Virtualbox and MX snapshots

[Buck Fankers]

I'm putting this into chat section, since I don't need help, just few questions and maybe few tips :)

I will be using Virtualbox for the first time. Can ISO files made by MX Snapshoot be used for installs in VB? I'm assuming yes, but can't hurt asking.
I have data partition, can all ISO's be installed on separate partitions (like my 'DATA") since I have plenty of space there.
What about if I have another SSD in the system, can VB ISO's be placed there?
I see three files Virtualbox-guests-* are already preinstalled, but not Virtualbox. I'm assuming I need to install it, correct?
Is MX Test Repo version (little newer) the one I should install?

Any VB tips for the first time user?

In this case system info is probably not needed but I'm pasting it here anyway. My new minipc.
(boy I like Linux, I just took SSD from previous computer, placed it into new one and all works OOTB)

Code: Select all

Snapshot created on: 20241028_1059
System:
  Kernel: 6.9.4-1-liquorix-amd64 [6.9-3~mx23ahs] arch: x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 12.2.0 clocksource: tsc
    avail: acpi_pm parameters: audit=0 intel_pstate=disable
    BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-6.9.4-1-liquorix-amd64 root=UUID=<filter> ro quiet splash
  Desktop: Xfce v: 4.18.1 tk: Gtk v: 3.24.36 wm: xfwm4 v: 4.18.0 with: xfce4-panel
    tools: xfce4-screensaver vt: 7 dm: LightDM v: 1.26.0 Distro: MX-23.4_x64 Libretto May 19 2024
    base: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Machine:
  Type: Desktop System: Tianbei product: GEM10 v: N/A serial: <superuser required>
  Mobo: Tianbei model: GEM10 serial: <superuser required> uuid: <superuser required>
    UEFI: American Megatrends LLC. v: 1.00 date: 04/22/2024
Battery:
  Device-1: hidpp_battery_0 model: Logitech Wireless Mouse B330/M330/M331 serial: <filter>
    charge: 55% (should be ignored) rechargeable: yes status: discharging
CPU:
  Info: model: AMD Ryzen 7 6800H with Radeon Graphics bits: 64 type: MT MCP arch: Zen 3+ gen: 4
    level: v3 note: check built: 2022 process: TSMC n6 (7nm) family: 0x19 (25) model-id: 0x44 (68)
    stepping: 1 microcode: 0xA404102
  Topology: cpus: 1x cores: 8 tpc: 2 threads: 16 smt: enabled cache: L1: 512 KiB
    desc: d-8x32 KiB; i-8x32 KiB L2: 4 MiB desc: 8x512 KiB L3: 16 MiB desc: 1x16 MiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 1789 high: 3543 min/max: 400/4785 scaling: driver: amd-pstate-epp
    governor: performance cores: 1: 3131 2: 400 3: 3126 4: 400 5: 3165 6: 400 7: 3543 8: 400 9: 400
    10: 3254 11: 3137 12: 400 13: 2926 14: 400 15: 3155 16: 400 bogomips: 102199
  Flags: avx avx2 ht lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 sse4a ssse3 svm
  Vulnerabilities:
  Type: gather_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: itlb_multihit status: Not affected
  Type: l1tf status: Not affected
  Type: mds status: Not affected
  Type: meltdown status: Not affected
  Type: mmio_stale_data status: Not affected
  Type: reg_file_data_sampling status: Not affected
  Type: retbleed status: Not affected
  Type: spec_rstack_overflow status: Vulnerable: Safe RET, no microcode
  Type: spec_store_bypass mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl
  Type: spectre_v1 mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
  Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Retpolines; IBPB: conditional; IBRS_FW; STIBP: always-on; RSB
    filling; PBRSB-eIBRS: Not affected; BHI: Not affected
  Type: srbds status: Not affected
  Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Rembrandt [Radeon 680M] driver: amdgpu v: kernel arch: RDNA-2 code: Navi-2x
    process: TSMC n7 (7nm) built: 2020-22 pcie: gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 ports:
    active: DP-1,HDMI-A-1 empty: DP-2, DP-3, DP-4, DP-5, DP-6, Writeback-1 bus-ID: e5:00.0
    chip-ID: 1002:1681 class-ID: 0300 temp: 42.0 C
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.7 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.18.0 driver: X: loaded: amdgpu
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa dri: radeonsi gpu: amdgpu display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
  Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3600x1080 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 952x285mm (37.48x11.22") s-diag: 994mm (39.12")
  Monitor-1: DP-1 mapped: DisplayPort-0 pos: primary,left model: Dell E2417H serial: <filter>
    built: 2018 res: 1920x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 93 gamma: 1.2 size: 527x296mm (20.75x11.65")
    diag: 604mm (23.8") ratio: 16:9 modes: max: 1920x1080 min: 720x400
  Monitor-2: HDMI-A-1 mapped: HDMI-A-0 pos: right model: HP LA2205 serial: <filter> built: 2010
    res: 1680x1050 hz: 60 dpi: 90 gamma: 1.2 size: 473x296mm (18.62x11.65") diag: 558mm (22")
    ratio: 16:10 modes: max: 1680x1050 min: 720x400
  API: EGL v: 1.5 hw: drv: amd radeonsi platforms: device: 0 drv: radeonsi device: 1 drv: swrast
