Running the IMAPP VA in VirtualBox on OS X

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gumley
Posts: 37
Joined: Thu Feb 18, 2010 2:36 pm

Running the IMAPP VA in VirtualBox on OS X

Post by gumley »

The IMAPP Virtual Appliance is packaged for all platforms as a VMware virtual disk image (.vmdk file). On Apple OS X platforms, VMware Fusion (a commercial product) is usually required to run the VA. However, it is possible to use the free VirtualBox application to run the IMAPP VA on OS X platforms.

First, download and install VirtualBox for Mac from
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Then download the IMAPP VA tarfile (not the zipfile) from
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/imapp/

Start Virtualbox and select File / Virtual Media Manager
Click “Add”, select the imapp_va.vmdk file, click "Open" and then "OK"

Now click on "New" to create a new virtual machine profile as follows:
Name: IMAPP VA, Operating System: Linux, Version: Ubuntu
512 MB RAM
Use existing hard disk imapp_va.vmdk
Click "Finish"

Now click on "System", "Acceleration", uncheck both boxes, then click "OK". Note: VirtualBox crashed my Mac (OS X 10.6.4) if I left this enabled.

Now click on "Start" to start up the IMAPP VA.

On my Mac, it started in 800x600 display mode. To get a bigger display, I think you have to install the VirtualBox Guest Additions, but I have not tried it. Otherwise the VA functions normally.

Regards,
Liam.
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