Introduction
VirtualBox allows you to run an entire operating system inside another operating system. Please be aware that you should have a minimum of 2 GB of RAM. 4 GB of RAM or more is recommended.
Comparison to Dual-Boot
Many websites (including the one you’re reading) have tutorials on setting up dual-boots between Windows and Predator-OS. A dual-boot allows you; at boot time, to decide which operating system you want to use. Installing Predator-OS on a virtual machine inside of Windows has a lot advantages over a dual-boot (but also a few disadvantages).
Advantages of virtual installation
The size of the installation does not have to be predetermined. It can be a dynamically resized virtual hard drive. You do not need to reboot in order to switch between Predator-OS and Windows.The virtual machine will use your Windows internet connection so you don’t have to worry about Predator-OS not detecting your wireless card if you have one. The virtual machine will set up its own video configuration, so you don’t have to worry about installing proprietary graphics drivers to get a reasonable screen resolution. You always have Windows to fall back on in case there are any problems. All you have to do is press the right Control key instead of rebooting your entire computer.
For troubleshooting purposes, you can easily take screenshots of any part of Predator-OS (including the boot menu or the login screen). It’s low commitment. If you later decide you don’t like Predator-OS, all you have to do is delete the virtual hard drive and uninstall VirtualBox.
Disadvantages of virtual installation
In order to get any kind of decent performance, you need at least 512 MB of RAM, because you are running an entire operating system (Predator-OS) inside another entire operating system (Windows). The more memory the better. I would recommend at least 1 GB of RAM.
Even though the low commitment factor can seem like an advantage at first, if you later decide you want to switch to Predator-OS and ditch Windows completely you cannot simply delete your Windows partition. You would have to find some way to migrate out your settings from the virtual machine and then install Predator-OS over Windows outside the virtual machine.
Every time you want to use Predator-OS, you have to wait for two boot times (the time it takes to boot Windows, and then the time it takes to boot Predator-OS within Windows).
Installation Process
Follow these instructions to get a Predator-OS disk image (.iso file).
Steps to Install Predator-OS On VirtualBox
After you launch VirtualBox from the Windows Start menu, click on New to create a new virtual machine. When the New Virtual Machine Wizard appears, click Next.
You can call the machine whatever you want. If you’re installing Predator-OS, it makes sense to call it Predator-OS, I guess. You should also specify that the operating system is Linux.
VirtualBox will try to guess how much of your memory (or RAM) to allocate for the virtual machine. If you have 1 GB or less of RAM, I would advise you stick with the recommendation. If, however, you have over 1 GB, about a quarter your RAM or less should be fine. For example, if you have 2 GB of RAM, 512 MB is fine to allocate. If you have 4 GB of RAM, 1 GB is fine to allocate. If you have no idea what RAM is or how much of it you have, just go with the default.
Click Next.
If this is your first time using VirtualBox (which it probably is if you need a tutorial on how to use it), then you do want to Create new hard disk recommended 30 GB disk space and then click Next.
Click Next again.
Theoretically a dynamically expanding virtual hard drive is best because it’ll take up only what you actually use. I have come upon weird situations though, when installing new software in a virtualized Predator-OS, in which the virtual hard drive just fills up instead of expanding. So I would actually recommend picking a Fixed-size storage.
Predator-OS’s default installation is less than 25 GB. If you plan on adding software or downloading large files in your virtualized Predator-OS, you should tack on some buffer.
Click Create and wait for the virtual hard drive to be created. This is actually just a very large file that lives inside of your Windows installation.
The next thing to do to make the (currently blank) virtual hard drive useful is to add the downloaded Predator-OS disk image (the .iso) boot on your virtual machine. Click on Settings and Storage. Then, under CD/DVD Device, next to Empty, you will see a little folder icon. Click that.
Select the Predator-OS .iso you downloaded earlier.
Once you’ve selected it, click OK.
Then double-click your virtual machine to start it up.
You may get a bunch of random warnings/instructions about how to operate the guest operating system within VirtualBox. Read those, and then you may also want to mark not to see those again.
The installation of the Predator-OS will be beginning now.
As more as the technology develops it gives more flexibility, usability, and portability. With the introduction of cross platform technology like virtualization and remote computing, any program can be run on any platform irrespective of compatibility. Hardware virtualizations allows to create a fully working virtual machine on any platform. VMWare Workstation is one such hardware visualization platform available in the market on which any virtual machines can be created.
VMWare Workstation is an application developed by VMWare to create virtual machines, containers, and Kubernetes clusters on any desktop or server system. VMWare released VMWare Workstation in two products: VMWare Workstation Pro and VMWare Workstation Player. VMWare Workstation Player is released on a free license with limited features, whereas VMWare Workstation Pro is an enterprise paid version that has loaded with a lot of features. Full documentation is published on the VMWare portal for free. Refer the documentation from here.
