Installing Guest Additions

In order to ensure that the Virtual Machine runs smoothly as possible, we are going to install some additional software to the virtual machine.

1. Go to the "Devices" menu at the top of your virtual machine main window (Machine, Devices, Help), and go to "Install Guest Additions"

2. Go to the "Places" menu at the top of your virtual machine (Applications, Places, System), and click on "VBOXADDITIONS_4.0.4_70112" (the number may be different).

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3. At the top this new window will be the text "The media has been determined as "UNIX software". Click on "Open Autorun Prompt"

4. A new dialog may appear saying "This medium contains software intended to be automatically started. Would you like to run it?" Click "Run"

5. Enter your administrative password (the one you use to log into Ubuntu) and click "Ok"

6. Now the VirtualBox Guest Additions installer will begin. This may take some time, so just relax and wait. Depending on your computer, this may take 30 minutes or more.

7. When this is finished, you will see the text "Press Return to close this window." Go ahead and do so.

8. Once that window has closed, go ahead and press the 'X' to close the entire virtual machine window. Select "Send the shutdown signal" and click "Ok".

9. A dialog box will appear. Click on "Shut Down", the top most option.

At this stage it is a good idea to further optimise our virtual machine. When you initially installed it, you most likely selected either 256 MB or 512 MB of RAM. If you have enough RAM to spare, then I highly recommend you increase that to at least 1 GB. Here is how to do so:

1. First, right click on "Primary, Powered off" and go to Settings.

2. Select "System" from the menu on the left.

3. Increase the "Base Memory" to either 1024 MB (1 GB), or some higher value you are comfortable with.

It is also a good idea to increase the video memory available to the virtual machine.

4. Select "Display" from the menu on the left, still inside of "Settings"

5. Increase the "Video Memory" slider to the right as far as you are comfortable with. For example, 128 MB.

6. Check the box "Enable 3D Acceleration".

7. Now click "Ok" at the bottom.

Go ahead and start up Ubuntu again by right clicking "Primary, Powered off" and clicking "Start"

When Ubuntu loads up, go ahead and log in as before using your password. Now wait until Ubuntu is fully booted and the "Applications Places System" menu is visible.

You will probably notice that your virtual machine loads up and runs faster than before.

How well your virtual machine runs depends on how good your computer is. Primarily, RAM and processor speed are the most significant factors. If your computer is modern enough, you should be able to use websites with flash and even watch videos, such as on YouTube, with no problem. If your computer is not as modern, you will still be able to browse websites but may not be able to watch videos. You should still be able to use most flash based websites however.