Building OVAs for maximum compatibility

This is for discussing general topics about how to use VirtualBox.
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ck-two
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Building OVAs for maximum compatibility

Post by ck-two »

I am an educator and I regularly build OVAs for my analytics courses to be used on VirtualBox 6.1, which comprise an Ubuntu (AMD64) based working environment with Jupyter Notebook, RStudio, Python, R, and a selection of packages for both languages. About 10 % of the students report issues when trying to run the solution on their notebook. Therefore, I would like to know if there are is a set of best practices when building OVAs for maximum compatibility on any arbitrary x64-64 machine out there running VirtualBox 6.1 no matter the host OS (however, most of my students run Windows or macOS as host OS). That is, I wonder if there is a set of settings that "just works" on the vast majority of systems.

Any suggestion will be greatly appreciated.

Regards,
Christian
mpack
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Re: Building OVAs for maximum compatibility

Post by mpack »

ck-two wrote:That is, I wonder if there is a set of settings that "just works" on the vast majority of systems.
OVA is a standard developed by VMWare whose sole purpose is to allow you to export a VM as an appliance, with the promise that it should "just work" when imported on any compliant VM platform (VMWare or other).

Given that you are asking for something that provides exactly what the format already claims to provide, I'm not sure what else to say!

Except to say that generally, experienced users do not use OVA if the goal is to move a VM between VirtualBox hosts. We simply copy the VM folder and register it (if we didn't already register a previous iteration). This avoids the unnecessary VM changes (and resulting Windows deactivations and Linux grub boot errors) caused by the double translation (VirtualBox to OVA and then OVA to a hopefully similar VirtualBox).
scottgus1
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Re: Building OVAs for maximum compatibility

Post by scottgus1 »

I'll add that troubles running VMs may not be from distributing them as OVAs, since some folks doing fresh installs also have problems. Sometimes the problems come from the physical computer's OS, not the VM

By reading the forums you'll see what kind of issues may arise from others' posts. Also, posting problems in the forum can get fixes which you might be able to remember for future problems.
ck-two
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Re: Building OVAs for maximum compatibility

Post by ck-two »

Thank you both for taking the time. Perhaps it might be a good idea to distribute VDI / VMDK with a HOWTO to enable the students to configure the setup on their own.
scottgus1
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Re: Building OVAs for maximum compatibility

Post by scottgus1 »

distributing the VDI is part of the "We simply copy the VM folder and register it" method mentioned by Mpack. Doing what he says is better than just distributing the VDI. The VDI is only the "hard drive". The whole VM folder contains the whole "hardware" that the VM runs on.

Distributing OVA or the VM folder won't stop the host OS problems. Read and post on the forum for each kind of problem you have had, you'll soon get a playlist for fixing the problems.
multiOS
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Re: Building OVAs for maximum compatibility

Post by multiOS »

One additional "gotcha" to watch for; as you mentioned that some of your students use Apple/MacOS host systems, only Intel-Based Apple computers can run VirtualBox and x32/x64-based Operating Systems (Virtual Machines), NOT the newer M1 processor-based Apple Models, which will, presumably, steadily increase in ownership amongst those purchasing 'new' Apple hardware.
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