SWE 4211, VBox Setup

Follow these steps to set up your Virtual Box image:

  1. Download and install VirtualBox
    • Unless you are using a nonstandard operating system on your school laptop, you will want to download the Windows version.
    • Be sure to install all parts including the USB and Network Devices
    • Download and install the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack (available on the same page) after installing VirtualBox. This enables USB 2.0/3.0 and other features.
  2. Download the .ova file from Canvas or copy it from a flash drive.
  3. Start VirtualBox and select Import Appliance... from the File menu. Browse to the Ubuntu image. Click Next and then Finish. The import will run. This will take a minute or two to complete.
  4. To support copy/paste between the host and guest, right click on the imported virtual machine image (what VirtualBox calls the "appliance" in the previous step) and select Settings... Then select the General tab, click on Features, and set both Shared Clipboard and Drag'n'Drop to Bidirectional. But note you will also need to an additional step below.
  5. In VirtualBox, use the menus to start the image. When the image starts, it will prompt for whether to start in regular or debug mode; use the default. Enter the login and password in the writeup.

    6. If you have problems with installing guest additions, a simple fix is to use apt:

    $ sudo apt install virtualbox-guest-utils
  6. Explore Ubuntu. Some things to consider changing:
    • To change the timeout and reduce the number of times you have to enter the password, click on the machine control icon picture of multiple connected computers in the upper right corner, Settings, select the Power tab and select Never for when to blank the screen. You might also try turning off Automatic Suspend (both on battery power and when plugged in). Use the X in the upper right corner to close the window.
    • Open up a terminal prompt (see below) and change your password by entering the command passwd.
  7. Press Ctrl-Alt-T to open a terminal window. This is also known as a command prompt. If you cannot remember the shortcut, or it does not work, click on the applications icon 9 dot icon in the lower left corner and enter "ter" in the search box. Terminal will be one of the results. Note the triple-bar menu has a way to increase font size.

    8. The prompt for the Terminal window defaults to giving your username, machine name, current directory, and a $. For brevity, the prompt will be shown in this writeup as simply $.

    You should be able to copy/paste text from the main computer into the Ubuntu window, but you can open this writeup in Firefox from within Ubuntu to copy/paste from there instead.