Prerequisites

• A computer with Windows, Linux or Mac OSX and 20GB free disk space
• VirtualBox
• The archive containing the virtual machine
• A Archive tool which can handle 7-zip files

How to install VirtualBox

VirtualBox is a general-purpose full virtualizer for x86 hardware which runs on most modern operating system (Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and Solaris). It allows to run multiple operating systems (inside multiple virtual machines) at the same time. So, for example, you can run Windows and Linux on your Mac, run Windows Server 2008 on your Linux server, run Linux on your Windows PC, and so on, all alongside your existing applications. You can install and run as many virtual machines as you like -- the only practical limits are disk space and memory.

Please download the correct version for your operating system from the following web-page and follow the installation instructions. This should be straight forward. Please download from the same web-page the extension pack if you need for example USB support inside the virtual machine. This is normally recommended. After you have installed VirtualBox double click on the extension pack (or choose open with -> VirtualBox) which will start its installation.

Downloadlink

Get the virtual machine image

The zipped archive with the virtual machine image can be downloaded with the link below. Please right click on the link and choose "Save as" which will start the download. Please be patient, because the total size of the file is 2.5 GB.

Download virtual machine image

Put the archive in the VirtualBox directory.

Unpack the virtual machine image

On Windows the tool WinRar should be able to unpack the archive. If this doesn't work please get a dedicated tool from here, install it on your computer and use it for unpacking. For Mac OSX you get such an unpacker from here. Installation and usage should be straight forward. For linux try to install p7zip using your package manager. If there is no such tool available for your linux distribution pleas download the sources from here and compile it on your own.

Use the unpacker to unpack the archive which will result in two files which can be found in the subdirectory PandaRoot. The first one PandaRoot.vbox is a small XML-file with the definition of the virtual machine. The second file Ubuntu 11.10.vdi is the disk image with all the data.

How to start the virtual machine

On Windows and Mac OSX it is enough to double click on the file symbol of Ubuntu_12.04_Panda.vbox . This will start VirtualBox and show the new virtual machine in the GUI. Here one chooses the virtual machine PandaRoot and then click on the Run icon. To start the virtual machine on Linux first start VirtualBox and the choose Machine and then Add from the menu. In the GUI select PandaRoot.vbox , which will also open another GUI with the correct machine. Here you click the Run icon to boot the machine.

How to use the virtual machine.

After some time you should see the login screen. To login please enter the correct password, the user should be already correct. The username is fairroot and the corresponding password is FairRoot . This will bring you to the Desktop. Since this is an Ubuntu system, one cannot switch to user root but one has to use the sudo command.

The pandaroot release July12 and the needed external packages are already installed on the virtual system. You find pandaroot in /home/fairroot; the binaries are in /home/fairroot/pandaroot/build.

-- FlorianUhlig - 20 Jul 2012