Depending on the type-2 hypervisor you are using the steps can differ a little bit. The most common type-2 hypervisors are VirtualBox by Oracle (Windows or Mac), VMware Workstation (Windows) or VMware Fusion (Mac). I have created three videos showing how to install a VM using the previously mentioned type-2 hypervisors.
In each video I install the same version of Linux. One of the reasons install Linux is that it is a free OS that we do not need a license key to use. This allows us to install and use it as we wish. We will not be doing anything within Linux or even using the OS, but it is an easy one to download and install as a VM.
I like to use use MX Linux, so I will use that as well in my demo videos. This is a great, lightweight, and extremely popular Linux distribution.
You can download an ISO image of MX Linux at the following URL: https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-linux/files/Final/Xfce/MX-21.1_x64.iso/download.
If you are not familiar with what an ISO image is think of it an exact copy of a DVD. ISO images are also used when data is intended to be burned/written to an optical disc. Even though the ISO image we are downloading can be burned to a DVD we do not need to do this when installing a VM in a type-2 hypervisor.
I would suggest watching all three videos. The VirtualBox video is the longest as I spent more time with details that I felt did not need to be repeated in the other two videos.
After you have your VM installed and running it is highly recommended to install a toolset that will help with the performance and options of your VM.
If your guest OS is Windows do the following:
Start the VM
VM --> Install VM Tools ..
Follow the prompts to install it.
If your guest OS is Linux I suggest using the open-vm-tools package that is provided by your Linux distro (see below).
In the video I show how to install open-vm-tools in MX Linux. This provides the ability to share folders, share your clipboard and drag and drop files between your host and guest OS.