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Message started by Rad on Jul 26th, 2008 at 3:23pm

Title: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 26th, 2008 at 3:23pm
downloading now, ubuntu linux v8.04 desktop ISO.

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/WhatIsUbuntu/desktopedition

since windows can't see ext3, i'm guessing i'll have to burn iso to cd and boot up and install that way.

and i'd also guess ubuntu will install a boot mgr.

any chance of this preventing me from booting into windows?

any advice?

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by MrMagoo on Jul 26th, 2008 at 4:54pm
Burning the .iso to a CD and installing from the CD is the standard way to install.  The Ubuntu Community has also put together some cool tools, such as Wubi, that allow you to install Ubuntu from within windows and then boot it using the built-in windows boot manager:
http://wubi-installer.org/

Installing from the CD will automatically install GRUB.  It will try (and nearly always succeed) to detect your existing windows installation and automatically configure GRUB to give you the option to boot into windows when the computer starts.  I've never had problems with the Ubuntu install not automatically making Windows available as a boot option, and I've installed it several times.

Windows can't read ext2/3/4, but Windows and Linux can both read Fat32, so that is useful to share data between the OS's.  Linux has also gotten very good at reading/writing on NTFS partitions, so you can also share data between them that way.

Any other questions let me know.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 26th, 2008 at 6:13pm
I am thinking of busting the Linux proper ext3 into two .. so I can ALSO install a copy of CentOS 5, which the Rad server uses. Learning the server mojo is a big part of why I want Linux.

The big question tho > is 10 gigs too small for a Linux install?

I could do something like 12/8 .. if CentOS wouldn't need as much space.

That would mean using all four primary partitions. Anybody forsee a problem with that?

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 26th, 2008 at 6:18pm
Today I went back and added two more partitions, using PM from Windows.

1. Linux swap (1-GB)
2. FAT32 (1-GB)

both nested inside extended partition, at very end of drive, after shrinking the last (65-gig) partition 2-GB from its end.

One of the Ubuntu install guides I read suggested creating the FAT32 partition as a place where you can store downloads b4 scaning for viruses .. b4 importing these files into Windows/NTFS. I like that idea, and I did it in a way that I didn't have to create/use any more primary partitions.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/installing

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 26th, 2008 at 6:56pm

Rad wrote on Jul 26th, 2008 at 6:13pm:
The big question tho > is 10 gigs too small for a Linux install?

Not really, no. If you're compiling lots and lots of, say, C++ code from scratch then it could be tight (you tend to want a decent amount of disk space for building), but given your interests in web development and so forth which are all done with scripting languages it's oodles of room.


Rad wrote on Jul 26th, 2008 at 6:13pm:
so I can ALSO install a copy of CentOS 5

There's really not much point. Pretty much all Linux distributions can do exactly the same things in exactly the same way, since it's just mostly a matter of what applications and services you choose to install on top of the core OS (perhaps some different kernel modules but they don't really change the capabilities of the systems very much).

As for the linux "servers", those are mostly about what you don't install, in terms of reducing attack surface area and (for situations like virtual hosting) reducing resource consumption so more VMs can fit on a single physical box.

If you really really have a burning desire to play with CentOS, *do it in a VM*. Get one of the many dozens of CentOS applicances you can run with VMWare Player http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/ and then you can experiment with it while still having a usable host OS.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 26th, 2008 at 7:34pm

wrote on Jul 26th, 2008 at 6:56pm:
Not really, no. If you're compiling lots and lots of, say

I always seem to run out of space, no matter how farsighted I try to be. Guess I could always enlarge current ext3 partition, or create another .. inside the extended .. at the end of the disk .. like I did with Linux swap and FAT32.

I don't like to resize partitions after they're holding lots of data .. which is why I'd rather do things now.


wrote on Jul 26th, 2008 at 6:56pm:
Pretty much all Linux distributions can do exactly the same things in exactly the same way

Ubuntu (+ most distros) have a separate version for both desktop and server:

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/desktopedition

http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu/serveredition

.. which, as I understand it, come with different packages installed by default.

You don't think running a version of the same OS run by the Rad server would prove beneficial, developmentally. I mean, if it's a waste of time, I don't want to.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 26th, 2008 at 7:38pm

wrote on Jul 26th, 2008 at 6:56pm:
If you really really have a burning desire to play with CentOS, *do it in a VM*.  

You make it sound easy. And I'm sure it's easy for you, but I'm concerned about biting off more than I can chew .. learning not only Linux .. but also VMWare .. which I can barely spell right now.  :)

You think it would be cake for me? (Easy?)

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 26th, 2008 at 8:41pm

Rad wrote on Jul 26th, 2008 at 7:38pm:
You think it would be cake for me? (Easy?)  

Yup. Download VMWare player, install. Download appliance, unzip. Double-click on .vmx file. Done.

Seriously, that's *all* there is to it. You don't get all the configuration options and snapshots and stuff for fine control from VMware player as opposed to the full version of VMWare Workstation, but for simple stuff it's just that easy. All the virtual machine managers play reasonably well with each other nowadays as well; I think I've got about 4 different ones on my work machines.

I do recommend getting applicances with VMware tools installed, then you get drag'n'drop into and out of the virtual machine and you can make the VM's screen smoothly resize to fit the window borders.


Rad wrote on Jul 26th, 2008 at 7:34pm:
which, as I understand it, come with different packages installed by default

Yes, but that's pretty much all there is to it. You can add or remove packages at will; one of the many nice things about Ubuntu is their package repository system, it's Add/Remove programs in Windows plus a properly set up distribution system to automatically download the packages for you (Fedora has a similar system but not as polished and easy).

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 26th, 2008 at 9:28pm
here is current partitioning:

what do you think of creating a separate /home partition by either:

a. breaking current ext3 partition in half, and making half for / and half for /home (9-GB + 9-GB). or
b. using the D_drive as /home (NTFS).


Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad.Test on Jul 27th, 2008 at 11:41am
Ubuntu installed surprisingly easy.

But I haven't been able to connect to the internet.

Been hacking away for hours. No dice.

Even took my laptop to a coffee shop (where I am now) that has free wireless with NO password (wireless network at home has WEP).

Still cannot connect.

Does Ubuntu have a utility that scans surrounding area for wireless networks and lets me click on the one I want to connect?

At one time, it even said I was connected to the wireless network at the coffee shop, but I was still not able to load any web pages in Firefox, (except for those resident on my hard drive).

I think that might've been when I enabled 'Roaming' but not sure, cuz I've tried so many different configurations.

Their wireless network is working cuz I'm using it now (from Windows).

Is there something I'm missing?

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by MrMagoo on Jul 27th, 2008 at 12:10pm
What wireless card do you have?  Wireless networking in Linux is touch-and-go.  Could you post the output of 'ifconfig' and 'netstat -r' when run from the command line in Linux?

I haven't played with the GUI networking utilities in Ubuntu, so the forums might be a good place to look for help.  I'm sure there's 3 tons of information on getting your wireless card to work in the Ubuntu forums.  I don't currently have a Ubuntu install, so... I'll be of limited help in this instance, but I'll do what I can to help you get the tubes hooked up.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 27th, 2008 at 12:46pm
From device mgr:

Broadcom 802.11g network adapter
Marvell Yukon 88E8036 PCI-E Fast ethernet controller

What prgm gets you a command prompt in Ubuntu?

I'll have to reboot to get it, then reboot back into Windows to post results. Takes a while.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 27th, 2008 at 1:40pm
I have opened thread in Ubuntu forums:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=871906

all network data posted there:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=5469438&postcount=10

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 27th, 2008 at 3:15pm
Posting this from Ubuntu Hardy Heron.

Seems I needed to d/l and install firmware for my network adapter.

The display here is not nearly as good as in Windows. Kinda pixelated.

Surfing here seems slower and klunky.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by MrMagoo on Jul 27th, 2008 at 4:49pm

Rad wrote on Jul 27th, 2008 at 3:15pm:
The display here is not nearly as good as in Windows. Kinda pixelated.

You probably need the proprietary drivers from your graphics card manufacturer.  Vesa, open-source based drivers, are install by default.  Is your card ATI, or nVidia?  If I remember right, I think Ubuntu has a GUI utility to install those under System Tools.  Otherwise, there are some pretty easy commands to download them from the command line.

