I cannot get my Debian to work on Virtualbox for a Raspberry

[DiaborMagics]

Hey everyone!

Since a few weeks, I've been trying to successfully get my Raspberry Pi ready; in the way my school wanted me to approach it. I couldnt get it to work and my teachers don't know what the problem is (my internet on it doesnt work, while all settings are correct), or they point me to google...

So, now I'm resorting to a forum, hoping and praying that anyone on here can and will help me. If you do, you'd be a lifesaver!

Anyway, I've installed virtualbox and installed Debian. But then there's the configuration. Login as root (I have to, according to the step by step guide... that doesnt work for 90% of my classmates either). Then these are the things I have to do in a row:
root@debianrouter:~# cd /etc/network/
root@debianrouter:/etc/network# ls
root@debianrouter:/etc/network# nano interfaces
I then have to input a few lines;

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet static
address 192.168.1.1
netmask 255.255.255.0
broadcast 192.168.1.255
gateway 192.168.1.1

then ctrl+c --> y to save it.

Next step requires me to input :
root@debianrouter:/etc/network#/etc/init.d/networking restart
and then apt-get update...... but here is where it goes wrong. It cant find any site and pinging them doesnt work either. Does anyone know what could be wrong? I use Windows 8.0, the latest version of VirtualBox and Debian 7.6.0, 32-bit version (though my system is 64-bit).

So... can anyone help me? I get it if this is kind of vague - you see, I could include the reader provided by my school, but that's written in Dutch (except for what we have to input) and including all previous step would require me to translate a lot. Not that I mind, if you need it you can tell me, but I'm hoping that I've already provided enough information.

Many thanks in advance people, I seriously don't know what to do anymore, since even my teachers don't have a clue (how then do they expect me to do well, if they cant teach properly).

have a nice day!
- DiaborMagics

[reinob]

You want to install debian on a raspberry pi, but you're first learning with debian 32-bit on virtualbox. Is that right?

Then your question is more: "how do I configure the network on debian". For that you edit the interfaces as you've done. But you should first know which network interface you want to configure. I suppose if you have eth1 it means that you've configured TWO network cards on virtualbox (why?). if you've only set up one network card on Virtualbox then it's most likely eth0.

Perhaps you could start by telling us how you've configured the virtualbox networking (NAT, bridge). If bridge then you need to know the address of your router (gateway) and network mask. Are you using DHCP or do you really want to assign a static IP address?

If you're using NAT then the best is to configure eth0 to get an address using DHCP (this will use the internal DHCP server of virtualbox).

In short: we need a lot of information before anybody can tell you what to do or which files to edit and how.

[reinob]

I think this is why you're not getting anywhere with networking :)

nice catch :)

[gregor3000]

After using debian xfce for a while you want to get rid of windows, even if you play modern games, because you will like the stability and speed of the linux.
.

that's not what the OP asked for though. also windows is quite stable for me and fast. with Linux on desktop sooner or later you hit a wall unless you are in some specialised field where certain tools are required and available in Linux or even Linux only.
Linux on desktop PC is good alternative to windows but it can not fully (in all aspects) replace them (at least not yet). lack of good drivers, lack of certain software...