I’ve not had any version of Linux before. I learned to use a computer in 1985 on Unix System III from Bell Labs. Later I had to learn a whole new system on a super mini without Unix. Now I’m on my own with Windows 10.
I want to try Ubuntu 18.04 using the Virtual Box 6.0. Are these the only 2 downloads of Ubuntu I need to get?
Download Ubuntu 18.04 LTS ISO (64-bit)
Download Ubuntu 18.04 LTS Torrent Link (64-bit)
I will greatly appreciate your help.
you should need just one or the other. a torrent is one way to download the file you are interested in. the first .iso entry on the page you linked has the following information:
ubuntu-18.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso 2020-02-03 18:40 2.0G Desktop image for 64-bit PC (AMD64) computers (standard download)
clicking on that link will give you the option to begin downloading the iso file with your web browser.
So, I don’t need the .iso to put in the Virtual Box account page??
yes, you will need the .iso to create your virtual machine.
i don’t seem to be understanding you entirely. when i click the link you have just posted, it takes me to a page where i can download the .iso file for ubuntu 18.04. it is labeled ubuntu-18.04.4-desktop-amd64.iso on that page. if you look at that listing, you can see that it is a file that is about 2.0G (gigabytes) in size. that is the one you need to download.
the description that you have posted for a torrent (80K = very small in size) is more like a link. you can use it to eventually download the .iso file if you have a piece of software called a torrent client, but if you just want to download the .iso with your web browser, you should click on the one i have described and is pictured below:
OK, thanks. I a bit nervous about doing this as I’ve had to spend so many decades with the various Windows versions. I’ve always wanted to get a Linux on my PC and now is the time!
i was happy to help 
trying something new can seem daunting. thankfully with virtual box, nothing you do to or in the virtual machine will have any effect on your windows system overall other than take up the hard drive space you allot to it.
good luck.
From one retired guy to another @RetiredGuy, Welcome to “It’s Foss”. I switched over from Windows 10 to Linux Mint about 2 years ago using dual boot. Took Windows off my laptop about 8 months ago and planning on removing it from my desktop soon. I just don’t use Windows anymore, but my wife still runs Win 10 on her laptop. Enjoy the learning experience. Be sure to have a good backup / restore procedure before making any (major) changes to your system.
How much disk space and memory can be allocated to the VM? Rule of thumb is no more than half of your memory should be allocated, to the VM, W10 64bit, your host, will require at least 2GB and really needs 4GB
to run properly. I have ran linux VM’s on as little as 20GB disk space without any swap, just saying, you
really do not need much for a linux VM, but 2GB fo memory for a linux 64bit would and should be enough.
Thanks for your kind words.
Hi there @RetiredGuy Patrick welcome to this great community with so many helpful posters.
Hey I’m retired too – isn’t it great? Miss the humour of engineers and others at work.
Yes I too used UNIX for Pafec DOGS – Design Office Graphics System way back then.
You have been given good advice so far but could I suggest a different approach which worked so well for me and have since had difficulties getting VM to work.
It is blindingly simple: Just boot up with a demo distro DVD or USB stick and hey presto you are running your choice of distro and can look at it’s features or lack of them and decide later. 
Next reboot with another distro and compare back to back. Take a break and reboot as normal – as you were just running distros in RAM nothing has been altered in your computer at all.
I got all my distros free with magazine issues with reviews of them before checking what it’sFOSS and DistroWatch had to say. Also take a look at web pages of the FSF and GNU-Linux to see if they coincide with your mind set? I decided on Trisquel for an old HP G60 Notebook come laptop and use it daily such that Dell ubuntu 16.04 LTS is hardly used at all.
You may find this FOSS page and others useful… 
HELP!
We’ve filled in all the slots to create the virtual box, BUT we can not find where we are supposed to put in the .iso drive or something because when we start my virtual box program, we are getting the message:
FATAL: No bootable medium found! System Halted
What have we missed???
@RetiredGuy:
Hi,
perhaps you haven´t “loaded” your ISO yet. You have to do it like this:
VirtualBox can connect to ISO files you have on your computer. This is useful for installing operating systems or other software or files on your virtual machines.
To have VirtualBox attach an ISO, select the virtual machine in the main menu in VirtualBox and click the “Settings” button. Click the “Storage” tab in the Settings menu. You should see an image of a disc and the word “Empty” under “Controller: IDE” in the Storage menu. Click “Empty” and select the CD/DVD icon.
Click “Choose a virtual CD/DVD disk file” and navigate to the ISO file you want to connect to your virtual machine. The process is the same to have VirtualBox mount a CD or DVD ISO.
The virtual machine sees the drive as if it were a real disc drive. Depending on the operating system you’re running, you may need to take additional steps to make the drive accessible to yourself or other users on the virtual machine, just as you would with a physical computer.
see: https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-mount-an-iso-in-virtualbox
Good luck and greetings.
Rosika 
you may get some more help if you post your latest message as a new thread since the topic is different from when you started. there are some other virtualbox users here and i will do what i can to help, but i don’t use virtualbox so my help will be mostly pointing to online references.
Hi again,
a good picture can be found here: Booting a VM From an ISO File in Oracle VirtualBox
I think that makes it clearer.
Greetings.
Rosika
Hi Rosika!
Thanks for the info, we will study that video! But a quick 3 questions:
Should the Controller: SATA really be Windows 10? At the picture of the disk: Mine shows: Controller: Host Drive ‘D:’
THEN
At picture of a floppy disk picture it has: Controller: Sata
Underneath another floppy disk picture it has: Pat_s virtual Box. VDI
Do I blow the complete settings and start a new creation using the link you gave me?
Thanks
RetiredGuy
Pat
2nd question: The Disk I have is not empty but has
Hi Patrick,
I´m not exactly sure about your question. But I´ll try to answer to the best of my knowledge.
This (to me at least) seems to indicate that the ubuntu-ISO you downloaded hasn´t been put in the virtual optical drive yet.
So if you look at the picture I provided you see a disk symbol “Empty” under “Storage Devices”.
Click on that and then under “Attributes” click on the disk symbol there and in the popup menu on
“Choose Virtual Optical Disk…” .
Thus you can choose the location of your iso and select it.
Then the ubuntu-ISO is inserted in the virtual CD/DVD ROM and the virtual machine should start with ubuntu and you can install the system.
Hope this helps. Maybe someone else can explain it better.
Greetings
Rosika
Additional Info:
This certainly is OFF-TOPIC but see it just as additional info.
If you want to try out Ubuntu you may still do this as a live system.
True, you can´t save anything (although with persistence you may save to a limited degree) and after a reboot changes are lost.
But this method has the additonal benefit of being able to test your physical hardware in case you choose Ubuntu as your main machine.
So you can check out your printer, wlan etc.
In this case I´d recommend creating a (multiboot)stick with ventoy.
See: Ventoy
I´ve been using it a lot recently and it works very well. You can put many ISOs on it, not just one.
It´s certainly worth a try (and simple to handle).
Greetings.
Rosika
Hey Patrick as I said above…
I tried VM after I was up and running without problems using ubuntu on newish Dell laptop. Just could not figure what I was doing wrong and ended up wishing I hadn’t installed it. Yes it’s there but could never get it to work and run other OS’s.
You can buy DVD’s and USB drives with ubuntu version ready to play.