I think for nvidia you can just do 'apt-get install nvidia' from the command line.  If that works, restart X by holding Ctrl+Alt+Bkspace.  Your graphics should improve 100%.  Run 'glxgears' from the commandline to test.  If the gears rotate smoothly, you are using the high-speed stuff from nvidia.  It's basically the same process from ATI but its more like 'apt-get install ati' or something like that.

Edit:
For nvidia, from the command line, first run 'sudo apt-get update'.  Then run 'sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx'.  Then restart X server (Ctrl+Alt+Bksp).

For ATI, its all the same except instead of 'sudo apt-get install nvidia....' you should run 'sudo apt-get install xorg-driver-fglrx'.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 27th, 2008 at 8:55pm
My laptop has onboard i915 chipset which includes gfx acceleration. Sux for gaming, but good enough for 2D stuff.

Actually, now everything looks better. I d/l'ed and installed a bunch of patches (~40-ish) and one of two were for Firefox I noticed, So maybe that helped, cuz only FF was looking suky. Everything else looked decent.

Still I'd like to take advantage of hardware acceleration if possible.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 28th, 2008 at 2:30am
One of the many advantages of virtualization is that pretty much none of this device stuff is necessary; by default VMWare (or the other VMMs) emulate NICs that basically every OS knows about, and can either bridge or NAT that virtual NIC to get the VM out onto the internet for you. Ditto for the display (and with VMWare tools you get a special display driver to install in the client). Pretty much the only drawback is that the virtual display isn't capable of 3D acceleration or compositing effects, but those are things I turn off in any OS install I do in any case

The end result is a pretty much fire-and-forget experience, with possibly the exception of installing something like VMWare tools (which you don't get to do with the free Player) if you're installing an OS completely from scratch instead of using a preconfigured VM appliance which has the tool drivers in it already.

As for the partitioning question, again because I use VMWare I basically never EVER partition a disk. The emulation overhead is too small for me to care about, and the VM disks are growable up to a decent size (and it's easy to add more virtual disks to a VM anyway), and having one honking big partition instead of lots of itty bitty ones means fragmentation or filling one up is not an issue.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by MrMagoo on Jul 28th, 2008 at 4:10am

Rad wrote on Jul 27th, 2008 at 8:55pm:
cuz only FF was looking suky

Ah, yes.  I do notice that some of the fonts popular on the web look 'icky' on a new Linux install.  You have to play with it a bit.  I totally forgot about it cuz I have mine dialed in.  Your website is one of the most noticeably icky until I get my fonts right, which is probably why you noticed it so much right away.  

Try playing with some of the suggestions on this link to see if it helps any:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=20976

Other similar font tweaks might help.  Like I said, I'm not running Heron (and don't happen to own your particular LCD) so specific recommendations are tough.  Let me know how it goes.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by MrMagoo on Jul 28th, 2008 at 4:13am

wrote on Jul 28th, 2008 at 2:30am:
One of the many advantages of virtualization is that pretty much none of this device stuff is necessary

Yes, but learning things like this is exactly why Rad installed Linux, and I've found its hard to force yourself to learn these things if you can just minimize the screen and be back in your comfort zone.  The learning curve is so much steeper outside your comfort zone.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by MrMagoo on Jul 28th, 2008 at 4:13am

Rad wrote on Jul 27th, 2008 at 8:55pm:
My laptop has onboard i915 chipset which includes gfz acceleration

I'm not familiar with it.  Is that Intel?

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 28th, 2008 at 11:48pm
Yeah: http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/cs-011594.htm


wrote on Jul 28th, 2008 at 2:30am:
The emulation overhead is too small for me to care about

How much %CPU we talking?

Does sound attractive to be able to ALT-Tab back-n-forth. Coulda used it today. =)

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 28th, 2008 at 11:54pm

MrMagoo wrote on Jul 28th, 2008 at 4:13am:
The learning curve is so much steeper outside your comfort zone.

Interesting concept.

Was listening to Sean Penn narrating Bob Dylan's "Chronicles - Vol 1." Dylan says the same thing. Interesting you mentioned it, cuz that line stuck with me.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dylan/index_chronicles.html

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dylan/Chronicles_excerpt.mp3

But I still would like to have ALT-Tab capability, and virtualization sounds cool. =)

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 29th, 2008 at 12:18am
Can I run Apache? MySQL? PHP? .. on this *desktop* install? (I didn't install the server variety)

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:10am

Rad wrote on Jul 29th, 2008 at 12:18am:
Can I run Apache? MySQL? PHP? .. on this *desktop* install? (I didn't install the server variety)  

Yup. Everything is available via packages. There are, slightly confusingly, different graphical front ends to the package installer that show you different packages, as well as the command line tool to download and install packages "apt-get" which is something you'll need to get familiar with in Ubuntu (the same kind of thing exists in Fedora as well but it's called "yum").

