virtualbox dilemma.

[Arnold1972]

Greetings forum,
I have decided to download oracle virtualbox and it is sitting in my downloads folder for the time being.
I have never used this program before ever so i am a little apprehensive about using it.
I understand i can download an ISO of any operating system to run in the virtual box.
This is where i am getting a bit stuck with this,Ive seen on a different website that i can download a 500mb iso of ubuntu os.
When i have downloaded this iso is it simply a case of using the downloaded iso to insert into the virtualbox or does it need to be burned on to cds?
500mb seems a lot of data to be burning to cd.
Im very sorry to trouble you with this as im a complete novice with virtualbox.
Could you help me with this dilemma please?

Kind regards. :dontknow:

 

[Core]

You don't have to burn the ISO to CD. When you launch Virtualbox it will let you install a virtual operating system using the ISO file you have downloaded. There will be an option for that. It will simply mount the ISO and act as if it was a disc. The difference being that installing from an ISO is a lot faster than from an actual disc. I can't advise you specifically step by step, because I use VMWare myself, but it should be very easy to use.

Virtualbox is an easy way to run operating systems in a virtual machine, and playing around with it will not harm your "real" system in any way.

 

[Shintaro]

No you don't need to burn it to a CD.

Open Virtual box. Use the the wizard to create a virtual machine. Then click on the virtual machine you have just created.
To the right you will "Storage" Click on it.
Then you will see a picture of a CD with the word "Empty" beside it. Click on it.
To the right of that you will see "Attibutes" with a dropdown box and to the right of that a picture of a CD, click on that.
Then select "Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file..."
Now find where your iso is that you downloaded. Select you ISO and click open.


You should read the VirtualBox user manual:
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/4.1.16/UserManual.pdf

VirtualBox FAQ
https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/User_FAQ