You can install the VirtualBox software, configure a virtual machine, and run another operating system, like installing it on another PC. A virtual machine is a piece of software that runs on top of your system and, in brief, emulates a PC hardware (however, in reality the subject is a little bit more complex).

Virtualization lets you to run an entire operating system inside a virtual machine. Oracle VM VirtualBox is, as stated in the homepage “ a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use“. However, if your main system is Windows or OSX, you can use VirtualBox to create a Fedora guest. In this case, using KVM / Libvirt is probably a better approach. Note that if you are currently running Fedora as your main machine, VirtualBox may not be the best choice for virtualization, because it is not in the Fedora repositories.

You can even restore a backup of your virtualized system if something in your test goes wrong. Additionally, even if your main operating system is Fedora or not, and you want to do some hack or test some software on a spare installation without harming your main system, having the option to start from zero again and again without losing your other works. The virtualization approach allows you work on on your Fedora install without haveing to to reboot the system every time you need to use Fedora. Alternatively, you could use virtualization technology such as VirtualBox to run a Fedora install. One way that will have little impact on your current operating system is to create a live USB of Fedora, and boot directly into it. There are many ways to give Fedora a try if you are currently using another operating system.

This article has been checked and updated in January 2020 for correctness.

Fedora 23 virtualbox guest additions