Install Virtual Box

SCEC will deliver the software to be used in the SCEC-ERI Workshop Software as a Virtual Box Image. We are distributing the software this way to make it easier for researchers to install the three main software packages (SCEC-VDO, UCVM, and BBP) on their own computers. The following information describes how to install the SCEC-ERI workshop software on your own computer.

Overview

SCEC is using Virtual Box technology to make it easy to run scientific software designed for Linux computers to be run on a variety of personal computers. Virtual Box provides a way to run Linux-based software on Mac computer and Windows computers. Virtual Box also enables SCEC to install and configure software so that all students have a similar computing environment.

Terminology

Here are a few terms that might be used when working with Virtual Box.

Host operating system
- The host operating system is the software on your laptop. If you are using a Mac, your host operating system will probably be some version of OS X. If you are using Windows, your host operating system will probably be some version of Windows 7 or 8.

Guest Operating system
- The guest operating system is the version of linux that runs inside the Virtual Box. For the ERI workshop, the guest operating system will be Linux Fedora 13.x. We selected this as the guest operating system because all three of SCEC applications run well on this version of Linux.

Image
- An image is a large file, like a tar file, that contains both the guest operating system, and the seismological applications programs that will be used in the workshop. SCEC has collected the software, and created an image, and posted the image online. Users download the image, load the image into Virtual Box, and all the applications will be available for use. An image behaves like a standalone computer, once the image is installed and started inside Virtual Box. To use an image, you must know a username and password for logging into the computer. Please check with SCEC coordinators to get the username and password for logging into the ERI images.

Computer Requirements

For the SCEC-ERI workshop, we have tested the Virtual Box, and our SCEC-ERI software images in the following computer configurations. If you wish to run the SCEC-ERI workshop image, your computer should have the following capabilities.

Mac OS or Windows 7 or Windows 8
50GB Disk space available
Three button Mouse - We recommend a three button mouse to help with SCEC-VDO navigation.

Obtain Virtual Box

The first step is to download the Virtual Box software from Oracle. This software is free to use. You must retrieve a version that is appropriate for the Host Operating system of the computer you want to use. If your laptop runs Mac OS X, then retrieve a version of Virtual Box for Mac OS X. If your laptop runs Windows 8, retrieve a version of Virtual Box for Windows 8. We have tested the SCEC-ERI Image with Virtual Box Version 4.2.24 and higher.