Partitioning for VirtualBox.

[gencon]

Hi,

I'm going to install VirtualBox on an Ubuntu (Lucid) PC and then install Windows XP as a guest OS. Note: I will be a first time user never having installed VirtualBox or similar before, though I've used several Linux distributions so I'm no Linux newbie.

As it happens I am going to do a clean Ubuntu installation and so am in a position to create partitions especially for VirtualBox or size standard partitions appropriately for it.

My usual Linux partition sizes are basic and as follows:

/ 25 GB (root)
Swap 4 GB
/home - whatever is left (leaving 15 GB un-partitioned space free for emergencies).

Is it possible, advisable, or even desirable to create a specific partition for VirtualBox to use for it's guest OS storage? If so what size do you recommend? I shall be installing just Win XP, say 10 GB for the OS, with space of 15 GB for installed software, plus 5 GB to make sure I can't run out of space - totalling 30 GB. Does that sound about right? I have plenty of disk space and this would still leave me with 300 GB for /home, not to mention a 2nd hard disk inside the PC so I'm not at all worried if I'm over estimating by 10-15 GB.

If creating a partition for VirtualBox would I use /var for it? I've No prior experience of using a partition for /var though I know it's often used for MySQL and email data, etc., so it would seem a logical place for guest OS storage, or am I wrong about that?

If you think I should not go down this route where does VirtualBox store its data, in root? In which case should I double my usual root size to, say, 50 or even 60 GB?

Any advise on this would be appreciated. Many thanks and regards,

gencon

[Sasquatch]

VB stores the VMs and settings in your home folder by default, so you don't need to do anything different. The exact location is ~/.VirtualBox. The '.' means that the folder is hidden. You're free to change the location of the files and if you do happen to run out of space, but don't want to move all things to another drive, you can just as easy create a VDI on a different partition or hard drive and it will be just fine. You can change the default location for the files (except the main VirtualBox.xml file) from the VB settings. To set the entire folder, including VirtualBox.xml, to another location, you set the variable VBOX_USER_HOME.

Using /var is not be used for VB, because each user has it's own VMs. MySQL and an email server may store their data in /var but have a valid reason for it, as it doesn't run as a particular user with a home folder.

[gencon]

Many thanks for answering all aspects of my questions Sasquatch, I really appreciate it. That's exactly what I needed to know.

Thanks again. Regards,

gencon

[gencon]

A quick note to add that I'm amazed how easy it was to install and setup VirtualBox on Linux with a Win XP guest OS, with help from the virtualbox.org Linux download/install page and the excellent User Manual PDF.

I'm up-n-running and both very pleased and astonished at how good VirtualBox is. VirtualBox has just got another long-term user!