Book Review: Getting Started with Oracle VM VirtualBox

Getting Started with
Oracle VM VirtualBox

This book gives a general introduction to Oracle VM VirtualBox software, which is used in virtualization. Using this software you will be able to run operating systems which are different from the one installed in your hard disk. It can be installed on your Mac, Linux, or even Windows machines. It adds the capability to run multiple operating system as a virtual machine. For example once you have logged into your Linux/Ubuntu machine, you can start a Virtual machine for Windows.

This book covers a great deal about how to start using with VirtualBox, which is an open source software licensed under GPL (GNU General Public License) version 2. Learn more about this software from its website.

The book also covers various details like installation (which is anyway not a daunting task you might think, but there are people who might need this) in various operating systems. It then talks about how to create virtual machines, cloning, restoring in a step by step fashion. You will never get lost in this way.

The book then talks about installing Oracle Enterprise Linux (which is Oracle's version of Linux) on VirtualBox, and then about various networking and storage options available in VirtualBox and how they work. If you are an application developer there is nothing to get excited about, but you can know what are the different options available. If you are a networking person/DBA who is looking to tune the availability of your virtual machines this is for you.

Overall its a decent book on VirtualBox, and can be used as a quick reference guide either while setting up for the first time or when you are stuck with "How to do this", or "What is wrong with my set up" kind of situation.

You can buy this book from various on-line stores, the publishers often reward your purchases with discounts. You can buy the e-book format or physical copy of the book from Packt Publishing website.