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Sun’s xVM VirtualBox

// January 21st, 2009 // No Comments » // Technology

My experiment in using Fedora 10’s built-in virtualisation technology  (based on KVM and qemu / kqemu) to install OpenSolaris didn’t go too well! I find the emulator to be just too slow for my taste, but I’m not sure if I had it configured properly.

So I installed Sun’s VirtualBox instead. As you can see I have it running 2x virtual machines: an Ubuntu Server 8.04LTS VM and an OpenSolaris 2008.11 VM. Both are installing concurrently, and my machine seems to be holding up ok (Load average is around 2 to 3 … I hit 11 earlier on while creating the disk images yikes).

So … try out virtualisation with Fedora’s built-in tools. But be mindful that they seem to work best when virtualising  Linux / Fedora. It’s very slick if you want to create lots of mini-Fedora’s in your main Fedora install. This is a boon for developers who like to tweak their systems, this gives you a sandbox within which you can do what you like without harming your main Fedora install.

If you have slightly different requirements you may want to try VirtualBox. Be careful though! VirtualBox’s license prohibits certain uses, so for hardcore server virtualisation heavy-duty workloads you’ll probably want to use KVM and qemu / kqemu after you’ve tested it out with your VirtualBox on localhost.

Installing OpenSolaris 2008.11 in a virtual machine within Fedora 10 (or any Linux with KVM)

// January 20th, 2009 // Comments Off // Technology

I need to set up some OpenSolaris servers for a pet project, and so I can educate myself about the ins and outs of OpenSolaris. I don’t have lots of server hardware lying around spare and I don’t want to destroy my existing Fedora 10 setup, so I’ll just use my Dell laptop and create some virtual machines to play around with.

Tip: The actual OpenSolaris install can take a while! Bring a magazine …

Before we start, you’ll need: The OpenSolaris CD. I downloaded the ISO from BitTorrent, and burned a CD on my iMac. And one Linux with KVM. KVM is now the default bundled virtualisation technology in both Ubuntu and Fedora.

Update: After going on this grand experiment, I eventually went with Sun’s VirtualBox virtualisation tool. For desktop and enterprise server virtualisation the Sun solution might be better. Your mileage may vary, but after some experiments, I found the Fedora 10 built-in virtualisation tools were best for virtualising Linux workloads.

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Fedora 10 graphical boot splash

// December 26th, 2008 // No Comments » // Technology

For a little bit of extra eye-candy, Fedora 10 users can try the “Plymouth boot splash loader”

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Fedora 10 co-operating with Windows XP – part4

// December 14th, 2008 // No Comments » // Musings

Awesome! I got suspend and 3D graphics working fine on the Dell E6400!

Searching the Fedora / RPMFusion repositories revealed this:

NVIDIA proprietary display drivers … hrm … my laptop has an NVIDIA GPU Quadro NVS 160M.

Get some more info:

Installing this with yum -y install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia enables 3D acceleration (Desktop Effects now works) and suspend works perfectly now.

I now pronounce the Dell E6400 as sufficiently “Linux Friendly” for use. My only remaining hardware issue seems to be the Bluetooth device, and I haven’t tried the memory card reader (I’m not a photographer).

Fedora 10 w/ Aptana Studio 1.2 & RadRails

// December 12th, 2008 // No Comments » // Technology

Here’s a short recipe for getting Fedora 10 up and running, with RadRails. Fedora 10 comes with Eclipse 3.4, so for this we’re going to use the stock MySQL & Eclipse from the repositories, then add the Aptana Plugin to Eclipse, then add the relevant Ruby Gems to the root filesystem.

I’ve done it this way because: Eclipse from the repositories also includes some nice Fedora niceties, Aptana’s PHP editor has a unique cloud feature, and Fedora’s repositories don’t have all the Ruby Gems required. Using the RubyGems package manager in this instance is better than using the Fedora one.

1. yum install mysql-server eclipse-pde ruby ruby-devel ruby-mysql [if you get problems w/ sqlite3 and directory names, go with MySQ. You need the "SDK" version of eclipse, not the "Platform" version , and I think PDE provides it. You'll need a Ruby interpreter (this one is the slower stable 1.8 interpreter, not the newer 1.9 development interpreter) and the Ruby header files].

