[Book Review] “VirtualBox 3.1 – Beginner’s Guide” - Greg's Cool [Insert Clever Name] of the Day

[Full Disclosure Notice: The mentioned book was provided to me free by the publisher. This review is my own. The publisher has not seen it, nor promoted me in its content in any way, shape or form. All they did is provide the book free and asked me to review it… ]

The guys at Packt Publishing have given me a copy of “VirtualBox 3.1 – Beginner’s Guide” by Alfonso V. Romero read and to share with you.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Getting to Work with VirtualBox

Chapter 2: Creating Your First Virtual Machines: Ubuntu Linux

Chapter 3: Creating Your Second Virtual Machines: Windows 7

Chapter 4: Installing Guest Additions and Advanced Settings

Chapter 5: Storing Data in VirtualBox

Chapter 6: Networking with Virtual Machines

Chapter 7: Using Virtual Appliances

Chapter 8: Managing your Virtual Machines from a Remote Computer

Appendix A: Using Snapshots

Appendix B: Pop Quiz Answers

Overview

The book takes you from download to being productive with Sun’s/Oracle’s VirtualBox. Each chapter builds on the previous and not only walks you through each topic area step by step but also takes a step back and talks about “what just happened.” (i.e. it’s not a ton of simple screenshots and “click, click, click” instructions but also works to “teach you to fish”)

Likes

One of the things I liked about the book is used a number of techniques to engage the reader and to help get a chapter’s point across. For example, an ongoing story/scenario was used to relate a chapter to something that might have, or will, happen to you “in the real world.” This made the reading more engaging, applicable and much less dry. It also took you beyond what you might read online (via wiki’s, VirtualBox doc’s, etc).

That was one of my questions when first getting the book. What will this teach me that I couldn’t just look up online? How is the price of the book versus the tons of free online information?

The problem is that the “tons of online information” is really “crud loads of data.” It’s up to the reader to turn it into “information” and then wisdom. This book jumpstarts your drive to VirtualBox wisdom, helping you better “know what you don’t know.”

It’s a Beginner’s Guide, so you’ll not walk away a VirtualBox Zen Master, but you WILL be on the path towards becoming one… (especially if you were like me and hadn’t ever installed or used VirtualBox)

Improvements

What did I think could be improved? Well you know I live in a mostly Microsoft world… So I wish there had been a little more coverage there. For example, Microsoft makes a number of it’s trial products available as VM’s. I would have liked to see some guidance/help/information on taking an existing Virtual PC 2007/Windows Virtual PC/Hyper-V VHD and converting it VirtualBox. Also I’d have liked to see why VirtualBox is better than the Windows Virtual PC that I already have. Something simple, a side-by-side chart would do. Just something to help me get over the concern of having two VM systems in place on the same machine (Windows 7 Virtual PC and VirtualBox).

What did I learn?

So did I actually apply anything I read in the book? You bet! Just yesterday, I used this book to help me resolve an issue my son and I were having with a legacy game what wouldn’t run well on Win7 x64 (nor in Windows Virtual PC). After reading this book and finally having my eyes opened to the capabilities of VirtualBox, it seemed well worth the effort to try to resolve this long standing issue.

So I downloaded the latest version of VirtualBox and was able to very quickly, because I already had exposure to, and a basic understanding of from my reading, get a VM created, storage added, settings configured, tweaked and VM shared. In the end I was able to be a Tech Hero to my son because I was finally able to get the game he’s wanted to play for months now working on his notebook. All because of this book (and VirtualBox)… I’ll call that a win!

Final Thoughts

In the end, one thing to remember is the subtitle “Beginner’s Guide”… It’s not Level 400 material, but then again it’s not supposed to be! It’s a guide to take the VirtualBox uninitiated and get you working and productive with it with no fuss, muss or tears.

Would I recommend a friend or coworker buy this book if they wanted to learn about VirtualBox (even if they lived in a mostly Microsoft world)? Oh yeah, no question about it. Matter of fact I AM going to be recommending it to a number of coworkers whom I know are VirtualBox users… ;)