Installing software requires elevated privileges and the graphical installers tend to be dog slow searching for packages because the repositories are completely full of thousands of packages which are useless crap, so the simplest thing is just to learn the magic package names for the command line installer.

See e.g. http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Hardy#Install_a_LAMP_server_for_local_web_development

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:44am

Rad wrote on Jul 28th, 2008 at 11:54pm:
Interesting concept.

Meh. While this is somewhat true, people have different learning styles; I don't need to push myself this way, for instance. Never have, never will. Hell, I'd learned about 6 high-level computer languages, two assembly languages, a couple of OS's, and taught myself calculus before I was 15 (and done some other interesting stuff, too). And frankly, that was just being on autopilot.

However, that quantity is not what matters - the real issue in learning is the quality: what particular things you seek to learn.

Much knowledge is mere trivia. Inessential, and largely irrelevant. Even after 30 years, I can still remember things like "3D0G" and the rough structure of 6502 assembly from the Apple ][. We all accumulate a lot of this kind of cruft, but it mostly does nothing for us because it's not a guide to anything else.

Other knowledge has real power. The most powerful kinds of knowledge give you leverage, because they help you solve all kinds of other problems hugely faster. These things are the kind of knowledge that are worth seeking, and one of the ways that people of very high mental ability end up being so disproportionately effective (e.g. the oft-observed one or more orders of magnitude difference in software developers) is that they are very purposeful and specifically go seeking for this kind of knowledge.

Trigonometry, calculus, game theory, systems theory, mechanics, economics, ...  things like that (and there are plenty more examples) are knowledge with leverage. Know those, and you know where to stand and how to push just so and move a mountain.

Now, some of this is dictated by cognitive style; some people are what are (in the terminology of a man called Piaget who you should look up) concrete thinkers whose minds are full of things (this kind of person particularly loves analogies, because it's a method of reasoning in terms of chains of specific things), others are abstract thinkers who prefer to think not in terms of things but in terms of kinds and rules and generalizations, and these generalizations are where the leverage tends to be.

Now, that doesn't mean abstract style is necessarily better; I had many wonderful years working for a gentleman who was the most doggedly concrete thinker I've ever known (whereas I'm very abstract). He could conceive all kinds of useful practical ideas which would never occur to me because I was completely incapable of perceiving the need for them - but if he explained them to me, I would know how to make them real in the world of software, which was a mystery to him.

Yin and yang. Gotta have both. Anyway, I digress. Back to virtualization.

It matters because it saves you massive amounts of time, and that time is far too precious a thing to waste. 10 years hence you won't care about what devices you had to struggle with; that's trivia. Virtualization, by giving you the freedom to completely safely attempt all kinds of things you wouldn't do otherwise, and do them vastly more efficiently, gives you leverage.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 29th, 2008 at 2:01am

Rad wrote on Jul 28th, 2008 at 11:48pm:
How much %CPU we talking?

%CPU is down in the noise, a couple of percent. I/O latency is a different story. I/O latency is the real cost of virtualization, and that can be all over the place depending on how you do things.

However, it's also largely irrelevant sweating, say, 10% perf on something that you'd waste hours on setting up without a VM. And once you did it using a physical machine, it'd take you more hours to change and then when your hardware died... life's too short.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:44pm

wrote on Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:44am:
people have different learning styles; I don't need to  

You are far from the norm (in a good way). A good analogy is » learning Spanish, which can be done by:

a. reading a book,
b. listening to a CD/DVD, or
c. hanging out with the hot Guatemalean chick who lives next door.
d. moving in with the Guatemalean family who lives next door.
c. traveling to Guatemala for the summer.

