How to run Puppy in virtualbox?

[ShaunHardy]

Hi all! I would like to ask what to do if I want to develop Puppy in virtualbox. Sorry for such a noob question btw. Cheers!

[mikeslr]

Hi shaunhardy,

Haven't used virtualbox myself. So hopefully someone familiar with that device will expand on this. AFAIK, running Puppy under Virtualbox is only slightly different than running any other operating system under Virtualbox. That difference relates to how Puppy is installed as --I think its called-- a Guest. To do that you first have to create a virtual hard-drive. Then Puppy gets frugally installed into that virtual hard-drive.

May I suggest that the reason it's difficult to find information about running Puppy Linux in Virtualbox is that Puppys are designed to Frugally install on almost any Media. [SD cards are problematic]. A frugal install only requires its own folder and a listing on a boot-loader. That folder can be on a Windows ntfs or Fat32 partition. Windows will ignore it. Or on the Home partition of any Linux distro.
For a couple of bucks you can buy some USB-Sticks, install Puppys to them and explore to your heart's content. Or install a boot-loader such as grub2config-2.0.1, viewtopic.php?f=155&t=3360 to a USB-Key which will provide a listing to all Puppys frugally installed on hard-drives. Give USB-ports boot priority; plug in the Key and boot Puppys. Boot your other operating systems with the Key unplugged.
When you boot into Puppy, you are Administrator. You have access to any drive and can transfer information anywhere so that it is available to any other operating system.

[snoring_cat]

If you want to load Puppy Linux, from a downloaded .iso, into Virtualbox, start up Virtualbox using the following settings.

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If you want to create save files and/or save data, be sure to modify the above image settings, to create a virtual hard disk

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Note the little blue CD ROM image that you need to click. When you do, select "Create a disk file..." option.

After you select your Puppy Linux ISO file, save this Virtual Box image settings, and then click Start

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The above steps should work for almost all ISO files you can find, not only ISO files that you get from https://puppylinux.com/index.html#download

Alternatively, if you already running Puppy Linux, and want to install the VirtualBox software into Puppy Linux, that is a different topic, which can be addressed in a separate forum post.

Good Luck!