Far Fewer Toes - Latest Comments

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

makj — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 09:07:54 -0000

i've made a few minor changes to your script in order to be able to run it in gentoo:

1. in gentoo doesn't exist /lib/lsb/init.functions, i've commented it out
2. because of (1), i substituted the commands: log_failure_msg and log_action_msg, instead i used a simple 'echo'
3.in gentoo doesn't exist the file /etc/network/interfaces, instead the config of the network is in /etc/conf.d/net
4. i need to open the VMs with it's GUI (windows, you know...), so i've set an X-server and add it to the config file asa variable: X_HOST
5.i used X_HOST for setting the target of the GUI of the VM using "export DISPLAY=$X_HOST"
6.i've changed the type of the VM's, instead or "-type rdp" i use "-type gui"

the rest works perfectly, but i have still a problem with the network, i cant see any host from the guest (windows 2003), any help?

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

Jochem — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:19:28 -0000

Hi robp2175, you can remove the script with:
update-rc.d -f vboxcontrol remove

(see man update-rc.d)

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

robp2175 — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 14:59:58 -0000

How do I remove this script "update-rc.d vboxcontrol defaults 99 10" .
It did not work for me and I want to make sure it does not try to run every time I boot.

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

timbophillips — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 06:27:23 -0000

great work jochem, that solved a problem i was having with a server running several virtualbox VMs. two extra bits that have helped me...

i add the lines
bridge_fd 0
bridge_stp on
in the br0 section of /etc/network/interfaces
on big networks this avoids the situation where the bridge isn't in listening mode by the time virtualbox is plugging its VMs onto the taps

in your vboxcontrol script (fantastic script by the way) i added a few lines to the waiting_for_closing_machines() method to give the VMs a minute or so to close themselves in response to the ACPI powerbutton... if a minute goes by and they haven't closed I assume they've hung and use 'poweroff' to pull the plug on them.

code below....

wait_for_closing_machines() {
RUNNING_MACHINES=`$SU "$VBOXMANAGE list runningvms" | wc -l`
if [ $RUNNING_MACHINES != 0 ]; then
sleep 5

# =========================================================
# added by Tim; give them a few cycles to shutdown then kill them
# =========================================================
x=$(expr $x + 1)
log_action_msg "waiting for them to shut-down as instructed - $x"
if [ $x = 10 ]; then
log_action_msg "$RUNNING_MACHINES VM(s) seem to be hung..."
$SU "$VBOXMANAGE list runningvms" | while read HUNGVM; do
log_action_msg "Powering off VM: $HUNGVM ..."
$SU "$VBOXMANAGE controlvm \"$HUNGVM\" poweroff"
done
fi
#========================================================

wait_for_closing_machines
fi
}

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

Lei — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:39:44 -0000

It's a great script I have been looking for.

The version 2008051100 by Jochem does not work for my setup:

Sun xVM 1.6.2 under Ubuntu Server 8.04

so that I have adapted it and named version 20080615-1915. It is sent to Jochen to post in the hope that it may be useful for some people. It was just tested in my abovementioned setup and I am not sure if it would work on Ubuntu Desktop or any other Linux distributions, which I am not using and unable to test with.

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

Jochem — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 07:19:11 -0000

Thanks esoco, you're right. It's fixed in the vboxcontrol section

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

esoco — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 06:14:55 -0000

Thanks for this helpful script, it works without problems on Ubuntu 8.04 for me. I only noticed a small typo in the instructions: the entry in interfaces mentioned here
* If you use 'Host interface' networking, put a br0 entry in /etc/network/interfaces: inet br0 inet dhcp

must instead be "iface br0 inet dhcp".

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

raymond — Fri, 02 May 2008 07:42:08 -0000

Hi Jochem,

Thanks for the quick response.

The only difference with using VBoxRDP for starting the VM is that it will show up in the log if there are any problems when starting it.

I'm looking forward to your updated script.

PS. I believe you should post a link inside the VirtualBox forum for other s to find this wonderful script of yours. Believe you me there are many others who would like to be able to do this on their linux box but don't know how to code the script.

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

Jochem — Fri, 02 May 2008 04:04:23 -0000

Hi Raymond, thanks for the compliment.

Right now the script only works with tap interfaces, since I didn't have a need for non-tap based VM's. Adding an option for that would be easy though, I guess. If so, I'll post a new version soonish with the option in it.

I use the VBoxManage command since that can do all actions to a VM needed, like shutting down (VBoxRDP can't do this afaik), listing running VM's etc. I don't think there's any advantage of running VBoxRDP for just starting the VM's.

Re: Start VirtualBox virtual machines on boot | Far Fewer Toes

raymond — Thu, 01 May 2008 20:54:00 -0000

This is a great soluton! I have been looking for something like this for a long time.

What if I'm not using a tap interface will this script still work? Is there an option to disable the loading of the tap interface?

Why not use the VBoxRDP command to start the VMs?

Re: Mandriva 2008 Spring One Gnome preliminary look | Far Fewer Toes

nitroflow — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 10:44:59 -0000

I dont know what model is yor acer laptop but i've been using Mandriva 2008 Spring One one mine and the webcam works fine(btw it's an Aspire 5920G)
here is a screenshot

Re: Mandriva 2008 Spring One Gnome preliminary look | Far Fewer Toes

ranger — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:26:08 -0000

Mandriva support for x86_64 is very good, but there are intentionally no "One" releases. Instead use the "Free" DVD ISO: http://torrent.mandriva.com/public/mandriva-lin...

