(Version 2020-04-06)

Why are we doing it? The computers of the students with their operating systems (OS) are usually very heterogeneous. Some students use Windows with different versions, licenses and language options, others use Mac and a few Linux. Throughout the last semesters we spent a considerable amount of time fixing annoying problems related to different software installations.

As a consequence for this semester (SS2020) we will try for the first time to use virtual machines running on your operating systems. The advantage is that all students will be using the same (virtual) operating system with the same software packages and the same configuration! This makes support much easier.

What is a Virtual Machine? To put it very simply: A Virtual machine (VM) is a virtual 'computer' running in a window of the host computer. Example: Ubuntu Linux VM running on a Windows 10 host operating system, Debian Linux VM running on Mac OS, etc.

Which VM are we using? We will set up a Linux VM with Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. It is a wide spread open source OS, very stable, clearly manageable, well supported and extremely transparent.

What is needed? On your computers you have to install VirtualBox from Oracle for your particular operating system. VirtualBox is available for Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Yes, you can run a virtual Linux machine even on a Linux machine. You should do it to acquire the same state of software installation in the VM!

• Oracle VirtualBox: https://www.virtualbox.org/
• Ubuntu 18.04 LTS image: https://ubuntu.com/download/desktop

Please follow the following screen cast:

Install Ubuntu on VirtualBox - 2020 Linux Tutorial, by RealToughCandy

• When installing Ubuntu you have to assign more than 1024 MB RAM to the VM otherwise the system won't recognise input from keyboard or mouse. Recommended are 4096 MB or half of your available RAM.

• After installing, the window is very small and won't automatically resize if the window is extended. To solve this follow these instructions.