Creating a Virtual Machine for Fedora 8

This tutorial may seem a bit rudimentary, but I don't want to overlook Virtual PC novices. This is a detailed walkthrough of how to create a new virtual machine ready for an installation of Fedora 8 Linux (though it can just as easily be applied to nearly any operating system). Before you start, there are two assumptions:

1. You have downloaded and installed Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. Microsoft offers Virtual PC 2007 as a free download, available at http://www.microsoft.com/virtualpc/. You will need to install the appropriate version for your operating system. My main machine runs Windows Vista Ultimate x64, so I had to download and install the 64-bit version of Virtual PC. If you don't know whether you run a 32- or 64-bit version of Windows, you might not have the technical acumen to install Linux. The good news is that as long as you are installing on a virtual machine, your actual machine can't really be compromised.
2. You have successfully downloaded installation media for Fedora 8. To download, visit http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora and click the link for "i386 - Install DVD" under "Direct Download". It's important that you download the i386 version regardless of your host machine operating system. At this point, Virtual PC only supports 32-bit client operating systems - even on a 64-bit system. Once the download completes, you should double check the MD5 checksum of the ISO file to make sure it was successful. If you are using another operating system, just make sure you either have the physical installation media or an ISO of the installation media ready to go.

Now we can create a new virtual machine:

Step 1
Open Virtual PC and click "New..." to open the New Virtual Machine Wizard	fedora_8_new_machine_01.gif
Step 2
Click the "Next" button.	fedora_8_new_machine_02.gif
Step 3
Select the "Create a virtual machine" option and click the "Next" button.	fedora_8_new_machine_03.gif
Step 4
Enter the name of your virtual machine (I called mine "Foo.Bar Fedora Client", since it's going to be a client on my "foobar.local" domain) and click the "Next" button.	fedora_8_new_machine_04.gif
Step 5
Select "Other" as your operating system and click the "Next" button.	fedora_8_new_machine_05.gif
Step 6
Select the "Adjusting the RAM" option, enter 512 MB (you can run it with 256 if you're hurting for memory) and click the "Next" button.	fedora_8_new_machine_06.gif
Step 7
Select the "A new virtual disk" option and click the "Next" button.	fedora_8_new_machine_07.gif
Step 8
Enter 20480 MB for your disk size (depending on how much you install, Fedora can take from 90 MB for a minimal install up to 9 GB for all packages) and click the "Next" button.	fedora_8_new_machine_08.gif
Step 9
Click the "Finish" button to exit the New Virtual Machine Wizard.	fedora_8_new_machine_09.gif
Step 10
Select your new virtual machine then click the "Settings" button.	fedora_8_new_machine_10.gif
Step 11
Select "Networking" on the left and choose "Local only" next to "Adapter 1:" on the right. If your machine supports hardware-assisted virtualization, you may want to disable this under "Hardware Virtualization" on the left. I have experienced boot issues with Linux machines when hardware-assisted virtualization is enabled. However, my main PC does not support this, so I don't really know if there is an issue with Fedora 8. Click the "OK" button to close the settings window.	fedora_8_new_machine_11.gif

At this point, we're ready to start up the new machine. This part is pretty easy, but if you struggle, here are the instructions:

Step 1
Select your new virtual machine then click the "Start" button.	fedora_8_new_machine_12.gif
Step 2
Choose "Capture ISO Image" from the "CD" menu. If you are booting from actual media, select "Use Physical Drive D" (where "D" is your CD or DVD drive) and skip the next step.	fedora_8_new_machine_13.gif
Step 3
Browse to the Fedora 8 ISO image and click "Open".	fedora_8_new_machine_14.gif
Step 11
Wait for the virtual machine to boot. If you were too slow mounting the ISO image (or physical drive), you can reset the machine by choosing "Reset" from the "Action" menu.	fedora_8_new_machine_12.gif

That's it. Now you're ready to install.