References

Official guide on Ubuntu Desktop

An easy and rich guide to the basics of Ubuntu Desktop:https://help.ubuntu.com/14.04/ubuntu-help/index.html

Workaround for frequent error reporting popups

In a terminal,

$ sudo rm /var/crash/*

(Reference:Online forum post)

More on virtual machines

How to create a VirtualBox VM from scratch:

You may refer to the guide from VirtualBox:https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#gui-createvm

Alternative(s) to VirtualBox

There are other alternatives for hosting VMs on your own computer, e.g.VMware. TheVMware workstation playeris free for download, however, it only runs on Windows and Linux.