Hello!

My laptop has 2 harddrives and I'm planning on installing the Slack 14.1 on the first HDD as the main os.

I then want to install virtualbox in Slack and install windows in the virtuallbox using the second HDD.

I'm planning on partitionong the main HDD either as 3 separate partiotions: /, /home and swap or 4 partitions: /boot, /, /home and swap.

What I'm not sure about about is how to setup partions with the virtualbox and windows as a guest OS in mind, concidering that windows will be installed on the second HDD, as a guest os in linux virtualbox.

Do I just install Slack first, partitioning the first HDD as described above and deal with the virtuallbox and windows after the Slack is installed or do I need to setup partiotion(s) and specific directories on the second HDD for vrtualbox and windows during the Slack installion (at the same stage as partioniong the first HDD for Slack)?

Thanks

You probably want to partition your Slackware drive first (use cfdisk /dev/sda for example). You may want to partition the second drive while you're at it (unless you're going to use the entire drive for Windows).

Install Slackware. Download the VirtualBox software (I prefer using the binary distribution from Oracle); you'll need http://download.virtualbox.org/virtu...3.vbox-extpack and http://download.virtualbox.org/virtu...inux_amd64.run if your system is 64-bit or http://download.virtualbox.org/virtu...-Linux_x86.run for 32-bit (the Extension Pack is the same for 32- or 64-bit systems).

Install VirtualBox (execute the ".run" file). Start VirtualBox and install the Extension Pack by clicking Fire, Extensions and choose the Extension Pack file you downloaded. You only install Extensions once, not for every guest.

Depending upon how you partitioned the second drive (which will be /dev/sdb), install Windows, pointing it at, say, /dev/sdb1 or whatever partition you wish to use (otherwise your guest will be created in your home directory).

That's pretty much it; however, be sure to read the installation instructions you'll find in /opt/VirtualBox/UserManual.pdf. Get familiar with what to do and how to do it before you install a guest. You can install as many guests as you have room for on the second drive and you can install both 32-bit and 64-bit guests (if your system is 64-bit and you installed 64-bit VirtualBox, that is). If you have a 64-bit system, do not install 32-bit VirtualBox.

Other than that there's a little fine tuning to do which is explained well in the manual, worth your time to read it as you're installing and configuring.

Hope this helps some.

The OS that will run in Virtualbox will only see virtual hardware, it doesn't matter at all how your physical machine is partitioned (as long as you have a partition large enough to hold the disk-image for the VM). Install Slackware on your first disk, then partition, format and mount your second disk as you see fit. When installing Windows into the VM make sure that the disk image is created on the partition you wish it to be.

Just to add to the above. There are three ways you can use your second hard drive for the Windows instance in VirtualBox. The first, which is how I do it, is to simply format the second drive with a Linux file system and change the settings in VirtualBox so that it stores the virtual disks on that drive. This has the advantage of being able to have several different OSs with their hard drive images stored on the second drive -- which works well for me.
The second and third methods are slightly more complex and that is to use a raw disk or raw partition and is described here:
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk
I have a feeling the second method and, perhaps, the third may be quicker than the first but the disadvantage is that you lose an entire disk or partition to on Virtual OS instance.

I have two dozen different guest systems on my VirtualBox installation, mostly Slackware, but also some Windows for testing websites on different version of IE. The virtual systems are on a separate partition, mounted on a /data directory. The only thing you have to do is configure VirtualBox to store everything there.

Cheers,

Niki

Thanks all for the info!

Was going to dedicate the second HDD just for VirtualBox Windows installation, but as I come to think of it might also have FreeBSD as another guest OS. Hmmmm...

You don't need dedicated partitions for VirtualBox guest. On my main computer I have two hard drives. The first drive has three partitions for /, /home/ and swap. The second disk is were my backups go and it is mounted on /home/backup.

All of my guest VirtualBox machines are stored on my first disk on the /home/ partition in /home/chris/VirtualBoxVMs/. The number of virtual machines varies from time to time, This is what I have now. At one point I had about 10-15 of them.