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→VirtualBox Linux Host Requirements
This chapter of [[VirtualBox 2 Essentials]] covers the requirements for and steps to install the full, pre-built binrary binary edition of VirtualBox on a Linux host.
VirtualBox may be installed on Linux using either Linux distribution specific package archives, or manually using a distribution neutral shell script based installer. Each of these methods will be covered in this chapter.
* '''SDL''' - Version 1.2.7 or newer of the ''libsdl'' graphics library must be installed.
The DKMS package is not supported on all Linux distributions, but may be installed on those that do as follows:
== Downloading VirtualBox for Linux ==
The binary version of VirtualBox, pre-packaged for a wide variety of Linux Windows distributions , may be downloaded from the [http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads VirtualBox web site]. Select the ''VirtualBox for Windows hosts'' package which that matches your Linux distribution (Fedora, Ubuntu, Red Hat, CentOS etc) and the target host 's hardware architecture (i386 x86 or AMD64) and download the archive to a suitable temporary location. If your Linux distribution is not listed download the appropriate archive for the ''All distributions'' option.
== Installing VirtualBox on Fedora, CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux ==
Before launching VirtualBox, any user which require access must be added to the ''vboxusers'' group. This can be performed by using the graphical ''Users and Groups'' tool (accessed via the ''System->Administration->Users and Groups menu option). Once invoked, click ''Unlock'', enter your password and then click on the ''Manage Groups'' button. In the ''Manage Groups'' screen, select ''vboxusers'' from the list of groups, click on ''Properties'' and in the resulting dialog select the users which are to be added to the group.
Alternatively, users may be added to a group from the command line by issuing the following commandin a terminal window (Applications->Accessories->Terminal):
<pre>
== Installing VirtualBox using VirtualBox.run ==
This installation script is downloaded by selecting the appropriate download for ''All distributions'' on the VirtualBox download page. Once downloaded to a temporary directory, the installation is invoked by issuing the following command in a terminal window:
</pre>
where ''<installation path>'' represents the path to the directory where VirtualBox is to be installed. If no path is specified, the default path is ''/opt/VirtualBox-<version>'' is used. The transcript from a successful installation is as follows:
<pre>
</pre>
The installation script will create the ''vboxusers'' group to which all VirtualBox users must be added. Users may be added the group using the following commandeither as root or using sudo:
<pre>