    gbm: egl: 1.4 drv: kms_swrast surfaceless: drv: radeonsi x11: drv: radeonsi inactive: wayland
  API: OpenGL v: 4.6 vendor: amd mesa v: 22.3.6 glx-v: 1.4 es-v: 3.2 direct-render: yes
    renderer: AMD Radeon Graphics (rembrandt LLVM 15.0.6 DRM 3.57 6.9.4-1-liquorix-amd64)
    device-ID: 1002:1681 memory: 500 MiB unified: no
Audio:
  Device-1: AMD Rembrandt Radeon High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie: gen: 4
    speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: e5:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:1640 class-ID: 0403
  Device-2: AMD Family 17h/19h HD Audio vendor: Realtek driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel pcie:
    gen: 4 speed: 16 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: e5:00.6 chip-ID: 1022:15e3 class-ID: 0403
  API: ALSA v: k6.9.4-1-liquorix-amd64 status: kernel-api tools: alsactl,alsamixer,amixer
  Server-1: PipeWire v: 1.0.6 status: active with: 1: pipewire-pulse status: active
    2: wireplumber status: active 3: pipewire-alsa type: plugin 4: pw-jack type: plugin
    tools: pactl,pw-cat,pw-cli,wpctl
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Ethernet I226-V driver: igc v: kernel pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: N/A bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:125c class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Intel Ethernet I226-V driver: igc v: kernel pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s lanes: 1
    port: N/A bus-ID: 02:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:125c class-ID: 0200
  IF: eth1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
  Device-3: Intel Wi-Fi 6 AX200 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel modules: wl pcie: gen: 2 speed: 5 GT/s
    lanes: 1 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 8086:2723 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlan0 state: down mac: <filter>
  Info: services: NetworkManager,wpa_supplicant
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel AX200 Bluetooth driver: btusb v: 0.8 type: USB rev: 2.0 speed: 12 Mb/s lanes: 1
    mode: 1.1 bus-ID: 3-3.1:4 chip-ID: 8087:0029 class-ID: e001
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down bt-service: N/A rfk-block: hardware: no
    software: no address: <filter>
  Info: acl-mtu: 1021:4 sco-mtu: 96:6 link-policy: rswitch sniff link-mode: peripheral accept
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 505.85 GiB (54.3%)
  SMART Message: Unable to run smartctl. Root privileges required.
  ID-1: /dev/nvme0n1 maj-min: 259:0 vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T2B0C-00PXH0
    size: 931.51 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B speed: 31.6 Gb/s lanes: 4 tech: SSD
    serial: <filter> fw-rev: 211070WD temp: 40.9 C scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / raw-size: 49.46 GiB size: 48.38 GiB (97.82%) used: 24.72 GiB (51.1%) fs: ext4
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p8 maj-min: 259:8
  ID-2: /boot/efi raw-size: 512 MiB size: 511 MiB (99.80%) used: 692 KiB (0.1%) fs: vfat
    dev: /dev/nvme0n1p1 maj-min: 259:1
Swap:
  Kernel: swappiness: 15 (default 60) cache-pressure: 100 (default) zswap: yes compressor: lz4
    max-pool: 20%
  ID-1: swap-1 type: partition size: 2.05 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2 dev: /dev/nvme0n1p2
    maj-min: 259:2
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 53.5 C mobo: N/A gpu: amdgpu temp: 43.0 C
  Fan Speeds (rpm): N/A
Repos:
  Packages: pm: dpkg pkgs: 2558 libs: 1337 tools: apt, apt-get, aptitude, nala, synaptic pm: rpm
    pkgs: 0 pm: flatpak pkgs: 0
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/brave-browser-release.list
    1: deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/brave-browser-archive-keyring.gpg] https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com/ stable main
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-stable-updates.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.list
    1: deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
    2: deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mx.list
    1: deb https://mxrepo.com/mx/repo/ bookworm main non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera-stable.list
    1: deb https://deb.opera.com/opera-stable/ stable non-free
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/extrepo_librewolf.sources
    1: deb [arch=amd64 arm64] https://repo.librewolf.net librewolf main
Info:
  Memory: total: N/A available: 30.64 GiB used: 4.49 GiB (14.7%)
  Processes: 457 Power: uptime: 1h 42m states: freeze,mem,disk suspend: deep avail: s2idle
    wakeups: 0 hibernate: platform avail: shutdown, reboot, suspend, test_resume image: 12.22 GiB
    services: upowerd,xfce4-power-manager Init: SysVinit v: 3.06 runlevel: 5 default: graphical
    tool: systemctl
  Compilers: gcc: 12.2.0 Client: shell wrapper v: 5.2.15-release inxi: 3.3.35
Boot Mode: UEFI

