How to make a virtual computer real

May 15, 2009, 22:21 (6 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Paul Zarucki)

[ Thanks to Paul Zarucki for this link. ]

"Here is my recipe for converting a virtual computer into a real one. I have used it with Debian versions 4 and 5 (servers and desktops) and with floppyfw (routers and firewalls). The method should work with most, if not all, GNU/Linux distributions. I use VirtualBox to create the virtual machines but other virtualisation software (VMware, QEMU, Parallels, etc.) should work just as well. I offer no guarantees -- use this recipe at your own risk!

"Create the virtual machine
I assume you already know how to create a virtual machine and install GNU/Linux onto it. I usually create a virtual computer that has a small disc with all of the files in the first partition (when separate partitions are needed for /home, /var, etc., I prefer to make these afterwards on the real computer, as described below). For desktop and server machines, I use a virtual disc size of about 8GB. Install GNU/Linux on the virtual machine and set it up with the applications and settings that you want."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• How Mobile Are Your Hosted VMs?(May 13, 2009)
• Canonical launches UbuntuOne beta, online sync service, Dropbox competitor(May 12, 2009)
• Puppet: configuration management made easy(May 09, 2009)
• How To Do Live Migration Of OpenVZ Containers(May 07, 2009)
• Announcing VirtualBox 2.2.2 for Linux(Apr 29, 2009)
• Migrate to a virtual Linux environment with Clonezilla(Apr 23, 2009)
• Xen: How to Convert An Image-Based Guest To An LVM-Based Guest(Apr 22, 2009)