Windows XP guest crashes when running portable_ubuntu .

[Numbski]

I know this is going to sound terribly backwards, but I'm on Ubuntu Jaunty. I have virtualbox-3.0 installed, and a Windows XP guest. I've set up my USB thumb drive to be accessed from Windows XP, which works.

On my thumb drive, I have portable_ubuntu installed:

http://portableubuntu.demonccc.com.ar/

When I go to launch portable_ubuntu by double-clicking the run_portable_ubuntu.bat icon, it crashes the VM. Below is the screen capture and the log.

Screenshot

VBox.png (69.2 KiB) Viewed 2821 times

[Perryg]

VM inside of a VM is not supported. Since this is about a portable version that is really not supported.

[Numbski]

It's not a VM inside of a VM. I guess I need to explain. If you click the link above, it will take you to the site.

(BTW, sorry for the delay - went on vacation and just got back!)

Their description:

Portable Ubuntu Remix is an Ubuntu system running as a Windows application.

This system is built with the Colinux Kernel, Xming X server and Pulseaudio server for Windows.

Portable Ubuntu Remix is a useful tool for when you need to use Ubuntu on an machine that has Windows as operating system.

So you see, it's ubuntu running as a Windows application. It's not virtualization at all. Here's what the CoLinux page says:

Cooperative Linux is the first working free and open source method for optimally running Linux on Microsoft Windows natively. More generally, Cooperative Linux (short-named coLinux) is a port of the Linux kernel that allows it to run cooperatively alongside another operating system on a single machine. For instance, it allows one to freely run Linux on Windows 2000/XP, without using a commercial PC virtualization software such as VMware, in a way which is much more optimal than using any general purpose PC virtualization software.

Emphasis mine. There's no low-level hardware access happening. What you're saying is very similar to saying cygwin isn't supported. I think. Or is there a part of this that I'm missing...?

[Sasquatch]

We are (or at least I am) missing one thing: why do you want to do this? You already have Linux as Host, so why do you want to run it in a Windows VM?
The bold part of your quote can be interpreted in several ways. One of them is how you see it, the other way is that it doesn't need a virtualization application, because it provides it's own. And in that case, there is little chance it will work.

[Numbski]

Yeah, I know it's silly. The reason I need it is because my workstation at the office is Ubuntu. Our users (for the most part) have Windows XP. I occasionally need access to things like X11 from those workstations, so I carry portable_ubuntu around on my thumb drive. I was wanting to be able to run a simple `apt-get update && apt-get upgrade` from my workstation for the portable_ubuntu installation, which would mean running it via virtualbox in my Windows XP vm.

If it's not going to work, it's not going to work. I just wanted to make clear that I'm not virtualizing Ubuntu inside of virtualized Windows.

[Sasquatch]

I just wanted to make clear that I'm not virtualizing Ubuntu inside of virtualized Windows.

Did you read my explanation above? You might not know that it's actually being virtualized. For all you know, it could be Qemu that's running it. Open the .bat file in notepad and check it's contents. What does it say? You will learn a few things from opening such files.

Needing X11 things can be done from the Host too. I really don't understand why you need a Linux OS, running from Windows, for a few things, that can be done using the Host.

[Markus_AC]

Hi,

this is an older thread, but my problems seems to be similar.
I try to run Virtual Box on a Win XP Pro Host. the guest host is Win Xp Pro, too. On that guest I try to run a coLinux.
When I try to start this, my VM crashes.

Is it still in the current version of VirtualBox (V 4.1.16) not supported to run coLinux inside it?

PS: I found ticket #5354, which seems to state out the same problem.

[mpack]

Yes, it is still the case that you cannot run one virtualizer inside another, and, as far as I can tell, CoLinux is a virtualiser. Run Linux as another VM on your host. Do not try to run Linux as a VM inside another VM. In fact I'm a bit puzzled as to why you would try.

[Markus_AC]

Thanks for replay.

My reason for this setup:

I want to run a software-package which runs under Windows but uses coLinux for cross-compilation. As I already have a previous version of this package installed on my real Windows host and you can't run two version of this package in parallel, I try to run the newer version of this software package (includung a coLinux) on a VirtualBox.

Hope I explained it quite comprehensibly.

[Markus_AC]

Give me a quick update: is it still not possible to run another VM inside a virtual box?

[loukingjr]

Give me a quick update: is it still not possible to run another VM inside a virtual box?

nested virtualization is still not supported.

[Perryg]

Give me a quick update: is it still not possible to run another VM inside a virtual box?

That would depend on your hardware and even then you can only run 32-bit OSes as a guest. Even though you can make it work given the restrictions, it is not supported.