virtualbox.org

I am very new to Linux, and do not understand all of the complications. I managed to set up a bridge between my computer and my winXP virtual machine by following the instructions in the help like a robot eg. I did what it said without really understanding what I was doing. However I lost the internet on the host machine. Is there any way I can have a bridge to my virtural pc and keep the internet connection on the host?

You shouldn't blame yourself for getting lost over host networking - it is very involved and difficult to set up to begin with.

Normally, when you create a host network, your virtual machine will appear to be a real machine on the network. This is controlled by the host (hence host network) and you have to bridge the virtual network with a real (physical) network card.

You don't say which Linux distribution you are using as the host so I can't be more specific but what I can say is that I've recently written an overview of getting host networking active on my blog:

linux.knightnet.org.uk

Have a look at the article entitled "Bridged networking in OpenSUSE 10.3 (For VirtualBox)". It is targetted at OpenSUSE users as that is what I use but may still be of use on other distributions - if it is, please leave some comments on the post.

Regards, Julian
www.knightnet.org.uk