I use Virtualbox frequently and usually have several systems available. To quickly launch a system without the overhead of the full Virtualbox application I wrote this little script which somebody might find useful.
#!/bin/bash -
set -o nounset
VBOXES="" # available machines
ACTIVE="" # running machines
COUNT=0 # total available machines
VBOXES=`vboxmanage list vms | sed 's/"//g' | sed 's/ //g'| cut -d"{" -f 1 | sort`
ACTIVE=`vboxmanage list runningvms | sed 's/"//g' | sed 's/ //g'| cut -d"{" -f 1 `
for i in $VBOXES
do
(( COUNT++ ))
done
HEIGHT=$(( $COUNT*30+130 ))
VM=$(zenity --list --title="$COUNT Virtual Machines" --column="Operating System" --width=350 --height=$HEIGHT $VBOXES)
if [ -z $VM ] ; then
exit 0
fi
for v in $ACTIVE
do
if [ $VM == $v ] ; then
zenity --info --text="That machine is already running"
exit 1
fi
done
$(vboxmanage startvm $VM)
exit 0
I wrote it in 2013 so most of the bugs have been squashed.