Hi, what exactly is needed as for a kernel to run Virtual Box? I install a guest kernel and after I reboot I see something on my boot screen for openSUSE (p.a.e) but I don't know which kernel to then boot in too.

You do not download a kernel to run a guest under VirtualBox.
You install VirtualBox (it installs as an application, a somewhat big and complex one.
You define storage (a file that will act as the HARD DRIVE for the guest).
You define a machine (memory, CPU, Display information, etc.
Then you attach an ISO image.
On booting up the guest it acts as if that ISO were a physical CD or DVD, boots and installs from it just as any physical server might.

The Kernel you run is generally the one from the ISO.

The process is a lot the same no matter what the host OS is, or what the guest OS. There is no shared code between them, this is FULL virtualization! that means you can run FreeDos guests alongside Windows XP and RHEL guests on an OpenSUSE host if you wish.

You MAY require a special kernel for doing some kinds of Kernel based virtualization such as LXC, and you CERTAINLY will for OpenVZ, but not for VirtualBox.

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Okay, thank you very much for clarifying all of that. I understand pretty well what you are saying. Also, it's worth mentioning I ran VMWare or VB a long while ago on some other distribution.

In this case, as I has openSUSE installed, it was this kernel issue that confused me. This is an important matter as it is required I have it for my college class where I am in a Windows Server 2008 class. Now they, (the college) would just assume I use Windows and everyone else in the world too but I refuse too and only use Linux. So, let me just explain what I've done so far previously and tell me where I went wrong and what I should have done?

I went to virtualbox.org, got the actual SUSE .rpm package for Virtual Box, and downloaded and installed it with no problem through the Add/Remove software in Yast. However, my thinking is that I can also download the extension pack and run Windows Server 2008 virtually as well ( or maybe I am wrong in thinking so?) Anyhow, so I downloaded the extension pack as well. Then I of course gave myself the user permissions needed in Yast and so I open Virtual Box no problem. It was when I attempted to create a new machine, aka "Windows Server 2008" that Virtual Box gave me an error saying something was missing, like a kernel or other necessity that was preventing VB from working properly, but it did say "kernel" in that message, I do remember that. So that's when I went into Software Manager and found the "Guest kernel" and installed it and I think I ended up just installing anything else too that wasn't checked as already installed to cover my bases. So I rebooted and went back into VB and all seemed fine except it warned me that the virtual memory I selected was more than half of what my PC has physically (1 GB is what I have on the PC) and told me if I continued, I'd been warned. So I stopped there.

So, first feel free to point out where I went wrong or what I should have done instead of something else. But also, am I indeed going to need a real .iso image of Windows Server 2008 or was I right in thinking somehow the extension pack supplements the need for that. But even then I cannot figure out where or how to pull in the image from the extension pack successfully anyway so I might just go with a real .iso. But aside from that, can you just tell me did I do right in adding that guest kernel in the add/remove software part in Yast or maybe I do not need that to begin with. I am confused on the difference in the "Host" and "Guest" really. Which am I? I'm the administrator and only user on this PC so I keep thinking I should be a host, not a guest. Anyway, I'm working with Puppy Linux right now on some other things but I would like to reinstall SUSE and know what I need to do.

Oh, one more thing but exactly how or where can I get and add the FUSE libs for .rpms such as one can do in Fedora? These are those prized packages Red Hat did not included due to liabilities and such but enhance the .rpm software experience immensely, so I had been told; but that was someone using Fedora and it seems Yast really trys to restrict things for security, more so than even Fedora. But can you not add them in SUSE somehow? Do you know that even? If not, just stick with the first issue with Virtual Box. Thanks a million for you and anyone else's help and I will make sure you get a good reputation on here as well!!!

Oh, what is this Xen and that other Virtulization program I hear SUSE includes? Is that a replacement for Virtual Box? Or what can it do?

