu 64-bit 12.04 LTS as the gracious host; Windows 7 64-bit as the reluctant guest. Latest VirtualBox stable release available.

It took me one and a half days to have the whole project up and running, from the installation of the host Linux right down to the last app needed; a frightful amount of time being spent waiting for Win 7 to download and install updates.

I had a few hiccups, naturally, but managed to extricate myself from the difficulties presented.

If what you have read up to now sounds remotely self-congratulatory, then I have betrayed my own intentions: it all boiled down to the excellence of VirtualBox, from the initial documentation right down to the running product.

Products do not get designed and written out of the blue, they need people: it is quite obvious that the VirtualBox team - from the strategists to those helping us in the forums - is a quality team; my admiration is even compounded when I think of the risks involved, given the absolutely crucial part played by VirtualBox In multiple-OS environments.

Congratulations and many thanks to you all."

Vasco Almeida
Lisbon, Portugal

[andrew.46]

Good on you for persisting through to attain your goal . VirtualBox is a great piece of software and it is always good to see obvious signs that people are working on it and not only patching older problems but continually adding new features!