In my previous post I demonstrated how to install VirtualBox 4.1.14 on Windows 7 Home Premium. What good is VirtualBox without a Virtual Machine running in it though?

Let's see what it takes to setup VirtualBox for FreeBSD 9.0

First of all figure out if you have 32 bit Windows or 64-bit – the ISO of FreeBSD to download depends on this

1. Click on Start-> right click on 'Computer' and click on 'Properties'.

2. Look at 'System type:' if it says 64-bit you should get a 64-bit image of FreeBSD.

Download the FreeBSD ISO

1. Open up your browser and point to: http://www.freebsd.org

2. Click on 'Get FreeBSD Now'

3. Scroll down till you see 'FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE' and get the amd64 ISO. Note: even if you have an Intel 64-bit processor you STILL can use the amd64 ISO.

4. You'll be directed to the index of the FTP directory – just click on 'FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE-amd64-disc1.iso' to start the download :)

Note: No need to download the DVD ISO, the packages included with it are most likely already outdated – you can always download the latest stuff later.

5. Click 'OK' to save the file locally

Note: depending on your connection this might take a while!

6. When this is done right click on the file downloaded and click on 'Open Containing Folder'

7. Note somewhere the full path of the folder – we'll need it later :)

Set up VirtualBox for FreeBSD

1. Start VirtualBox by double clicking on the desktop icon (or wherever your shortcut is)

2. The Oracle VM VirtualBox Manager will open up, click on 'New' to create a new Virtual Machine

3. The 'Create New Virtual Machine' wizard will come up – click 'Next'

4. Type in a name that you like e.g. 'FreeBSD 9 WeirdBricks guide', you might notice that as soon as you type in FreeBSD the Wizard will instantly select 'BSD' as your Operating System and 'FreeBSD' as the Version – don't click 'Next' yet! Click on 'FreeBSD' right of 'Version' and change it to 'FreeBSD (64 bit)', then click 'Next'.

5. Now you can select how much Memory you'll dedicate to your Virtual Machine. My PC has 6GB of RAM so giving the Virtual Machine 1GB is good enough – you may want to give it more or less depending on your needs but for most cases 1GB is more than enough for FreeBSD. You can assign the memory by dragging the bar or by typing the number – I prefer the second. Just type in 1024 and click 'Next'

6. Next you can create a new Virtual Hard Disk for the VM or use an existing one – just take the defaults and click 'Next' unless you know what you're doing.

7. Choose the Virtual Disk file type – I recommend leave it to the default: 'VDI (VirtualBox Disk Image)'. Click 'Next'

8. Next you can choose between assigning all the hard disk space to the VDI from the get go , or assigning as we go – go with the default 'Dynamically allocated' and click 'Next'.

9. Now choose the size of the Virtual Disk: go with 20GB so you can have more than enough space for packages etc. Again you can assign space by either using the sliding bar or typing it in. Just type in 20.00 GB and click 'Next'

10. Now you'll get a Summary of the Virtual Disk – just click 'Create'.

11. Aaaand another Summary for the Virtual Machine – click 'Create'.

12. Now you should see the new Virtual Machine in your list – mine has a few and looks like this:

13. We still have some editing to do! Click on 'Audio' on the right

14. Once in Audio untick 'Enable Audio' and click 'OK'. This should make things slightly faster.

15. You'll be back in the main screen – you can see that 'Audio' is 'Disabled'. Now click on 'Network'. This will take you in the 'Network' screen. Click on 'NAT' and change it to 'Bridged Adapter'. This means that the Virtual Machine will get an IP address directly from your router. This will make things a lot easier later when we want to set up services such as Apache,FTP etc. Click 'OK' to finish here.

16. Now click once on your Virtual Machine and click on 'Start'!

17. This will get you the 'First Run Wizard' – Click on 'Next'

18. You'll be asked to provide 'Installation Media' – you did note before the location of the ISO for FreeBSD that we downloaded right? :) Click on the little icon on the right and point to the location you downloaded the ISO.

19. Double click on the file to select it, this will take you back to the main screen. Click 'Next' to proceed.

20. Now click 'Start' to boot up using the ISO.

21. If all went well you should see this:

Next we'll go through the steps of installing FreeBSD 9.0