[figueroa]

1. Stick with Debian stable versions for maximum happiness.
2. You can put VirtualBox isos (virtual machines) on any drive. However, don't use removable media. Anytime you open the VirtualBox GUI, VirtualBox will look for it's virtual machines and be very unhappy if it can't find them.
3. Don't include your VirtualBox directories in the MX Snapshot or the snapshot will become huge. That includes "~/.VirtualBox", "~/VirtualBox VMs", and any other location where you keep your VirtualBox isos. Back them up instead separately when VirtualBox is not running into a compressed TAR archive.
4. You can'r run VirtualBox without installing it. Install it from the MX Package Installer.
5. For long-term use, don't install VirtualBox in an MX Live USB. It's not going to behave well through upgrades and remasters. Just a fact of life.

[DukeComposed]

4. You can'r run VirtualBox without installing it. Install it from the MX Package Installer.

VirtualBox uses some bespoke kernel modules. It generally builds itself without trouble as a DKMS module against whatever the running kernel is, but for stability's sake if you're going to run VirtualBox you should avoid kernel hopping.

Also, VirtualBox and the VirtualBox guest add-ons are under a totally different license than the VirtualBox extension pack. Be aware of what you're running and what the consequences are, and never run any more Oracle code than you absolutely need.

[CharlesV]

Yes you can put VB files ( VHD's, VDI's, etc ) anyplace, but as figueroa mentioned you are going to need to exclude them from your snapshots. (And it will get a little tricky if you dont put them in the 'normal' location - ie you have to go into the exclude file and specifically add that location! )

As for what you can run ... you can run almost any os in VB. I run MX of all flavors for testing things, and then have MX Development VM's along with specific function VM's and windows vm's. Typically, I have 3 running at any one time on my main machine, and then 3 or 4 running on my 'service' machine. Once you get them tuned... you can run multiples with out too much trouble on a fast machine.

[Stevo]

There is no MX Test Repo version. We really really very very strongly urge that MXPI be used to install and test just one thing at a time from the test repo on a regular or AHS MX Edition.

[asqwerth]

Yes you can put VB files ( VHD's, VDI's, etc ) anyplace, but as figueroa mentioned you are going to need to exclude them from your snapshots. (And it will get a little tricky if you dont put them in the 'normal' location - ie you have to go into the exclude file and specifically add that location! )

....

Since I multiboot, I place my folder of Virtual Machines (VM) for Virtualbox (VB) in my separate Data drive/partition. That way, it is accessible by all my distros on which I install VB, since I automount my Data partition in all my distros.

