[PLUG] VirtualBox won't start

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

There's tools in quemu to convert a VirtualBox VM to the qcow2 format.

If anyone is interested I'd be happy to post a complete set of instructions for going from bare metal to Ubuntu 24.04 server,
Running KVM, Copilot, and virt-manager.

I've used Copilot to create a Windows 11 Pro guest VM under this setup although I use virt-manager for more advanced configuration of guest VMs.  The Ubuntu server is run "essentially headless" that is there is no GUI on it, the idea is, similar to how VMWare ESXi is built, to devote all CPU and other resources on the Hypervisor server to the guest VMs.

"back in the day" when we were running 32 bit VM guests there was considerable advanced programming in writing a hypervisor since you were emulating cpu instructions.

But these days most of the heavy lifting is handed over to the CPU which does the actual work of creating a virtual machine.  There's really not much difference under the hood between the KVM+quemu, virtualbox, or Microsoft hyperv hypervisors.

The big difference is how much iron you can throw at it.

Ted

-----Original Message-----
From: PLUG <plug-bounces at lists.pdxlinux.org> On Behalf Of Dick Steffens

> I am personally stuck with vBox for legacy VM instances, which I am 
> not able to rebuild. I find linux native KVM+quemu more performant and 
> better choice for new VMs. It has been mature for good number of 
> years. I would recommend it over vBox to anyone on linux creating new VMs.

I'll consider that some day. My use is limited, and it works. Some day it may be worth the effort to give KVM+quemu a try.