2. Scan through some existing documentation from Aptana. Follow the steps documented on this page.

3. Once you have Aptana running within Eclipse, open up the “My Aptana” page. Click on the “Plugins” button of the My Aptana page (subtitle: Extensions for Studio. It’s the yellow one, you can’t miss it, the fourth icon from the left).

Screenshot of Eclipse with the My Aptana page open

4. Choose the RadRails plugin. If you also do PHP development, I also recommend installing the PHP Extension. This is unique because you can develop PHP projects locally then deploy to Aptana’s Cloud service in one-click.

5. Once RadRails is installed in Eclipse, you will also need Rails on your local Linux system. Open a terminal, become root (su -), download the latest RubyGems file from RubyForge. You’ll need 1.3.1 or above. Un tar the file (tar -zxf rubygems-1.3.1.tar.gz), then go into the rubygems directory you just created (cd rubygems-1.3.1) and run the setup (ruby setup.rb)

6. Congrats – you have Eclipse w/ Aptana Studio & RadRails set up, and a local install of Ruby w/ RubyGems. Now install all the gems you’ll need for RadRails (gem install actionmailer actionpack activerecord activeresource activesupport cgi_multipart_eof_fix gem_plugin mongrel rails rake ruby-debug-base ruby-debug-ide ruby-prof -V) Note: the -V is the verbose switch.

7. Viola, you should now have a working install. Go to RadRails and create a new project, everything should be automated and Eclipse should create for you a nice shiny new Rails project. Good luck & Have Fun!

Fedora 10 co-operating with Windows XP – part3

// December 12th, 2008 // No Comments » // Technology

OK … trying to get MS Office to run within Linux is do-able … just not easy to do for someone who doesn’t have the Office CD’s (i.e. me). I might have to drop by our local Microsoft distributor’s and ask if they can loan me the CD so I can install it on my Linux partition … LOL! My problem right now is that I have an OEM install of Office 12, and I can’t run the Install from the CD, which triggers copying all the relevant DLLs from the CD.

The winetricks shell script failed to run on my laptop … due to my iffy internet connection. I think I’ll just have to resign to keeping Windows for Office work, and Fedora 10 for experimenting with OSS.

Fedora 10 co-operating with Windows XP – part2 (Updated)

// December 10th, 2008 // No Comments » // Technology

If you plan to use Linux on your Dell Latitude E-Series (E6400, E6500, etc), make sure you can live without suspend. 3D graphics support also seems very iffy. [Update: Both 3D graphics and suspend works now, after I installed new drivers from RPMFusion]

On the bright side … there are new drivers for the Broadcom wireless NICs, and work beautifully in Fedora 10, courtesy of rpmfusion.org. And the 64-bit support is very good … I’m using 64-bit Fedora, and I thought I’d have more problems using a 64-bit OS. It’s actually going very well, Linux now has 64-bit support in Flash.

Fedora 10 co-exists nicely with Windows XP. After setting up dual-boot, Windows tried to “check the disk” that Linux is sitting on. Silly operating system … that’s ext4 something you’ll never understand. My problem is now hardware compatability issues. Living without suspend is really really bad. When I used my wife’s 2006 MBP, I never had to switch it off, always using the Suspend-to-RAM feature with never a hitch. Always resumed perfectly.

I think it’s time to seriously evaluate the Mac Book Air … or even a new 15″ MBP. Fedora is a great distribution for power users, but you really have to pair it up with compatible hardware. Maybe one of the things the Brunei’s Open Source Software Community could do is to award “Tested with Linux!” stickers to hardware vendors who ship good Linux gear in Brunei … hrmmm …

Fedora 10 co-operating with Windows XP – part1

// December 10th, 2008 // No Comments » // Technology

Right after my laptop went blue screen of death on me … I received a replacement laptop. Unfortunately the replacement is paired off into a Windows domain that has very restrictive policies. Which means, no installing extra programs, no playing around with OSS. This can be a bummer, especially when I need work requires me to interact with a Linux machine over ssh.

So instead of trying to fit an OSS peg into a Windows hole … I’m just going to try getting Linux working on the machine. This will be a challenge since the wireless card doesn’t have full support. But the nice thing about dual-booting is that I only have to carry around one machine, yet still be able to have access to all the Linux goodness (whoami? i am root) and Windows-specific apps (using Wine) while booted into Fed0ra 10.

I’ll be updating this blog with my success (or failure!) stories on getting Fedora 10 to play nice with Windows on the same machine. In case you are wondering to yourself … why bother? Let me leave you with this: