Installing Fedora 7 in Virtual PC 2007
June 20th, 2007Microsoft’s Virtual PC 2007 has been out for a little while and runs on Vista (unlike VPC 2004). Very kindly, it is free to download and free for use. This makes it an excellent tool for running different operating systems without having to partition and slice an existing hard drive, or configure dual-booting.
For software developers or systems administrators, Virtual PC allows experimentation on “clean” systems. As the Virtual PC hard disk is simply a disk-based file, this can be backed up and reinstated as desired, each time returning the virtualised computer back to a known state.
For many people, this offers a risk-free opportunity to try out Linux. Just like Virtual PC has no charge, so too Linux can be freely obtained. (Note, that site does not actually send free disks any more, but it does link to other such projects and also the direct download links for many popular distributions.)
It’s not absolute plain sailing to install, though. You elect to create a new Virtual PC, map the virtual CD drive to your real CD (or an ISO image) and “reboot”. The Linux installer kicks in then apparently hangs. No amount of waiting will help. The problem is it’s trying to start X-Windows to provide a graphical installation process, but X-Windows will not run in a virtualised console window. You can still make a retro text console system until an X solution can be found.
Here’s what to do in Fedora 7, although the steps will be mostly identical for other releases. Take charge immediately when the Fedora installation options are listed. Happily, Red Hat have provided a text console installation option, as #2 on the list. In previous versions of Fedora it was necessary to directly modify the boot options command line to add the “text” modifier. You’ll find this then gets things moving; you can complete the Fedora installation and reboot the virtual PC again. Be sure to opt for the customised installation and deselect the X server right down the bottom.
August 5th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Just an update … I also tried CentOS Linux with the same result; it’s graphical installer is unviewable under Microsoft Virtual PC.
The same thing happens under Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2.
I then tried VMWare Server 1.0.3 and that worked fine! So, if you’re wanting to run Linux under a virtual machine I think VMWare definitely has the edge.