Easiest Way To Get Linux: VMWare + Ubuntu Image

Posted March 7, 2006 * Comments(9)

Want an easy way to get Linux up and running? I set this up in 10 minutes (minus download time) on my laptop:

  1. Grab VMWare Server. It’s now free!
  2. Install it. Pretty easy, stick with the default options.
  3. Download the pre-built Ubuntu Linux image. Uncompress it.
  4. Open the ubuntu image in VMWare.

That’s it. Now you have a Linux virtual machine running on your computer. Perfectly functional, not too bad on performance. Mine figured out networking, worked out of the box. Easiest linux install yet.

VMWare, if you’re not familiar with it, is a server virtualization technology. Basically means you can run multiple virtual machines on your single physical machine. So for example, you can run a Linux virtual machine on your windows machine, and vice versa. The two machines can communicate with each other as if they were physically separate devices. I’ve used it for years, works very well.

There are a lot of nice things about VMWare. I mainly use it to develop and test linux code on my windows machine. I’ve also used it to setup snapshots of environments that I can restore easily later, such as particular releases of my software or particular configurations of my software at a customer site. VMWare stores the state of the virtual machine as a file, so it’s very easy to capture the state of one or more machines (just grab the files) and restore then (copy them back, fire up VMWare on them). So not only virtualization, but also easy restore of state.

9 Comments so far

  1. Bill on March 7th, 2006

    Is the Server free now too? I thought it was just the player?

  2. Parand Darugar on March 8th, 2006

    Yes, Server is free too. See http://www.larkware.com/editorials/vmware.html

  3. poornima on July 20th, 2006

    I am not able to find the gcc compiler in ubuntu linux to compile my c programs. Is it installed or not in the image? If not how do I do it?

  4. Parand Darugar on July 20th, 2006

    poornima, you can install gcc using either “apt” or one of the graphical package management apps like synaptic. Type the following:

    man apt-get

    for some help on apt. Or, from the system menu startup Synaptic, look for gcc, and click install.

  5. snookmz on December 16th, 2007

    I believe GCC is installed by default, it is usually just not linked to ‘gcc’. I.e. it will be called ‘gcc-’.

  6. spatil on January 20th, 2009

    http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/ubuntu.html goes to 404

  7. nfo on July 24th, 2009

    hi,
    a easy way is also wubi (http://wubi-installer.org/)
    from their homepage “Wubi is an officially supported Ubuntu installer for Windows users that can bring you to the Linux world with a single click. ”

    @spatil: here are a lot of vmware – ubuntu images:
    http://chrysaor.info/?page=ubuntu

    cu
    nfo

  8. jonny rocket on November 16th, 2010

    fix your link. it is dead.

  9. pligg.com on July 31st, 2011

    Easiest Way To Get Linux: VMWare + Ubuntu Image – Standard Deviations…

    That’s it. Now you have a Linux virtual machine running on your computer. Perfectly functional, not too bad on performance. Mine figured out networking, worked out of the box. Easiest linux install yet….

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