After you get through the initial basic system configuration, here’s a quick how to get VirtualBox up and running in minutes on Debian Squeeze. The only package group i’m going to assume you installed was “SSH Server”.

The only problem i’ve had with LXDE and Mint is that running as a guest in VirtualBox, the guest additions will not install properly. I tried mounting the additions from the host and installing them, no dice. I tried installing from the software repositories using the aptitude update manager, no dice. So it didn’t work out of the box for me, but a quick recompile did the trick. No moving around files or manipulating configurations are necessary, just recompile for the running kernel and you’re in business.

VirtualBox can’t operate in VMX root mode. Please disable the KVM kernel extension, recompile your kernel and reboot. You might see this VirtualBox error when trying to start a virtual machine or create a new one.

QEMU is a generic and open source machine emulator and virtualizer. When used as a machine emulator, QEMU can run OSes and programs made for one machine architecture on a different machine architecture. This is different than VMware, VirtualBox, or Hyper-V where you’re running different operating systems on the same architecture.

Use the following steps to get an image of a HP Thin Client running as a virtual machine in VirtualBox. I’m running Fedora 11 and VirtualBox 3.0.0 r49315. The thin client is running a stripped down Debian Etchnhalf (no ‘less’ pager command, man pages?!) And finally, if you log in with root or another user, you’ll get to a full xfce desktop