1. I am unfamilier with the SUSE repos and operation, I tend to run Debian more often. I keep hoping a SUSE guru will chime in with the DISTRO specific stuff.
2. If you have no Windows ISO, you can attach the physical DVD drive and load from real media rather than virtual. You DO need Windows install media and a Microsoft license to run a Microsoft OS, even as a guest.
3. They days have long gone when there were only three or four vurtualization packages out there. Xen is the CISCO sponsored solution that RHEL used in RHEL-4, they have since gone to more open-source hardcore solutions more in keeping with their philosophy. To list them all would make a VERY LONG posting, would not help you much, and would very likley be incomplete and inaccurate before I finished. Check google for the wikipedia pages and have a fun read.

For Kernel based virtualization (free and OSS) probably OpenVZ is the most advanced. LXC has more features and is in the kernel mainstream, but is not very mature yet.

For Full virtualization (what you need) the easiest is VirtualBox. It has a LOT of competition though. VMWARE makes a free tool that could serve, XEN is a contender, and the KVM and Bochs families deserve consideration.

For your purposes, I am betting that VirtualBox will prove the best option.

TERMS: In a virtual environment the HOST operating system is the one that runs on the real hardware: acting as a hypervisor. The Guest is the OS that runs in a VIRTUAL machine on VIRTUAL hardware, under the control of the HOST.
In your case, your SUSE machine would be your HOST and Windows Server your Guest.

The bigger question, and your current problem, is if ANY of them will serve. You mentioned that you have only 1Gig of ram? SUSE should have about 512 Meg to run right and Windows takes more like 768 M .... I have a problem with that math.

VirtualBox is telling you that you are defining a machine that will push your box right to the edge, and you may come up bleeding. I normally advise at least 3Gig for full virtualization. You can do it in less, but being able to give at least 1 Gig to Windows and still have 1Gig to manage it in would certainly result in better performance.
Incidently, I think VB will go ahead and let you RUN your way, it will just want to WARN you about stability frome time to time. Oh, and your machine(s) may slow to a painful crawl if memory goes to 120% used.

FYI: Kernel based virtualization can be much 'thinner'. I have seen three guests running on an OpenVZ host in only 512Meg of ram on 80 Gig hard drives. Alas, that kind of solution only works if the host and guest can share the same kernel: that means running a Windows guest on Linux is right out.

I hope this helps you. If you get this working, I would like very much to know how well you do with it.

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with only 1 gig of ram a virtual install is going to be very slow

as it is opensuse 12 will be very slow


i had opensuse 11.2 on a box with 1 gig and found that 11.2 was SO SLOW that it was unusable
waiting for 15 to 20 sec. for ONE folder ~/ to open

Yes I know that's right. I will have the cash soon to upgrade to 2 Gb probably. More so I prefer KDE but no way on SUSE can I work with that even with no virtual machine at all.

So I wonder how come the ample swap space I give my PC cannot help on these types of cases. You know?

swapping to the hdd takes TIME lots of time and gnome 3 uses 500 meg for the desktop GUI


Scientificlinux 6 or Centos 6 both are rebuilds of RHEL6 and are free
sl 6.1 runs nicely with gnome 2 or kde4 on my old box

right now typing this on opensuse11.4 i am using 702 meg of my 8 gig
running only gnome and seamonkey

First of all, to "wpeckham", thank you very much for clarifying on the Virtual Box and visualizations all around. As you were asking, the latest and only solution I've found is I'm just going to have to wait a couple more weeks and indeed upgrade my physical memory by 1 GB to total 2 GB, which would then be its max. I just at the present cannot afford two 1 GB DIMM memory sticks at a PC Parts store. But I called the IT adviser for my college and said hey, here's a real problem with this particular class so until Financial Aid disburses what they are going to, I can't afford more memory so I can't really install the Virtual Boxes on my machine until a week or two from now when I get the funds. This is an online course so even using a computer at the campus really isn't an option. And it's very interesting but I did not know you could in theory go over your actual physical memory as you suggested hypothetically, but I would never do that anyway. See, I like SUSE all around but KDE is super slow on my machine as is; I prefer Openbox when possible on any distribution but SUSE's Openbox is bare, so you have to create that from scratch in itself and the LXDE interface for 12.1 is okay but it's lacking with some of the user friendly administrative tools that KDE or GNOME or XFCE even has. So, if I do install SUSE again, it would only be with the LXDE window interface for now, KDE at a later point. (Note to Novell: Please revamp and enhance your install options to include Openbox with the upstreams, please!)

