Linux Virtual Machine App GNOME Boxes Has An Awesome Time-Saving Feature You Should Know About

[steven36]

Earlier today I was preparing to write a guide about installing software on Ubuntu and wanted to collect some screenshots. Since I'm not currently running Ubuntu, I decided to download an ISO and fire it up in a virtual machine. From day 1 of my Linux journey I've always used VirtualBox, but for whatever reason I decided to try a different app: GNOME Boxes. As robust as VirtualBox is, I immediately noticed that GNOME Boxes had a simpler and more intuitive interface that's well suited for the "average" user that I am. So I pointed it at the Ubuntu 18.04 LTS ISO and was treated to a nice surprise.

GNOME Boxes makes testing a new Linux distro super simple

 

Not only did GNOME Boxes automatically detect that the ISO contained Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, it offered me an Express Install option (provided I had a working internet connection). The app automatically pulled my username into the account field, and asked that I do nothing more than enter a password to proceed.

 

And that was truly all that it required, unless I needed to customize the amount of RAM and disk space allocated to the VM.

 

After hitting the Continue button, GNOME Boxes ran an unattended installation. It pulled regional and language settings from my host machine, handled the partitioning dialogue, and everything else. The installation screens zoomed by, components and updates were downloaded, and within less than 5 minutes I had a perfectly working Ubuntu 18.04 to play with.

 

Express install option for GNOME Boxes

 

This is made possible thanks to Fabiano Fidêncio, who has authored unattended installation scripts for Debian, Red Hat, Fedora, Ubuntu, openSUSE and Microsoft Windows (7, 8 and 10). Specifically which versions of the Linux distros that support the feature seems to be unpredictable, but I tried several that just worked.

 

At any rate, this amounted to a huge time-saving feature for me, and I'm willing to bet you'll find it useful too. Especially if you've been curious about other, more "mainstream" Linux distros.

 

I'm highlighting this feature because there seems to be very little documentation surrounding it, and it would rock to have additional automation scripts for distributions like Pop!_OS and Linux Mint.

 

The app also supports VNC and RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol), and the developers are working on making features like this more discoverable in version 3.34. Check for GNOME Boxes in your distribution's software center, and it's also available to download on FlatHub.

 

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