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

jj — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:21:29 -0000

Nice review... Thanks. I like the way you base it on default install. Even though most of us customize our setups, the default makes a nice base to compare on. Considering Mandriva (and others) do customize the KDE menu, your review of that aspect is perfectly appropriate. We all have different tastes, and as one comment suggested above, I'm one of those that like the KDE menu with it's many choices. Keep up the good work... jj

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

Dave — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 10:19:40 -0000

I have a correction to make. "THE NETHERLANDS" indead does not show up in the Live Cd 'One' RC1 version. I checked it *after* I wrote the comment and found out I was wrong. Sorry. The reason is that 'my country' was also only listed after looking in the expanded list. Which was ok. I guess that Mandriva is already taking into account a significant sea level rise, making NL disappear ;)

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

dave — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 06:29:59 -0000

You don't mention an important difference between "One" and "Free". "One" includes proprietary drivers, "Free" does not at all.

It is actually possible to select any country when booting the One live-cd. There's a button that says "Other countries". After clicking, you get a full list of countries, sorted per continent. Can't believe you missed that. The country list it originally shows depends on the language you selected before. You selected english, thus got a list of English-speaking countries.

You dowloaded the "One" ISO. Why didn't you burn it on a CD and boot your PC with it? It would have been much faster once the loading process is done. If you effectively installed it - use a spare harddisk for this purpose - your review would be so much more worth. You would know how it behaves with your hardware, instead of generic virtual hardware. I hope you do this when reviewing RC2 or final.

The "packages with GUI only" is great for people who are not computer wizards and like buttons and mouses for everything, and are afraid of CLI's. For other people, like me, it's simple to select all packages. I don't see what your problem is with this. Many Linux distro's try to become more User Friendly. This is one way of trying it. It's a new option in the Mandriva package installer, and I think it's a great one for many people.

One the release page, you can read that Pulseaudio is a component that specifically needs testing in this RC1, so problems could be expected. Or indeed, as you say, it's the combination with VB.

I look forward to your reviews of RC2 or final. But please on a true system and not in VB ;)

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

ReinoutS — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:03:42 -0000

Sevennl refers to the "Free" DVD version, it does contain full Dutch localization and the possibility to choose The Netherlands as location.

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

Jochem — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 16:31:31 -0000

If you want to see what's new in Mandriva 2008.1 Spring, take a look at 2008.1 What's New, a Wiki page describing the changes between the 2008.0 and 2008.1 releases.

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

Jochem — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 15:46:18 -0000

Yoho: I didn't change anything in that file; here's what I have:


# Additional arguments for the X-servers for local sessions.
# This string is subject to word splitting.
# Default is "-nolisten tcp"
ServerArgsLocal=-deferglyphs 16

Misterbee: Of course I've heard about Gnome, but i took a look at the KDE version, also customization is nice, but i did a review of the default system. I do agree it's a matter of taste.

Adam: thanks for clarifying! It's really nice to see Mandriva employees reading and commenting on reviews like these, and communicating with mere mortals. It must take a lot of your time.

Sevennl: i did look, the Netherlands wasn't there :)

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

Sevennl — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:18:46 -0000

Looking at the screen and reading it is a pre when installing an OS and later on do a review on it :)

You totally missed the button 'Other countries' in the setup. You will find Netherlands listed there.

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

Adam Williamson — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 13:16:55 -0000

There is a genuine bug with countries missing from the installer - https://qa.mandriva.com/show_bug.cgi?id=23303 . I'm going to upgrade the priority on that one as so many people seem to run into it.

The CPU usage of Pulseaudio is caused by resampling. This is necessary when your sound card only supports one sampling rate and you're playing a sound at a different sampling rate. On cards which support a range of sampling rates, this doesn't happen. ALSA has to do the same thing, of course, and uses less CPU power because it uses a lower quality resampling mechanism. We did try changing Pulse to use the same resampling system as ALSA by default, and it lowers the CPU usage, but then we had a couple of bug reports about bad quality when playing back certain sounds, which were caused by the change - so we changed it back.

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

MisterBee — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 11:33:18 -0000

I don't get the KDE criticisms in a Mandriva review. Have you heard of Gnome? (Or have you heard of customisation?)

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

yoho — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:29:27 -0000

* Xorg listens for network connections by default

Is it ? What's in your /etc/kde/kdm/kdmrc ? by default, you should have the "-nolisten tcp" option turned on.

* The graphical system does not detect and adjust the screen resolution on the fly

Yes, automatically would be nice. Just a tip : if you resize your screen quite often, you should install "krandrtray".

* KDE menus feel unorganised

Well, some likes it, some don't : Mandriva reorganized the menus in 2008.0 to only have one menu level to find your program. It used to be more organized before, but you had to go three levels deep to find your program sometimes. Try to switch to kickoff : right click on the system menu, you'll probably find that one a more organized menu.

* No ‘Codec buddy’ like program

Planned for final release : Codeina.

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

Stéphane — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:17:30 -0000

Well, One editions need to be localised beacause of space constraints. In the final release many countries will be available.
For an RC1 this could have been done, but i suspect a time and space constraint (generating this huge list of isos is really time consuming and a lot of space is required on the mirrors).

Stay tuned, RC2 soon :-)

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

Jochem — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:43:07 -0000

True :)

Considering it's not the final release, bugs are expected, and the ones i found were quite minor.

Re: Mandriva 2008.1 RC1 in a box | Far Fewer Toes

Eduard — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:20:11 -0000

Yup ... Mandriva got a tradition in not listing some countries, while listing some "noname" ones. I'm from Romania, and while I can select Bucharest as a time zone, I cannot select Romania for localized infos.
But hey, nobody's perfect these days :)

Cheers!