From Fedora Project Wiki

Description

This tests GNOME Boxes. It is an intuitive application for managing virtual machines targeted towards typical desktop end-users, who just want to automatically install and run different operating systems on their hosts. GNOME Boxes is focused on usability and out of the box user experience with very little input from user.

Setup

  1. It's best to run this test on a bare metal. Running this inside an existing virtual machine (i.e. nested virtualization) is likely to be very slow.
  2. Make sure GNOME Boxes (package gnome-boxes) is installed.
  3. Optional: Have an ISO with Fedora, some other Linux distribution, or Windows.

How to test

  1. Create a new virtual machine (VM) installation. You can either provide an existing ISO image with the installer, or let Boxes download one of offered ISO images for you.
    • When asked for desired disk size and memory allocation, it differs based on what Operating System (OS) you want to use and how much resources you can spare, but but graphical environments it's recommended to allocate at least 20 GB of storage and 3 GB RAM.
  2. Start the installation. You should see the installer for the chosen OS, and you should be able to control it using mouse and keyboard as usual. Finish the installation and power off the VM.
  3. Depending on the circumstances, you might either see your installed VM shut down and displayed as an icon - in that case click on it to start it; or it can just reboot - in that case no action is needed.
  4. Interact with the newly installed VM. It should behave as expected, accepting mouse and keyboard input and displaying graphical output. You should be able run apps inside and they should work as expected.
    • Please note that 3D acceleration is not expected to work. Games will probably not work inside the VM.
    • VMs with certain OSes might lock your cursor/keyboard inside, and you need to press a special keyboard shortcut to unlock your input, if you want to switch to a different app than Boxes. That shortcut should be written in Boxes' titlebar or on a similar visible place.
  5. Test resizing your Boxes window. Depending on the installed OS, it might resize the desktop/resolution of the guest OS (e.g. Fedora), or it might just scale the picture (making it smaller/bigger).
  6. Test the fullscreen button. You should now see your guest OS full-screen, and you should be able to switch it to a window again, if you press your cursor against the top screen edge, which will show you the tool bar with the fullscreen button to press.
  7. Press the Back button. You should be switched back to Boxes home screen, and you should see your VM thumbnail (the VM gets paused).
  8. Go back to your VM by clicking on it, the VM should be unpaused and you should be able to continue working with it.
  9. Press the Back button again, but this time also close Boxes. Wait for a minute, the VM state should be saved and it should be shut off. Then start Boxes again and click on your VM, it should be resumed and you should be back in your original state (running apps and everything).
  10. Test Force Shutdown from the menu. That should kill your VM instantly.
  11. Create another VM with a different OS. When that's done, test switching between your VMs.
  12. Perform some additional Exploratory testing.
  13. Right click on your VM in Boxes home screen and choose Delete, it should get removed. Remove all test VMs. Close Boxes and start it again, verify that those VMs are gone.

Expected Results

  1. Boxes should allow you to run an OS almost the same as when running it on a real hardware. Interactions should behave as expected.
  2. Please report all failures to the GNOME tracker.