I posted this on the BOINCstats forum, but maybe it'll get more traction here... My apologies if you are seeing this for the second time.

All my machines capable of running virtual machines has "Oracle VM VirtualBox" installed along with BOINC. And, all my machines are Windows 7 or 8.1 machines (Std or Pro). A number of projects, like those from CERN, nicely create Linux machines under VBox and run their projects on my Windows machines. I am so grateful to them.

Yet, there are other projects like BealF@Home and WEP-M+2 Project who are Linux only, without any Windows apps, either insisting on being Linux only or not being able to create a Windows app, and it kills me that (1) They won't provide a Windows app, (2) I don't get to provide CPU/GPU time for them.

So, I figure that it must be possible to use VBox to create virtual machines on which to run BOINC with just these two (and any future such) projects. But, I am TOTALLY ignorant about Linux at this point. Last time I did anything with Unix was June/1990, and I don't remember any of it.

If anybody did this already, I would appreciate an excruciatingly step-by-step, totally foolproof as well as future proof (as Linux/VBox/Windows versions change) instructions. It must include stuff like it being auto start, auto login, auto BOINC when the Windows machine boots, how to coexist with the resources of the host Windows machine as opposed to thinking that it has all the CPU/GPU/RAM/HD resources of the host machine available to it, etc.

And, since this is the BOINC forum: Wouldn't it be wonderful if BOINC+VBox install for Windows actually installed a default Linux image with the current BOINC already installed in it, and automatically redirected such projects to run on BOINC in that image as opposed to the host machine, but report everything (I am talking about the Event Log as well as the Notices/Projects/Tasks/Transfers/Statistics/Disk tabs) through the BOINC Manager on the host machine? Of course it would also have to lie to the project that it is asking for Linux tasks if the project refuses to deliver Windows tasks.

While on the subject, I also would like to run Bitcoin Utopia in a VM, but not under my BOINC-wide user account. I don't like how they artificially increase one's credits by the billions, but I also see the point of helping out projects monetarily. As such, I wouldn't mind running it in a VM, under a different BOINC persona to collect those credits, keeping them separate from my main (i.e. this) account. I know there are differing opinions about this, so I am not trying to start a conversation about it. This is just my preference. I am observing on their project website that some/many of the Bitcoin Utopia applications have Linux versions. So, that would mean that I would run TWO VMs on each of my VM capable Windows machines, one running Linux-only projects under my current persona, and one running Bitcoin Utopia under a new persona. I am interested in hearing what would be the effect of that on the main host machine running the rest of the ~50 projects, and how I would go about assigning resources to the VMs to allow them to do their job without stealing way too much from everything else, including other apps running under BOINC on the host machine that create their own VMs for their WUs.

Thanks for any guidance. If this thread results in something really useful, we could maybe have a sticky post that tells what to do to the newcomers.
Tuna

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Tuna, take a look at my guide in my teams forums here http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1768558

I have a step by step with pictures for installing BOINC from within Ubuntu using the repository. I believe it starts on step 11.

I do not have instructions for setting BOINC to auto start as I think that behavior changed in version 12'ish of Ubuntu. I'm sure a Linux Adept could explain how to do it in much better ways. I'm very Linux newbish as well.

I do know that if you do the default install of Ubuntu, it is a quick and painless install. I run one or two in a VM for the same reasons as you mention. However, when I start the VM, I just manually start BOINC. I also don't update either BOINC or Linux. When that time comes, I just download a fresh new copy and use the repository version again. It seems to suffice my needs.

Edit: And to be clear, those screen shots were done using my Virtualbox VM.

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Another thing to keep in mind that if you want to run BU, you will probably just stick to the CPU part. Unless of course you want to delve in and learn all of the pass through stuff and try to get the GPU's working...

Not sure how well ASIC's work through the VM's. Would be interesting for a well done guide from someone who is doing it.

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