Shared Virtualbox in multiboot system - is it possible?
 

Before I crash my system again I better ask for some advise...

I have multiboot with several distros, and now I'm thinking, is it possible to have them share the folders for Virtualbox? I have put .Virtualbox and VirtualBox VMs on a separate partition, and in Arch I have symlinks to them. I migrated those folders from Ubuntu to Arch with no problem. I don't think any other system have used them. Both Arch and Slackware are 64-bit.

But it is different versions of Virtualbox. In Arch it is the OSE-version (but it has the extensions from Oracle), but as I understand it that version doesn't work on Slackware, at least not without multilib? (I don't have multilib in Arch.) So in Slackware I need to install the PUEL-version?

I haven't installed Virtualbox yet in the other distros I have installed. (Funtoo is the one I might want to install it in, as I think now.) Is it possible to share folders for Virtualbox for theese systems (Slackware, Arch, Funtoo and maybe some more)? Or should I just forget about it, and focus on having it work in one of the systems?


I also don't like to run that installer script from Oracle, that's Windowish to have programs make their own installer. I'd really prefer to install all packages with the package manager...

You can install the 64bit version of Virtualbox from here https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads, this runs on Slackware64 very well.

If you have the configuration as well as the virtual machines on a separate partition, there should be no problem to use them from any Linux-installation, provided that you have the same user on all systems. But I would try to have the same version of Virtualbox installed on any distribution. Having different versions of Virtualbox using one and the same vm seems odd to me.

But I think you'll have to try it out, the worst thing which can happen is that one of your virtual machines crash, but you could make a backup (snapshot) before.

Markus

Seems kind of an odd way to do this. I'd stick with a main single host os and one install of a vm. Then you run multiple versions of some client os.

It might be possible to create a single partition that can be mounted to all clients. The extra partition can't be mounted by the host and other clients.

jefro, I think we have understood different things about what the OP wants do do. I understood that he has dualboot Slackware and Arch and on both systems Virtualbox running and wants to access his virtual machines from both, Slackware and Arch.

Markus

So now I have installed Virtualbox and I tried and booted up two of the old guest systems. It seems to work...

Markus is right about what I want to do. :)