Using a Physical Hard Drive with VirtualBox VM on openSUSE Tumbleweed and Windows Dual-Boot Setup

Dual Boot Setup: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Windows 7 on a Physical Hard Drive using VirtualBox VM

In this article, we will discuss the process of setting up a dual-boot system between OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Windows 7 on a physical hard drive using VirtualBox VM. This setup allows you to run both operating systems on the same machine, giving you the flexibility to choose the one that best suits your needs at any given time.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following:

• A physical hard drive with enough space for both operating systems
• Windows 7 installed on the hard drive
• VirtualBox VM installed on the Windows 7 partition
• An OpenSUSE Tumbleweed installation media (DVD or USB drive)

Creating a Virtual Machine for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed

To create a virtual machine for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, follow these steps:

1. Launch VirtualBox VM and click on the New button to create a new virtual machine.
2. Name the virtual machine OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and select Linux as the operating system and SUSE/openSUSE as the version.
3. Allocate sufficient memory (RAM) to the virtual machine. A minimum of 2GB is recommended, but 4GB or more is ideal.
4. Create a new virtual hard disk for the virtual machine. Select VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image) as the disk file type and Dynamically allocated as the storage on physical hard disk.
5. Name the virtual hard disk file and allocate sufficient disk space. A minimum of 20GB is recommended, but 40GB or more is ideal.
6. Click on the Create button to create the virtual machine.

Installing OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on the Virtual Machine

To install OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on the virtual machine, follow these steps:

1. Start the virtual machine and insert the OpenSUSE Tumbleweed installation media.
2. Select Installation from the boot menu and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation process.
3. Once the installation is complete, shut down the virtual machine and remove the installation media.

Setting Up the Dual-Boot System

To set up the dual-boot system, follow these steps:

1. Restart the computer and boot into the OpenSUSE Tumbleweed partition.
2. Open the YaST control center and select Partitioner from the System section.
3. In the partitioner, select the Windows 7 partition and click on the Edit button.
4. Change the partition type to Logical and click on the OK button.
5. Create a new partition for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed by clicking on the Add button.
6. Select the Primary partition type and allocate sufficient disk space for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
7. Select the ext4 file system for the new partition and click on the OK button.
8. Mount the new partition as the root file system and click on the OK button.
9. Click on the Finish button to save the changes and exit the partitioner.
10. Reboot the computer and select the OpenSUSE Tumbleweed partition from the boot menu.

In this article, we have discussed the process of setting up a dual-boot system between OpenSUSE Tumbleweed and Windows 7 on a physical hard drive using VirtualBox VM. This setup allows you to run both operating systems on the same machine, giving you the flexibility to choose the one that best suits your needs at any given time. We have covered the prerequisites, the process of creating a virtual machine for OpenSUSE Tumbleweed, installing OpenSUSE Tumbleweed on the virtual machine, and setting up the dual-boot system.

References

• VirtualBox VM
• OpenSUSE Tumbleweed
• YaST Partitioner

This article includes information from the following sources:

• VirtualBox VM documentation
• OpenSUSE Tumbleweed documentation
• YaST Partitioner documentation

The information in this article is accurate and up-to-date as of the time of writing.

This is the end of the article. Thank you for reading!