When I make an MX snapshot, the VM folder in Data isn't going to be included in the snapshot by default, and that's the way I want it.

If I use that snapshot iso to install in another machine, yes, when you open VB in that new install it's going to mark all the listed VMs as "not found" or something similar. That's not a big deal. You can (in VB) remove those VM entries and set the new VM directory location to be used in your new machine.

[Buck Fankers]

Thank you all for informative replies

1. Stick with Debian stable versions for maximum happiness.

Thank you for all the answers, you covered everything, appreciate it!

Since I multiboot, I place my folder of Virtual Machines (VM) for Virtualbox (VB) in my separate Data drive/partition. That way, it is accessible by all my distros on which I install VB, since I automount my Data partition in all my distros.

While I was just thinking about more space I have on separate data, drive partition, this is great idea, thanks.

There is no MX Test Repo version. We really really very very strongly urge that MXPI be used to install and test just one thing at a time from the test repo on a regular or AHS MX Edition.

Sorry Stevo, my bad, I should of worded it differently, I meant MX Test Repo tab in MXPI, since under that tab is newer version (@figurea already replied to stay with stable version - enabled repos)

Also, VirtualBox and the VirtualBox guest add-ons are under a totally different license than the VirtualBox extension pack. Be aware of what you're running and what the consequences are, and never run any more Oracle code than you absolutely need.

Interesting about totally different licenses. If I understand correctly, VirtualBox extension pack uses less desirable license and should be stay away from?

Does MX comes with some virtualbox packages already preinstalled? I don't recall installing them and I have these three packages installed:

- virtualbox-guest-utils
- virtualbox-guest-utils-modified-init (different version number)
- virtualbox-guest-x11

but not virtualbox which I'm assuming I need to install, correct? Or are other three files all I need?

I understand I don't want those virtual drives in my snapshot :)

[Nokkaelaein]

A couple of additions/clarifications:

It's okay to install Virtualbox in a live USB booting MX Linux system (i.e. you have installed and configured it correctly on a system before taking a snapshot of that system - you point Virtualbox to the relevant VM location(s) and so on - and then you make a snapshot of that configured system, make a live booting USB drive with that snapshot, and then proceed to use VMs with it when live booting.) I've done this for several years in my daily workflow when I have a need to do development work inside a Windows 10 VM, and it has worked beautifully. (I boot from a high speed Samsung T-series USB SSD.)

The Virtualbox installation has been configured so that it looks for its VMs in the persistent Live-usb-storage directory of the live system, which is naturally present on that USB SSD, also containing all the persistent project files I wish to store in that location.

Also, it is perfectly fine to install the actual VMs on a removable media, in any case, and then start the Virtualbox GUI while the VMs (or some of the VMs) aren't present. This will merely result in Virtualbox telling you that it cannot open them, but that's it; it gracefully informs you that they are inaccessible, like so:

https://i.imgur.com/XLCGN83.png

In the above screenshot I have started the Virtualbox GUI, i.e. the VirtualBox Manager, for demonstration purposes without any VMs present in the Live-usb-storage directory. Now, I close the manager and (again, for demonstration purposes) copy just my retro WinXP VM back in:

https://i.imgur.com/0tMuOol.png

Now that one can be found correctly, and is ready to run. This does not result in random breakage, and is a good way to run arbitrary VMs on a "boot anywhere" type of live system.



Moderator: images changed to links, please read the forum rules

[Buck Fankers]

It's okay to install Virtualbox in a live USB booting MX Linux system (i.e. you have installed and configured it correctly

Thank you, for a presentation and all the info. It is good to know that manager is so flexible. I may try something similar

[Nokkaelaein]

No problem

Moderator: images changed to links, please read the forum rules

Ah, sorry, and thanks for the edit. (I had interpreted the rules differently. I know it says "Do not unnecessarily post images or screenshots of text. Copy and paste the text in your post. Text can be searched, images cannot", and in this case I specifically wanted to add to my post by showing how neatly Virtualbox indicates the missing VMs in the GUI, not just textual output. In any case, I'll keep this in mind, cheers.)