Most would learn best by the full "Immersion" method.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:56pm

wrote on Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:44am:
they are very purposeful and specifically go seeking for this kind of knowledge

It is my experience that knowledge (not 'trivia,' as you say) must be pursued .. diligently. Made a priority. Heard a quote recently that knowledge is semi-euphoric. Nietsche, maybe? I have many thoughts on the subject. Which is why I hate this custody-battle, cuz it's such a waste of my time .. when I could be doing things so much more productive with my time and emotional energy.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 29th, 2008 at 2:00pm

wrote on Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:44am:
a man called Piaget who you should look up

I am familiar with Piaget:

http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 29th, 2008 at 2:06pm

wrote on Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:44am:
I had many wonderful years working for a gentleman who was the most doggedly concrete thinker I've ever known (whereas I'm very abstract). He could conceive all kinds of useful practical ideas which would never occur to me because I was completely incapable of perceiving the need for them  

I enjoy exchanging ideas with those who think differently, as it helps expand my mind. Tho some people get offended if you disagree with them, or do not adopt their point of view.

I know a eldely couple. He is a militant conservative; she flaming liberal. (Their votes every election season are always self-cancelling.) They hardly agree on anything political tho get along marvelously, cuz they don't feel the need to get the other to adopt their own values, but merely be UNDERSTOOD.

One of my favorite books is:

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780345404282.html

.. cuz it contains 'ideas' (in the form of quotes) from influential people thru-out history .. without regard to right or wrong.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 29th, 2008 at 2:10pm

wrote on Jul 29th, 2008 at 1:44am:
Yin and yang. Gotta have both. Anyway, I digress.

Precisely. We need to be flexible, versatile.  Enjoyable digression.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 29th, 2008 at 10:26pm
Kinda interesting:


Quote:
Xen may also be used on personal computers that run Linux but also have Windows installed. Traditionally, such systems are used in a dual boot setup, but with Xen it is possible to start Windows "in a window" from within Linux, effectively running applications from both systems at the same time.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xen

Opposite the method we were talking about.

http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu-8.04-server-install-xen-from-ubuntu-repositories

Do I have RE-install Linux once the VM is set-up? Of do I somehow simply point to the Linux install/partition? Would it be able to read Ext3?

Do you know if Xen (a hypervisor) allows each VM to run their own O/S? .. flavor of Linux .. or do all VMs share same O/S .. like with Virtuozzo?

My web host disabled bursting, which means no memory sharing. I can't use anybody elses, and they can't use mine .. like a hypervisor, I believe.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 30th, 2008 at 12:07am
You can do the same with most of the virtual machine managers; VirtualBox, VMWare Workstation and VMWare player run on both Windows and Linux (and VMWare Fusion on MacOSX), VirtualBox also runs on OpenBSD hosts, and any of them can host the same VM images on any host platform. Xen isn't really that much different.

All of them can run Windows or Linux or something else in any combination in the guest VMs.

Incidentally, some comparisons on the perf impact of virtualization: http://www.xensource.com/Documents/hypervisor_performance_comparison_1_0_5_with_esx-data.pdf - those numbers are about right. For CPU-bound things everything is most the same, and 10-15% overhead for things doing I/O is kinda in the right ballpark.


Rad wrote on Jul 29th, 2008 at 10:26pm:
Of do I somehow simply point to the Linux install/partition? Would it be able to read Ext3?

You can do that; VMWare is happy pointing a virtual disk at a physical one (either a whole disk or a partition), although it's easiest to create those with VMWare workstation (Player users can create VMware virtual disks that refer to physical drives using the free version of VirtualBox). Since VMWare just runs whatever OS you want inside it, if you point it at a disk or partition the OS you run inside the VM can take care of reading the filesystem.

Incidentally you can also convert a partition or disk to a VMDK (VMware's virtual disk format) using that genuine Ghost binary I gave you; when you do a clone with a current version, you can pick the VMDK format instead of .GHO. I haven't used that myself to do a P2V (that's the lingo for physical to virtual conversion) of a Linux install since I'd never bother physically installing it, but you can give it a shot.

Although it isn't intended for converting Linux installs, you also have some extra options over a network or from V2i images: http://vmware.com/products/converter/ - I've used this myself and as I do planned upgrades and replacement of Windows machines I convert them to VMs for the replacement to run. Most of the time, the low overhead of virtualization and the improvement in machine performance means that the VMs on the new box run faster than the originals :-)

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 30th, 2008 at 4:33pm

wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 12:07am:
you can also convert a partition or disk to a VMDK (VMware's virtual disk format) using that genuine Ghost binary  

I've never seen that option. How would I navigate to it?

