Instructor Notes

See the setup for important instructor notes on setting up the lesson and possible troubleshooting steps on installing VirtualBox.

Introduction

Instructor Note

This lesson is basically a lecture. Make sure to set that expectation
Remind students that they’re not expected to remember everything. They’ll have a chance to do some hands-on later that might help clear up some questions.
Don’t forget to mention the glossary as reference material

Lead off script: We’re all familiar with computers like Macs and PCs. They run an operating system like Windows or Mac, and we can run programs on that computer like web browsers and word processors. The operating system controls all of the physical resources.

Explain the diagram

Physical resources, and how the OS controls access to them
The VMM is a program that gets a slice of those resources and presents them as if they were physical resources to virtual machines
Define the relationship between the host and guest OS.
Use the concept of a computer-within-a-computer

Instructor Note

Might also want to mention these additional characteristics:

Containers can contain applications from various OSs like Linux or Windows, but containers based on Unix-like OSs (e.g., Linux) are the most common.
Containers are generally console based. If they have a graphical interface, the main way containers present it is via a web browser.
Software to create an manage containers is varied. Docker is the most popular one.

Virtual machines using VirtualBox

Instructor Note

Learners may be prompted to use the Basic or Expert interface when VirutalBox is run for the first time. Learners should select Basic.

If learners already ran VirtualBox and selected Expert, make sure students know what they see may not be exactly what is on your screen. They can switch back to Basic by going to the File menu, selecting Preferences, and clicking the Basic tab in the top left-hand corner of the dialog.

If there are other issues running the VM on Windows, refer to the setup. There is an instructor note under the Windows section.

Instructor Note

If students get an error opening VirtualBox or importing the VM, there may be something you can do (reinstalling, rebooting, checking there is enough disk space, making sure they are not trying to import directly from inside the Zip).

If they have an error trying to run the VM, there is less you can do. Some things to try would be tinkering with the VM settings under the System or Display categories

Making sure they downloaded the right VM for their system
Reducing the base memory
Playing with the Paravirtualization Interface choice under the Acceleration tab (expert mode must be selected at the top of the settings for the tab to appear).
Increasing the video memory

If none of that works, there is nothing else you can do and they will have to pair up with someone that has it working.

Basics of Containers with Docker

Instructor Note

Instructors should feel free to add their own examples in the introduction, to help your learners appreciate the utility of containers. Providing your own use case of containers helps lend authenticity to the lesson.

As an example, one of this lesson’s creators received regular requests to convert GIS data files from one format to another. There is a program written in C++ that will do this, but he did not know (or want to know) if the program would run on his computer. There is a Docker container that contains this program and all the dependencies needed for it to run. He uses the Docker container to do the file conversions without needing to install (and keep up to date) all of the requirements for this C++ program to run.

Instructor Note

The instructions included in the two episodes on containers assume that learners are using the virtual machines described in prior episodes. However, the following Docker instructions can all be run on any computer that has an internet connection and has Docker installed. You can find more information about installing Docker at the Carpentries’ Containers lesson.