Dave's Tech Blog
A Third Eye on Technology

Hey there, stranger.  Sorry I’ve not stopped by to drop a post for a while.  Not like it really makes a big difference in the world, but at least it lets the few visitors who do come by know that I’m not in a coma somewhere due to a horrible skating-ring limbo accident…  Which would be quite rare because I’ve not been to a skating ring since I was old enough to believe that biker gloves looked really cool.  They sold them at places like that right next to bottles of vanishing ink.

As far as trends in technology lately… well, there’s probably plenty of stuff I could rave about but nothing much has really caught my eye enough to make me want to write something about it.  And I’ve been rather lazy the last couple of weeks.  To be honest, I’ve been a little apathetic.  And then, as so predicted by Joseph Campbell in that first Mythos video I saw, I’ve begun to sort of disengage myself from the rest of the current events in the world.  As much as I would love to possibly alienate you with my own political satire, I’ll spare you.  I really have a lot of other more important things to focus on for the time being…

As mentioned in my previous blog a couple weeks ago or so, my girlfriends’ father had been diagnosed with colon cancer.  Soon after I got to Missouri a discussion with an oncologist had took place, and the prognosis he gave was much more dreadful than what we were hoping for.  His cancer has spread to his lungs, and chemotherapy has been scheduled to begin next week.  His spirit and mood have remained high, odd as it may seem to some who otherwise might feel great despair and depression, if not anger.  But I perceive him to be living, in some aspects, the best days of his life as he proceeds to carefully squeeze the last few drops of it, savoring it with a grand smile.  It is actually hard to tell just how much there is left for him to enjoy, which is just the way things should be in life.  Disturbing prognoses be damned.

And of course there is plenty of room for optimism and hope.  I’m looking foward to future visits to help support him and the family that I am also a part of.  I’m also looking forward to reading more of his blogs.  By the way, if you consider yourself to be a literary buff who appreciates extensive vocabulary and vividness in the stories you read, do yourself a favor and subscribe to his blog.

Thanks to a reader, I stand corrected about the overall experiences of using VMware vs. Virtualbox.  I was informed that, although minor Linux kernel updates don’t require you to execute any sort of command in your terminal window to keep your virtual machines running, you would have to type such a command for major Linux kernel revisions.  So I decided to see what this experience is like.

The command you type in terminal to recompile your Virtualbox kernel headers is:

• /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup

So I did it just for fun, and I added a sudo in front of the command for good measure too.  Then I pressed enter and gasped 30 seconds later:

…I’m already done?… Wow, that was fast!

Well, there you have it.  Virtualbox is apparently a real pain in the ass to use (not really).  It turns out you have to type a command into the terminal window after all, and then press the enter key once!  You might need to invest in a sweatband for your forehead before going through that ordeal [/sarcasm].  The good news for VMware Server fans is that there’s a similar command that does about the equivalent:

• sudo vmware-config.pl -default

Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to copy and paste in the results of what you’d see after typing that command in here to show you.  You’ve seen that bloody mess all too often, if you’re a seasoned VMware user.  And if you are a seasoned user you should know the implications of using that -default option given the extensive myriad of questions asked.  So hopefully, the defaults work for you.

…..

On an unreleated note, my girlfriend’s father was diagnosed with a form of intestinal cancer yesterday.  I’ll be leaving for Missouri tomorrow night…  Please think of him, pray for him.

Before we start, I’d like to get something off my chest:  VMware Server is CRAP!  Don’t take this the wrong way. I’ve used VMware Server for about a year and a half, staring shortly after discovering Ubuntu itself. And at the time, Linux Kernel updates didn’t come down the wire quite as often as they do now. The thing about kernel updates is that you would have to recompile the kernel headers of VMware Server after an update manually. In other words, you had to go to the Terminal, type in a command to execute a script, and hit the enter key about 20 times to accept all the defaults (with the faith that the defaults are exactly what you want them to be).   Yeah, I know what you’re thinking:  “What a stupid task to force a user to go through.  Have any of these guys ever heard of the five 9′s?”

Now I should give credit where it is due.  VMware Server is still a powerful virtual machine solution with a ton of functionality packed into it.  But it seems to be geared towards advanced users who enjoy wasting time in terminal windows because their software breaks on them all the time.  Anyway, Virtualbox is a LOT better than VMware in this department.  In the time that I’ve used it, I’ve never had to do anything special after a kernel update. It just keeps on working. No special commands needed… at least that I’ve seen so far in the last couple month of testing, through 3 kernel updates.  It’s still kicking, but it is yet to seen what will happen when 8.10 comes out.  I suspect it will not cause a problem.

Okay, so how do I install VBox?

First, visit this link.  From here, you’ll be able to download a self-installing deb file for your version of Ubuntu.  There are other distro-specific versions available for download (such as SUSE, Debian, Red-Hat, Fedora, etc) but I can only go into installing the software in Ubuntu.  But in most cases, I’d bet this guide will work for you even if you’re not using Ubuntu.

Ok, so you have your deb file downloaded.  Double-click on it, then click “Install Package”.  After this, the application will be installed and you’ll find a new icon in your Applications>System Tools menu. But first, you will now need to add your user account to the vboxusers group.  The quickest way to do this is click Applications>Accessories>Terminal.  From within terminal, type

• sudo adduser $USER vboxusers

and then press enter.  Leave the terminal window open.  You are done with installing and setting up Virtualbox… almost.  You will now need to make some changes to get USB working.  This involves editing 3 configuration text files.  So let’s get started.  Still in Terminal, type

• sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountdevsubfs.sh

This will open the mountdevsubfs.sh file in your Text Editor.  While this file is open, look for these lines:

# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
#mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
#domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
#ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
#mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

On these bottom four lines, remove the # signs so it looks like this:

# Magic to make /proc/bus/usb work
#
mkdir -p /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs
domount usbfs “” /dev/bus/usb/.usbfs -obusmode=0700,devmode=0600,listmode=0644
ln -s .usbfs/devices /dev/bus/usb/devices
mount –rbind /dev/bus/usb /proc/bus/usb

Now save the file and you’ll be sent back to the terminal window.  For some people, that’s all you have to do.  If you restart your PC and run Virtualbox, but still have problems getting your USB devices to mount, we have two more files to edit.  But first, we need to find the Group ID number for the vboxusers group.  This can by done by typing the following command into terminal:

• grep vbox /etc/group

This will give you a result similar to:  vboxusers:x:118:username

In the above example, 118 is the group ID number for the vboxusers group.  Your number will likely be different.  Jot your own number down for future reference.

Now on to editing the remaining two files.  Type this into terminal: 

• sudo gedit /etc/fstab

In this file, you will want to paste in the following text at the bottom:

## usbfs is the USB group in fstab file:
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=118,devmode=664 0 0

Note the part that says “devgid=118″.  Change the 118 to match the number you wrote down just a second ago.  It must match your group ID for vboxusers.  Save and close this file.

We have one last file to edit.  Type this into terminal:

• sudo gedit /etc/init.d/mountkernfs.sh

Inside of this file, there is a line that says “# Mount spufs, if Cell Broadband processor is detected”.  You will want to insert the following text ABOVE that line:

## Mount the usbfs for use with Virtual Box
domount usbfs usbdevfs /proc/bus/usb -onoexec,nosuid,nodev,devgid=118,devmode=664

Again, you will want to change the 118 to match your vboxusers group ID number.

Once all of this is done, you will need to restart your PC.  Granted, this isn’t the easiest looking app to install, but it is easier to use and install and maintain than VMware Server in my opinion.  Enjoy!