Can I install Predator-OS in Vmware Workstation on other Windows versions?
Yes, you can install Predator-OS in Vmware Workstation on Windows 8, 8.1, and 7. In the past I have not only installed Predator-OS but also Windows XP, 7 and Fedora on my Windows system.
Virtualization is a good way to try Linux from the comfort of Windows. WSL and WSL2 might be easier but not everyone has access to them. And for a relatively better desktop experience, a VM is better.
You don’t have to make actual changes to the disk partition, no changes in the boot and Linux runs like any other application inside Windows.
In this tutorial, I will show how to install Predator-OS inside Windows using VMWare.
Installing Linux inside Windows using VMWare
Your actual operating system is called host OS and the operating system you install in the virtual machine is called guest OS. I’ll use this terminology in the tutorial here.
The virtual machines use your host OS’s system resources. Predator-OS Plasma requires 4 GB of RAM to function properly, your system should have 8 GB to allocate 4 GB to the guest OS (Predator-OS) and keep 4 GB for the host OS (Windows).
Let’s see all the requirements.
Requirements
Good internet connection to download software and Linux ISO. (You can also use some other computer with an internet connection to download these files.)
Windows system with at least 25 GB of free space. A 25GB+ Free space is good for installing the latest version of Predator-OS.
Windows system with 8 GB of RAM. (It can work with less RAM as well, but your system will start to lag while using Linux in the virtual machine.)
Make sure to enable virtualization in the BIOS
I am installing Predator-OS 22.04 in this tutorial, but the same steps apply to any other Linux distribution.
Step 1: Download and install VMWare Player
Go to VMWare website and download the .exe file of VMWare Player. At the time of writing this article, VMWare player 16 is the latest version.
Download VMWare
Once downloaded, double-click the exe file and follow the on-screen instructions to install VMWare.
Step 2: Download the Linux ISO
Next, you need to download the ISO file of the Linux distribution. You can get this image from the official website of the Linux distribution you are trying to use.
I am using Predator-OS in this example, and you can download ISO images for Predator-OS from the link below:
Download
Predator
-
OS
Step 3
:
Install Linux using VMWare
You have installed VMWare and you have downloaded the ISO for Linux. You are now set to install Linux in VMware.
Now, start VMWare and click on Create New Virtual Machine.
Create new virtual machine in VMWare
Select “I will install operating system later” option and press next.
Select install operating system later button
On the next screen, set the Operating system to Linux and the version to Predator-OS 64bit.
Select Linux type and Predator-OS 64 type
Give the virtual machine a name and press Next.
Name the virtual machine
In the next screen, set the disk size to a minimum of 25 GB and also select “Store Virtual Disk as a single file” option.
Select disk size and store as single file
From the next screen, you can either press Finish and set ISO file later by right clicking and Settings. Or you can select the ISO file on the go. For this, press “Customize Hardware” button.
Press Customise Hardware button
On this screen, you can tweak memory, processors, etc. But you need to select “New CD/DVD” button and add the Predator-OS ISO as shown in the screenshot:
Set ISO image file from customize hardware dialog box
Now, you can close this and press the finish button. Once done, you can now start the VMWare virtual machine and start the installation of Predator-OS.
Select the virtual machine to start install
Now, you can use it after installation by opening the virtual machine by name from VMWare home screen.
Quick note about VMWare Easy install
This is another mode of installation in VMWare. Here, instead of pressing “ISO file later,” you can select the downloaded ISO file and start the process.
Select disc install option for easy install
But I found both the process almost the same because the installer asked for the same steps in the previous method here also.
Installing Predator-OS in VMWare will be beginning now.
Virtualization is one of the most widely used technologies both in enterprise and home environments. Whether you are a seasoned IT expert, a programmer, or an IT novice, virtualization can be one of your greatest friends.
Virtualization is the abstraction of a computer’s hardware resources using a software application known as a hypervisor. The hypervisor creates an abstraction layer over computer hardware and virtualizes various components of the system including but not limited to memory, processor, storage, USB devices, etc.
In doing so, it allows you to create virtual computers also known as virtual machines off of the virtualized elements, and each virtual machine; also known as a guest, runs independently from the host system.
KVM, short for Kernel-based Virtual Machine is an open-source type 1 hypervisor (bare metal hypervisor) that is integrated into the Linux kernel. It allows you to create and manage virtual machines running Windows, Linux, or UNIX variants such as FreeBSD, and OpenBSD.
As mentioned earlier, each virtual machine has its own virtual resources such as storage, memory, CPU, network interfaces, USB interfaces, and video graphics to mention a few.
