VirtualBox is definitely one of the best software that can create and manage a virtual machine. A virtual machine is nothing more than a machine, but it’s not physical. The host computer shares a part of its hardware resource for the virtual machine. Using virtual machine is the best way to explore any OS or testing software. It’s also quite fun.
VirtualBox is definitely the most popular software to perform this task. It’s open-source, powerful and free of cost. It also supports all the OS in the market to run in a virtual environment. For example, you can even install the most unpopular Linux distros without any trouble.
Installing VirtualBox in the system is quite easy. However, installing it in Linux systems isn’t. Here’s how to install VirtualBox for Linux users.
There are 2 ways you can install VirtualBox – the easy & hard ways.
The easy way
Universal Method (for all Linux distro)
Let’s take a look at the universal way.
- Go to VirtualBox downloads page.
- Download the .RUN package.
- Open the terminal in your Linux distro.
- Run the following commands:
cd ~/Downloads chmod +x VirtualBox-5.2.8-121009-Linux_amd64.run sudo ./VirtualBox-5.2.8-121009-Linux_amd64.run
Note: If you end up with some type of error for any missing package, you have to install those first.
Voila! Installation complete. To start VirtualBox, run the following command in terminal:
virtualbox
To uninstall the program, you can use the following commands:
cd /opt/VirtualBox sudo ./uninstall.sh
Distro-wise
You can also download and install other packages according to your Linux distro. That’s more recommended than this way because it isn’t easy for new users. For example, I’m using Xubuntu 17.04. So, I have to download the responsive DEB package and install it.
For installing the DEB package on your Ubuntu/Ubuntu-based distro, run the following commands:
sudo dpkg -i VirtualBox-5.2_5.2.8-121009_Ubuntu_zetsy_amd64.deb sudo apt install -f
OpenSUSE users, install the RPM package using these command:
zypper install VirtualBox-5.2-5.2.8_121009_openSUSE132-1.x86_64.rpm
Fedora users, run these commands:
sudo dnf install VirtualBox-5.2-5.2.8_121009_fedora26-1.x86_64.rpm
The hard way
You’ll find the in-depth instruction of installing VirtualBox via commands in the VirtualBox downloads page.
Enjoy!