How To Setup a Virtual Machine With Linux For Free

Learning how to setup a virtual machine with Linux is actually very easy. Using a program called VirtualBox it is free to setup Linux on your Windows computer! This guide will teach how to download and setup a virtual machine to run Linux for free within another operating system. If you are more interested in being able to boot up different operating systems then you should check out dual booting instead.

How To Get and Setup Virtual Machine Software and Linux

To get started you will need to go ahead and download a virtual machine software. I recommend VirtualBox as it is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux free of charge! It has tons of changeable settings and allows for lots of freedom when setting up and running your virtual machine. There are, of course, other programs that you can use to run different operating systems at varying costs, but this guide will focus on VirtualBox. The download for the software can be found here. Make sure to download the respective software for your operating system.

After you have downloaded VirtualBox it is time to download a Linux distribution. To do this, go ahead and navigate to the downloads page here and choose the distribution you want. If you aren’t sure which distribution of Linux you want to setup your virtual machine with Ubuntu is a very popular choice due to ease of use and an easy to understand layout.

Once you have downloaded the VirtualBox and the Linux operating system go ahead and open the file. To install it follow the steps for your OS below.

Windows: To install VirtualBox on Windows head to the downloads page, download it and open the .exe file. Once opened choose the settings you want and proceed with the installation.

MAC: The Mac OS installation is fairly simple just choose OS X hosts and download it. Once downloaded double click the .dmg file to mount it. When the window opens go ahead and click the .pkg file and go through the steps in the installer.

Setting Up Linux

After the program is setup and ready to go it is time to figure out how to setup Linux on your virtual machine. Go ahead and open your VirtualBox software and click the blue ‘New’ button. Once you’ve done that go ahead and pick a name for the virtual machine, set the machine folder, and choose the operating system information (type and version). Once that is done your newly installed VirtualBox operating system should appear in the menu. To open it all you must do is click it and hit the ‘Start’ button (near the ‘New’ button). Alternatively you can right click the virtual machine you want to open and go down to ‘Start’. It is recommended you change the setting for your VirtualBox to your desired settings, but these settings will be different based on your computer hardware and preferences.

If you have followed these steps you should have successfully been able to install Linux on a virtual machine for free. If you have any problems setting it up leave a comment below!