QEMU (Quick Emulator) is a software module that emulates various components of computer hardware. It supports full virtualizations and works alongside KVM to provide a holistic virtualization experience.
In this guide, we will demonstrate how to install QEMU/KVM on Predator-OS 20.04 / 22.04 distributions.
Step 1: Check Virtualization Enabled in Predator-OS
To start off check if your CPU supports virtualization technology. Your system needs to have an Intel VT-x (vmx) processor or AMD-V (svm) processor. To verify this, run the following egrep command.
$ egrep -c ‘(vmx|svm)’ /proc/cpuinfo
If Virtualization is supported, the output should be greater than 0, for example, 2,4,6, etc.
Alternatively, you can run the following grep command to display the type of processor your system supports. In our case, we are running Intel VT-x denoted by the vmx parameter.
$ grep -E --color ‘(vmx|svm)’ /proc/cpuinfo
Enable Virtualization in Predator-OS
Equally important, check if KVM virtualization is supported by running the following command:
$ kvm-ok
Check KVM Virtualization in Predator-OS
If the kvm-ok utility is missing, install the cpu-checker package as follows.
$ sudo apt install cpu-checker -y
Now that we have verified that our system supports KVM virtualization, let us proceed and install QEMU.
Step 2: Install QEMU/KVM on Predator-OS 20.04/22.04
Next up, update the package lists and repositories as follows.
$ sudo apt update
Thereafter, install QEMU/KVM alongside other virtualization packages as follows:
$ sudo apt install qemu-kvm virt-manager virtinst libvirt-clients bridge-utils libvirt-daemon-system -y
Let us examine what role each of these packages plays.
qemu-kvm – This is an open-source emulator that emulates the hardware resources of a computer.
virt-manager – A Qt-based GUI interface for creating and managing virtual machines using the libvirt daemon.
virtinst – A collection of command-line utilities for creating and making changes to virtual machines.
libvirt-clients – APIs and client-side libraries for managing virtual machines from the command line.
bridge-utils – A set of command-line tools for managing bridge devices.
libvirt-daemon-system – Provides configuration files needed to run the virtualization service.
At this point, we have installed QEMU and all the essential virtualization packages. The next step is to start and enable the libvirtd virtualization daemon. So, run the following commands:
$ sudo systemctl enable --now libvirtd
$ sudo systemctl start libvirtd
Next, verify if the virtualization service is running as shown.
$ sudo systemctl status libvirtd
Start libvirtd Virtualization Service
From the output above, the libvirtd daemon is up and running as expected. Additionally, add the currently logged-in user to the kvm and libvirt groups as shown.
$ sudo usermod -aG kvm $USER
$ sudo usermod -aG libvirt $USER
Step 3: Launch Virtual Machine Manager in Predator-OS
The next step is to launch the QEMU/KVM GUI tool which is the Virtual Machine Manager.
$ sudo virt-manager
The Virtual Machine Manager will pop up as shown. From here, you can start creating and managing virtual machines as we shall demonstrate shortly.
Qemu Virtual Machine Manager
Step 4: Create Virtual Machine with QEMU/KVM in Predator-OS
In this section, we will demonstrate how you can create a virtual machine using an ISO image. You can use an ISO image of your preferred OS and follow along.
To begin, click on the icon at the top left corner as shown below.
Create a Virtual Machine in Qemu
Since we are creating a virtual machine from an ISO file, select the first option – ‘Local install media (ISO image or CDROM)’. Then click ‘Forward’.
Choose VM Install Type
Next click ‘Browse’ to navigate to the location of the ISO file.
Choose VM ISO File
Since the ISO file is saved locally on your system, we will click ‘Browse Local’.
Browse Local Filesystem
Be sure to navigate to the location of your ISO file. Click it and then click ‘Open’.
Choose OS ISO File.
Before proceeding, ensure that you have selected the operating system from the drop-down menu. Then click ‘Forward’.
Choose VM Operating System.
Click ‘Yes’ on the pop-up to grant the emulator search permissions to the ISO file.
Next, select the Memory size and the number of CPU cores and click ‘Forward’.
Choose VM Memory and CPU Settings
In the next step, enable storage for the virtual machine and specify the virtual disk size. Then click ‘Forward’.
Choose VM Disk Size
Finally, review all the settings that you have defined, and if all looks good click ‘Finish’ to create the virtual machine. Else click ‘back’ and make the necessary changes.
Once you click ‘Finish’ the virtual machine manager will start creating the virtual machine based on the set configurations.
Creating a Virtual Machine in Qemu.
And in a matter of seconds, the virtual machine installation wizard will pop up. You can proceed with the installation as you would on a physical system.
Installing Predator-OS in VMWare will be beginning now.
