Extending the PeopleSoft 9.2 virtual machine with GUI and GuestAdditions

In my previous post I described the steps for getting started with the PeopleSoft 9.2 virtual machine. Although I am still thrilled that Oracle has made this generally available, I am of the opinion that it would have even been greater if the virtual machine was pre-delivered with GNOME or KDE. I am sure that a lot of customers and partners will use this virtual machine, but is everyone comfortable  with just a Linux command prompt? I think not.

Fortunately you have the root account and full access to the virtual machine, so we can go ahead and extend the virtual machine with the GUI our self.

Note, this post is not part of the virtual machine deployment as intended by Oracle. It is my choice to extend the virtual machine and it is your choice to follow this post.

Installing PeopleSoft 9.2 pre-build virtual machine

The past years I have seen a lot of people on OTN forum struggling with PeopleSoft installations. Installing PeopleSoft on uncertified OS, mismatch between versions and releases, 32 vs 64 bit, etc, etc.

Well those days are over. As of April 14, Oracle made pre-build virtual machines of PeopleSoft HCM 9.2, ELM 9.2 and FSCM 9.2 for VirtualBox available. These virtual machines enable you to get a PeopleSoft Demo up and running within an hour, without installation! No, I am not lying nor am I fooling you, I timed it! Customers do not have to invest time and effort in installing a Demo environment and developers can have a properly installed local environment for R&D.

In this post I will describe the steps you need to take to get started with the PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 virtual machine. I will be deploying the virtual machine on my laptop with following hardware:

• Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
• 8 GB RAM

Get ready to be amazed ...

Switching from VMWare to VirtualBox

Ever since I discovered virtualization, I have been creating and using dedicated virtual machines for all my PeopleSoft sandboxes and Fusion MiddleWare components. This allowed me to run multiple releases of OS and PeopleSoft on my own laptop. Until recently I was using VMWare Player and was not a big fan of VirtualBox. After running my first PeopleSoft sandbox based on the OVM templates in VirtualBox I was amazed by the performance and memory allocation. Ever since I have moved all my VMWare virtual machines to VirtualBox.