If I created a *.vmdk .. then any changes/upgrades I made to the source partition (ext3) would not be reflected in the *.vmdk, right? Or would I simply make changes to the *.vmdk directly using VMWare software?

I recall you mentioning something about assigning a block of memory to VM. Where/when would I do that? Any how much? (I have 2GB.)

Seems like you live, to some degree, in a 'virtual' world. Ever read any Neal Stephenson?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash


Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 30th, 2008 at 4:43pm

wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 12:07am:
Player users can create VMware virtual disks that refer to physical drives using the free version of VirtualBox

Not very clear. Player creates? Or Virtual Box? Or Player via a VirtualBox plug-in?


wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 12:07am:
any of them can host the same VM images on any host platform

Raised my eyebrows. Very versatile.


wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 12:07am:
the low overhead of virtualization and the improvement in machine performance means that the VMs on the new box run faster than the originals

Hard to believe.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 30th, 2008 at 6:05pm

Rad wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 4:33pm:
Ever read any Neal Stephenson?

I read Snow Crash when it was first published (ditto for the Diamond Age, and the Cryptonomicon), all of which were quite fun. His more recent writing (viz, Quicksilver and followups) is, however, quite tedious and repetitive, utterly bare of notable ideas.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 30th, 2008 at 6:24pm

Rad wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 4:33pm:
I've never seen that option. How would I navigate to it?

In the file browser when you look for image files as a source or destination, it defaults to looking for GHO but you can select .VMDK from the drop-down.

If you put a file with a .VMDK extension into the dialog, genuine Ghost just decides based on the file extension that you want it to create the image in that form as a virtual disk (I'm not entirely sure how it decides on a default upper bound for the size of the virtual disk, however - I'll ask the cloning lead). Essentially, it creates an empty virtual disk, mounts it internally, and does the equivalent of a disk-to-disk or partition-to-partition clone into it. In fact, you can even use a VMDK file as source and destination, e.g.:

Quote:
ghost32 –ad=disk1.vmdk –clone,mode=create,src=50,dst=disk2.vmdk–vmdksize=40960

which would reorganize the virtual disk creating a new, larger one.

There are also switches to control the defaults for the VMDK disk, but no UI for them: -vmdksize -vmdksplit -vmdktype -vmdkadapter - however, the defaults are perfectly good for most purposes.


Rad wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 4:43pm:
Not very clear. Player creates? Or Virtual Box? Or Player via a VirtualBox plug-in?

The free Player doesn't let you make new virtual machines or create the more exotic kinds of virtual disks (although the .vmx file is a text file, VMDK's aren't), hence why things like http://easyvmx.com/ exist to help. However, making virtual disks that point at physical volumes is a bit more involved.

The VirtualBox VMM can mount .VMDK files, and since Vbox's own virtual disk format wasn't designed with the capability to point at physical disks or partitions, VirtualBox gets this capability via the ability to use VMWare's system for it. The free edition of VirtualBox includes a command-line tool that has a command to create such a VMDK file.

There's a tutorial at http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=769883 which shows one way of doing this (with Linux as the host OS and Windows as the guest, just for a change) just for VirtualBox, but the internal VirtualBox command creates a VMDK file you can just as easily use with Player.

None of this matters if you pay up for VMWare Workstation, which lets you do all this vastly more simply and is totally worth it (especially with genuine Ghost's new capabilities to fill in some gaps in the toolchain and help with P2V and V2P).

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 30th, 2008 at 6:43pm

Rad wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 4:43pm:
Hard to believe.  

Easy to believe; it's Moore's Law in effect. Computers continue to get better - and cheaper - at such an astounding rate that any gap of a few percentage points in performance introduced by something like virtualization really only represents at most a couple of months of the industry's regular rate of improvement.

The addition of multicores and other things are improving computers in different ways now, of course, that don't show up in raw speed, but also work well with virtualization. It's hard to keep even today's 4-way single-CPU desktops busy; when you've virtualized an old machine, even in the background on a new machine there's so much idle horsepower present it's insane.