So that's where I stand now. I too as I am typing am using a Debian based distro, Peppermint, which isn't bad in itself but it is relying too much on the "cloud" for what I need. I installed Fedora 16 LXDE spin this morning briefly but on that I drove myself crazy with trying to install add on .rpms that were not included and so that's when I went over to Peppermint. But I am about to install Kororaa 16 GNOME now as I've used it once and it greatly improves on Fedora's lacking in some of their package handling. I will come back SUSE later on when I can install KDE with it and have the additional memory I think.

I am going to look into this new Xen virtualization and KVM concepts more actually to understand what all they can do for you. I like some of the aspects of Debian but to use Debian fully and at its best, knowing the command line like a pro seems to be a necessity, and Ubuntu is becoming really a hassle with their Unity interface and more Windows like approach to administrative rights and such that I just prefer the Red Hat based distros. I even really enjoy Mandriva but I can't run Mandriva 2011 very well now because they are strictly KDE based support for 2011 so the memory is an issue there too. And we'll have to see if they do go bankrupt as I hear is possible or a buyout is possible there.

Finally, to "JohnV", I have only used the LiveCD for Scientific Linux actually so A LOT was missing but I will take that recommendation into consideration as well. CENTOS is going to be too enterprise for me I think but the Scientic Linux option is a good possibility going forward.

We'll see how it all goes.

Thanks you guys.

If it helps any, I have been trying out VirtualBox on various machines over the last couple of months and now have 3 installations working. I gave up on Xen & KVM after trying them on my Suse 12.1 box, as the learning curve seems to be much steeper.

1 - Dell Optiplex GX620 (dual core 3.2Ghz cpu & 4Gb ram) openSuse 12.1 KDE 4.7, VirtualBox 4.1.8. In VBox I have Windows XP Pro, Ubuntu 11.04, and a rather buggy image of Andoid. For XP I had to set only one virtual CPU, but it will work OK with only 512Mb of virtual ram, though I have it set at 1023Mb.

2 - Dell Inspiron 1521 (Dual core 1.6Ghz & 4Gb ram) Ubuntu 11.04 Gnome 2 (but in Classic mode!), VBox 4.1.8. This has Windows XP with 1024Mb virtual ram. I can run Office 2007 in the VM while having LibreOffice open in Ubuntu, and am able to cut an paste between them. I do some work editing legal documents and Office 2007 has some real nightmares in its use of multi-level numbered lists. If you just use the templates it is fine, but if you want to adjust them it is a real pain. anyway this setup is working fine, and both OS's work at adequate speed.

3 - Dell Insipron 1300 (1.6Ghz & 2Gb ram) Windows XP Home & VBox 4.1.8. I tried this as an experiment and apart from the VBox install being slower than on the 1521 it worked OK when I installed Ubuntu 11.04. That laptop is dual boot with XP & Ubuntu 11.04, and the VM Ubuntu is not much slower than the native one.

So far my experience is that for the casual user VBox is the way to go. The install process is relatively easy, it is in the main distributions repositories, and the help forum is very good. Apart from needing to have some Windows apps for work, I intend to use it mainly for testing new versions of my distro's. While you can run them from a Live CD, and in fact you can run Live C's in VBox, the only way to really test is to do an install. With VBox I can try them out for real.

So I finally had the opportunity to buy a new laptop right out and somehow I managed to buy an Asus that includes an the Intel i5 2400 Mhz CPU and 6 GB of RAM to mention just a few of it's options and at a price of a just over $600, an outstanding deal. And it works perfectly in every way with Linux. So of course, I have plenty of memory for 10 Virtual Boxes running now.

It even has support for UEFI bootloader in the works to replace the BIOS. Just Google it for information. But yes, I plan to try Xen out. I read about it in detail and it's so amazing sounding, I'm almost scared to dive in. I heard you can sandbox Viruses within and I've never thought about that but WOW!