STEP 1
Read Parts One and Two of this series if you have not.

STEP 2
Ensure you have the Linux DVD/CD in your DVD Drive. We are using Ubuntu 10.04. Get one for free if you don’t have one.

STEP 3
Launch the Virtualbox icon from your desktop or the Start menu.

STEP 4
Select the icons highlighted in the screen captures below and you are not likely to go wrong, setting up is quite easy.

Type in Ubuntu 10.04 as highlighted in the next image. A default system configuration setting for Ubuntu is selected automatically.

The RAM setup screen is displayed. You can vary the amount of RAM you want to allocate to your Linux Guest OS. The range of RAM allocation recommended is depicted by the green (or what colour is that?) band. If you move the slider into the red band, you will be risking the stability of your setup. Circled, at the extreme, is the total RAM available on your laptop, mine is 4096MB (4GB).

The default amount of RAM is good enough.

DYNAMICALLY EXPANDED STORAGE simply means that though a certain amount of hard disk size is allocated to this installation, in this case 8GB, only hard disk space needed is used. This is preferrable to FIXED-SIZE STORAGE where the whole 8GB is carved out from your system at once.

Notice that an entry for UBUNTU 10.04 is now displayed.

We need to make further configurations to suit our needs. Click on the portions highlighted.

This is the boot order. Disable Floppy . The CD/DVD-Rom must be the first enabled boot device.

Before we go to the next screen, we need to confirm the drive letter allocated to the DVD drive you will be using for this installation. Mine is Drive D as shown in screen below. We will be needing this information.

Back to the configuration, click on STORAGE

Click on EMPTY on the left.

Then select the DVD Drive identified earlier from the drop-down menu on the right as highlighted.

Drive D is selected.

YOU CAN IGNORE THE NEXT 2  STEPS IF YOU DO NOT HAVE AN EXISTING NETWORK OR INTERNET CONNECTION ON YOUR LAPTOP.

Next, click on NETWORK to configure the virtual network card on our Guest OS. Our purpose is to join the network that the HOST PC is on. Our Guest PC would be identified as just another host on the network.

Click on the dropdown menu highlighted on the right.

For our purpose, we will select BRIDGED ADAPTER. Next select the physical  network card on your laptop. I use a wireless network card ATHEROS AR9285 WIRELESS NETWORK ADAPTER.

It is finished. The stage is now set to install Ubuntu.

Comments, suggestions welcomed!