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Here’s the PPA to get the latest VirtualBox:

Ashok TT - Linux, TechTalk ubuntu-sources, VirtualBox

With the latest version of Virtual Box comes a surprise, an option to install WineD3D, which enables the user to replace the Direct3D in the virtual installation of Windows. WineD3D is supposed to increase/improve your graphics acceleration and 3D rendering of the virtual system.

If you are on Ubuntu Jaunty, the Virtual Box installation from Add/Remove programs doesn’t include WinD3D and VBOXGuestAdditions by default. You can follow my previous post on installing VBoxGuestAdditions if you’re looking for that. To install WineD3D,

Go to http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases-noredirect/wined3d/latest/ and download the ISO file.

Go to /usr/share/virtualbox and copy the downloaded file wined3d.iso into this directory.

Give read permission to the wined3d.iso file for users other than root.

Boot your virtual machine into safe mode (Press F8 during startup)

Now upon clicking “Install WineD3D” from Devices menu will begin the installation of WineD3D.

To further enhance the 3D acceleration, Go to the Settings of your virtual machine, Go to General and in the Basic tab, Check the “Enable 3D Accelaration” option. That’s it, you’re all set. Enjoy superior 3D rendering!

Ashok TT - How To, TT - Tips n Tricks, TechTalk Direct3D, VirtualBox, Wine

The version of VirtualBox 2.0.4 from Ubuntu’s repository isn’t having the Guest Additions file. You can’t install Guest Additions unless you have this VBoxGuestAdditions.iso file, and here’s the direct download link for the file:

Direct download link:
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.0.4/VBoxGuestAdditions_2.0.4.iso

Place this file in /usr/share/virtualbox, and Virtual Box would be able to install guest additions in the virtual machine.

Edit:
The new version is 2.2.2, which can be downloaded from
http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/2.2.2/VBoxGuestAdditions_2.2.2.iso
Thanks to SantAnna who updated me on this in comments.

Ashok TT - Tips n Tricks Ubuntu, VirtualBox

Even though I’m working hard to get acquainted with GIMP, I still find it difficult as I’m so accustomed to Adobe Photoshop. So, I find myself in a need to use Windows in a virtual machine to get my work done. So I started exploring the available virtual machine softwares for linux, and finally zeroed in on two: VMWare Player & VirtualBox.

VMWare player, free version of VMWare Workstation, the leading virtual machine software doesn’t allow users to create a new virtual machine. It allows to use an existing virtual machine. I overcame this limitation using a Virtual Machine configuration generated using EasyVMX Virtual Machine generator. But I don’t want to install Windows again since I’ve already installed and configured Windows on VirtualBox. I want to use this image file for VMWare player.

Since VirtualBox uses .vdi format for it’s harddisk and VMWare uses .vmdk, We now have to convert .vdi to .vmdk. This can be done in two steps:

Step 1: Convert .vdi into Raw image

vboxmanage internalcommands converttoraw image.vdi image2.raw

This command will create a raw image file. Create this in a drive with sufficient space since my 5GB vdi file occupied around 8GB in raw mode.

Step 2: Convert Raw image to .vmdk

qemu-img convert -O vmdk image2.raw imagenew.vmdk

In order to use this command, you must first install QEMU, another Virtual Machine emulator software. You install this through “Add/Remove Programs” in Ubuntu.

Once i got the vmdk file, I’ve updated the EasyVMX configuration file to point to this file for a harddisk. VMWare Player worked perfectly with this configuration file and the converted hard disk.

Edit/Update: VirtualBox is giving same (somewhat better) performance than VMWare Player and is less resource consuming. Moreover, it’s Open Source I’m sticking with VirtualBox.

Ashok TechTalk QEMU, TT - Linux, Virtual Machines, VirtualBox, VMWare