Virtual DICE

You can run a version of DICE Linux in a virtual machine on your own computer. This is called Virtual DICE.
It uses VirtualBox, so it will run on a variety of computers. Any DICE user is welcome to use it.

(Sadly, it cannot run on a Mac with Apple Silicon.)

What's Virtual DICE?

It's like DICE, except:

• It runs in a virtual machine on your own computer, instead of on servers and desktop computer in Informatics buildings.
• You can have root access.
• When you first install it, your Virtual DICE VM has less memory and disk space than a standard DICE computer. You can change that in the VM's settings in VirtualBox.
• Less software is included, for legal and space reasons.
• It stores your files locally in the virtual machine. This is different from DICE, where your files are in AFS. But you can use AFS from Virtual DICE.
• In Virtual DICE your files are not backed up! You should copy them regularly to your AFS home directory.
• DICE has regular software updates, but with Virtual DICE you control when or if software is updated.

About these pages

This is a collection of pages about Virtual DICE. Each of them has a Next page link at the bottom. If you follow that link you'll see the next page in the sequence, and by the last page you'll know all about Virtual DICE.

Or use the menu on the left to skip to the page you want.

Next page

There are ⇒ Editions of Virtual DICE.