How to Download and Set Up VirtualBox for Ubuntu 15.04

Are you looking to set up a virtual machine on your Ubuntu 15.04 system? If so, you're in luck because this tutorial will walk you through the process of downloading and installing VirtualBox. Additionally, we'll provide some important notes about using cloud images and setting up UEFI firmware.

First things first, you'll need to make sure that you're running a 15.10 (Wily) or newer cloud image for your guests. This is an important requirement in order to get the most out of your virtual machine.

Now, let's talk about UEFI firmware. If you have a GICv3 system, such as Cavium ThunderX, you'll need to use QEMU from Ubuntu 16.04 or newer and pass the '-M virt,gic-version=3' flag.

Once you've got everything set up, you can start creating your virtual machine. To do this, you'll need to download the QEMU emulator and the EFI image for QEMU. You can do this by running the following command: `sudo apt-get install qemu-system-arm qemu-efi`.

Now that you have everything installed, it's time to create your pflash volumes for UEFI firmware. This will require two separate volumes: one static volume for the UEFI firmware and another dynamic volume to store variables.

To create these volumes, run the following commands:

```

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=flash1.img bs=1M count=64

$ dd if=/usr/share/qemu-efi/QEMU_EFI.fd of=flash0.img conv=notrunc

$ dd if=/dev/zero of=flash0.img bs=1M count=64

```

These commands will create two volumes, one for the UEFI firmware and another for storing variables.

Once you've created your pflash volumes, you can start setting up your virtual machine. This is a bit more involved process, but don't worry, we'll walk you through it step by step.

To get started, run the following command: `sudo qemu-system-aarch64 -enable-kvm -m 1024 -cpu host -M virt -nographic -pflash flash0.img -pflash flash1.img -drive if=none,file=jammy-server-cloudimg-arm64.img,id=hd0 -device virtio-blk-device,drive=hd0 -netdev type=tap,id=net0 -device virtio-net-device,netdev=net0,mac=$randmac`.

This command will start up your virtual machine and allow you to boot into an arm64.img type cloud image.

That's it! With these simple steps, you should be able to set up VirtualBox on your Ubuntu 15.04 system and start using it to run virtual machines. Just remember to follow the important notes about UEFI firmware and cloud images, and you'll be well on your way to getting started with virtualization.

Download virtualbox for ubuntu 15.04