Now, the latency cost of I/O is harder to mask - bandwidth improvements are easy to get, latency improvements hurt - but the growth in size of things like disk and main memory mean that it's cheaper and easier to throw more memory at avoiding that latency except for the most relentlessly I/O-bound operations (doing builds of our whole product from scratch, for instance) but even though the latency penalty is there, the flexibility gain you get from being able to migrate VMs around and run them on whatever hardware you have easily negates that penalty.

[ And of course if you turn the savings from the efficiency gains from virtualization into buying more capable hardware for the VMs to run in... ]

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 30th, 2008 at 6:48pm

Rad wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 4:33pm:
Where/when would I do that? Any how much? (I have 2GB.)

It's a setting in the VM description that takes effect when you activate the virtual machine. There's a slider in the VMWare Workstation GUI for it, ditto for VirtualBox, and although it's not in the Player GUI it's just a matter of editing the "memsize =" line in the VMX file.

Given that VM's can be "paused", by the way, and suspended VMs can be resumed any time, but you can't really change the amount of allocated memory to a machine without restarting the OS inside it (since the ability to hot-plug additional memory is not a feature of the commodity hardware these particular Virtual Machine Managers or the OS's we're virtualizing support - it's only available in particular server hardware with particular OSs).

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 30th, 2008 at 6:53pm

Rad wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 4:33pm:
If I created a *.vmdk .. then any changes/upgrades I made to the source partition (ext3) would not be reflected in the *.vmdk, right? Or would I simply make changes to the *.vmdk directly using VMWare software?

If you create a VMDK pointing at a physical disk, you generally configure it to write through changes to the physical disk (although there's an option where it will buffer all the changes in a side file which it will discard when you restart the VM).

If you use genuine Ghost to convert the physical partition to a copy in a VMDK, then that's separate and has no connection to the source partition any more.

Do the former if for some reason you do want to retain the ability to directly physical boot the OS without doing a V2P conversion back; do the latter to fully virtualize things and get a VM you can move around to other host hardware.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 31st, 2008 at 3:57am

wrote on Jul 30th, 2008 at 6:24pm:
I'm not entirely sure how it decides on a default upper bound for the size of the virtual disk, however - I'll ask the cloning lead

This turns out to be the sensible thing - when you image to a VMDK, the default size given to the VMDK is the same size as the source disk unless you say otherwise with the -vmdksize switch, with the virtual disk being sparse (only containing sectors in actual use).

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 31st, 2008 at 6:43pm
Downloading VMWare Player 2.0.4 for Windows right now. 450-KBps, 170-MB d/l.

Noticed Ubuntu 8.04 desktop is their #1 most-downloaded virtual appliance:

https://www.vmware.com/appliances/


Quote:
Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop - English
This Ubuntu 8.04 VM is perfect to test drive Ubuntu or as a secondary operating system running within Windows.

This virtual Linux system with all its applications is usable out-of-the-box (e.g. with the free VMware Player). Thus, it is perfect to test drive Ubuntu or as a secondary operating system running within Windows.

This VM comes with support for sound, USB, and CD/DVD drives. The virtual hard drive grows up to 20 GByte, but only takes as much space on the host as needed. The default screen size is 1024x768.

Last updated: 05/02/2008

https://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/1232

Also d/l'ing trial of VMWare Workstation 6.04: 330-MB (twice as big as Player). Is the Workstation woth checking out?

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 31st, 2008 at 7:29pm

Rad wrote on Jul 31st, 2008 at 6:43pm:
Is the Workstation worth checking out?

Hell yeah. We license it for everyone here, both dev and QA.

There's no harm in picking up VirtualBox and VirtualPC as well for comparison, they all play nice together.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 31st, 2008 at 7:52pm
Can you give me a mini-compare and contrast of the various players you mention? I'm looking at the VMWare user manual now. It nearly 500 pages.

Can you run multiple VMs from a single "instance" of VMWare, or does/would each VM (say for example .. Ubuntu, Solaris & CentOS) need their own .. what am I trying to say? .. their launch of VMWare workstation?

Says 3 million ppl use VMWare. Is this statement true?


Quote:
VMware Workstation 6 is the most advanced virtualization software available today for desktop and laptop computers.

http://info.vmware.com/content/GLP_VMwareWkstn3b

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 31st, 2008 at 7:54pm
http://www.virtualbox.org/


Quote:
VirtualBox is a family of powerful x86 virtualization products for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL). See "About VirtualBox" for an introduction.

