CentOS setup on VirtualBox

Once you have Networking working there is still a long way to go.

yum groupinstall "Development Tools"
yum install kernel-devel
yum install kde-workspace
yum group install "X Window System"
yum groupinstall "Fonts" 
yum install gdm

Now we can login without a GUI but startx when one is needed.

Installing Guest Additions

The guest Centos is a stock distribution, you have to tell it that it is inside VirtualBox.

Make the additions visible to the guest:

In the "Devices" menu in the virtual machine's menu bar, VirtualBox has a handy menu item named "Insert Guest Additions CD image", which mounts the Guest Additions ISO file inside your virtual machine.

yum install dkms
mkdir -p /media/cdrom
# Note change from /dev/scd0 in CentOS6
mount /dev/sr0 /media/cdrom 
sh /media/cdrom/VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

We are now able to move the mouse seamlessly between our guest and host and window systems understand each other.

Sharing files between the host and guest

In the host (Windows) create C:\vbshared and using the VirtualBox interface share this with the guest. In the guest:

mkdir /vbshared
mount -t vboxsf vbshared /vbshared

it will be visible as /vbshared/ from inside the guest.