So you want to try out a new OS for your computer. Like most of us you only have one computer in the house and there’s no way you want to do anything funny with that. What you want is to run your new OS on your Windows or OSX machine like any old application you have installed. To do this we need a virtual machine. Download and install one here. We will install Elementary OS in our virtual machine, you can get it here or direct link here.

Create a new virtual machine in VirtualBox

After installing Virtualbox, run it.

Choose New in the toolbar.

Give your new virtual machine a name, type and version like you see above. A memory size of 1024MB will be enough. Now press Create.

Around 10GB of disk space is more than enough for your virtual machine. Press Create. That concludes the basic setup.

Prepare the new virtual machine

Now you need to adjust some settings for your new virtual machine. Make sure the new virtual machine you added is selected and press the Settings button in the toolbar.

Select Display.

Give your virtual machine 128MB of Video Memory. Enable 3D acceleration.

Select Storage.

Select the Empty entry under Controller: IDE and remove it with the – button. Use the + button to add a new optical drive to the virtual machine. Browser to the Elementary OS installation disc you downloaded earlier and attach it.

The Elementary OS installation disc should be attached to Controller: IDE like you see above. Now select Network.

Here you set the Attached to to Bridged Adapter and press OK. You are done with the settings.

Installing Elementary OS in the new virtual machine

Now it’s time to start your virtual machine and install Elementary OS on it. Make sure it’s selected and press Start in the toolbar.

After a short while you will see this screen, it is the Elementary OS installer that will install itself on your new virtual machine.

Pick your language and press Install elementary.

Select both settings here and press Continue.

Choose only the first option and press Install now then Continue.

Select your time zone.

Pick your language.

Finally give yourself a username and a password and press Continue. Now wait while Elementary OS installs on your new virtual machine.

Elementary OS is now installed and it’s time to restart the virtual machine. Press Restart Now.

Just press Enter.

Logging in to Elementary OS

After restarting it’s time to log in to your new virtual machine and meet Elementary OS.

Looks kinda pretty, doesn’t it? Now click the rightmost application on the bottom toolbar (the blue down-arrow). That’s the Appcenter where you can manage updates and find new applications for Elementary OS.

See if there are any updates available, if so install them all. Now press the second application from the left on the bottom toolbar (the yin/yang one). That’s the browser.

Finally to shut your virtual machine down press the rightmost button in the top toolbar and select Shutdown.

Removing the virtual machine

If you didn’t much like Elementary OS, you can delete it.

Select the virtual machine in the list, right click and Remove. Select Delete all files.

You are now ready to tell Orca, next time she pesters you about Linux “Pff, been there, done that!”.