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), and OpenBSD.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/virtualpc/default.mspx


Quote:
Virtual PC 2007 is a powerful software virtualization solution that allows you to run multiple PC-based operating systems simultaneously on one workstation, providing a safety net to maintain compatibility with legacy applications while you migrate to a new operating system. It also saves reconfiguration time, so your support, development, and training staff can work more efficiently.

Virtual PC 2007 runs on: Windows XP Professional, Windows XP Tablet PC, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, and Windows Vista Ultimate. See system requirements.

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 31st, 2008 at 8:22pm
Interesting:


Quote:
Workstation 6.0 incorporates the Importer wizard from the VMware Converter product.

Using the Converter Import wizard enables you to convert a physical Windows machine into a virtual machine and convert a virtual machine from one VMware virtual machine format to another. You can also convert virtual machines or system images from the following third‐party vendors into a VMware virtual machine:

�� StorageCraft images (.spf files)

�� Microsoft Virtual PC 7.x and higher (.vmc files)

�� Any version of Microsoft Virtual Server (.vmc files)

�� Symantec Backup Exec System Recovery—formerly LiveState Recovery (.sv2i files)

�� Norton Ghost images 9.x and higher (.sv2i files)

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 31st, 2008 at 8:25pm

Rad wrote on Jul 31st, 2008 at 7:52pm:
Can you run multiple VMs from a single "instance" of VMWare, or does/would each VM (say for example .. Ubuntu, Solaris & CentOS) need their own .. what am I trying to say? .. their launch of VMWare workstation?

You can run them either way. The stripped-down UI in Player just runs one VM in a Window, since that's that it's for. Workstation has a bunch of UI modes in which the VMs can run tabbed together, or you can run separate instances, or you can view tiny preview windows of all the other VMs, or you can run them all completely headless and use something like VNC to connect to them (VirtualBox can do this too). What's really nice is that the built-in VNC server is done by the hardware emulation layer in the host, not by something installed in the guest, so you even via VNC get to remotely see the VM rebooting and can edit the virtual machine's BIOS settings and the like.


Rad wrote on Jul 31st, 2008 at 7:52pm:
Says 3 million ppl use VMWare. Is this statement true?


It certainly seems reasonable to me.

VMWare is far and away the leader in terms of breadth of their offering and rock-solid product stability (Microsoft's Virtual Server is also very good, since the original Connectix product was after all the leader in this a decade ago). Leaving aside specialized virtualizers like the Solaris ones (Solaris being a heavy hitter in some important markets), those two are absolutely proven and plenty of critical business infrastructure around the world runs on them. Look at things like VMotion and you'll see why virtualization is big in the data center (the other critical thing it gives being reduced energy consumption, power supply and HVAC being increasingly important aspects of data center costs).



Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Nigel Bree on Jul 31st, 2008 at 8:30pm

Rad wrote on Jul 31st, 2008 at 8:22pm:
Interesting

Well, those have been discussed here before. It's not really surprising because the StorageCraft and V2i engines work the same way, they are just dumb sector cloners (that do their fancy work at restore time) and so their image files are just bags of disk sectors almost exactly the same as Microsoft's .VHD or VMWare's .VMDK disks are. Since VHD and VMDK have been doing snapshots and differencing for many years, the differences between most of these formats is really pretty minimal (except for a layer of compression in the case of V2i and Storagecraft; VirtualBox also includes a compressed virtual disk format).

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by Rad on Jul 31st, 2008 at 9:26pm
Regarding the virtualization aspect of this thread, I started the following new thread:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1217557479

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by LoTGoD on Aug 10th, 2008 at 11:43pm
Darn you Rad...

I too am posting from 8.04...

I saw your post on Ubuntuforms.org.  I followed Kevbert's advise, and sure enough, my Broadcom BCM4318 is now working.

I dig how you can leave thanks to someone for helping you out.

I had to take it a step further than you, as I use WPA-PSK encryption, with a non-boradcasting SSID.

All is well. :)

Title: Re: Ubuntu Linux Desktop v8.04
Post by MrMagoo on Aug 11th, 2008 at 2:15am
Glad everyone was able to get Ubuntu working.  Going to be installed Kubuntu myself soon (LinuxMCE, acutally) so I'll get a good review of what you are facing.

Anyway, let me know if any questions come up about general use.  I'm happy to try to help.

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