If you’re running Fedora Linux inside a VirtualBox virtual machine, installing the Guest Additions software will help you get the most out of the system. VirtualBox Guest Additions will give the machine more capabilities, such as a shared clipboard with the host system, drag and drop file transfer, and automatic window resizing.
This makes copying data to and from a host system much more convenient. It also changes the VM’s resolution automatically when its window is resized, so you don’t need to change it manually. Guest Additions will work with just about any Linux distribution, but instrutions can differ because of dependencies and package managers.
In this guide, we’ll be going over the step by step instructions to get VirtualBox Guest Additions installed on Fedora Linux. With these instructions, it doesn’t matter what host system you’re using, as long as the virtual machine is running Fedora. This guide assumes that you’ve already installed Fedora in the VM correctly.
In this tutorial you will learn:
- How to install VirtualBox Guest Addition on Fedora
| Category | Requirements, Conventions or Software Version Used |
|---|---|
| System | Fedora Linux |
| Software | VirtualBox Guest Additions |
| Other | Privileged access to your Linux system as root or via the sudo command. |
| Conventions |
# – requires given linux commands to be executed with root privileges either directly as a root user or by use of sudo command$ – requires given linux commands to be executed as a regular non-privileged user |
Install VirtualBox Guest Additions
Make sure your Fedora virtual machine is powered on. Then, follow along with the steps below to install Guest Additions.
$ sudo dnf update $ sudo dnf install kernel kernel-devel kernel-headers gcc make perl elfutils-libelf-devel tar bzip2
$ reboot
That’s all there is to it. When Fedora finishes loading back up, you’ll be able to utilize the shared clipboard, drag and drop function, and automatic resizing. Make sure you enable the shared clipboard and drag and drop option if you wish to use them, from inside the Devices menu.
You may also wish to configure a shared folder between the host system and virtual machine, which makes it very easy to share files between the two systems.
Closing Thoughts
In this guide, we saw how to install VirtualBox Guest Additions on an Fedora VM. VirtualBox’s Guest Additions software makes virtual machines much easier to use. The installation process varies across different Linux distributions, which is why we’ve made this guide specifically for Fedora. Now you can take advantage of all the conveniences that Guest Additions has to offer.