Linux interoperability today

[GigaBuist]

VPN capability, either Cisco or Microsoft VPN client.  Preferably MS.

Glad you prefer the MS VPN.  I have enough trouble making the Cisco IPSEC stuff work with Cisco clients. :)

PPTP is the protocol that MS uses in their VPN.  Anything compliant with that'll work.  PopTop is the name of the PPTP VPN server in Linux, pretty sure there's a good client out there but I don't know the name.

MSTSC/RDP connectivity

rdesktop is the application you'll want.  I used to run it on Linux all the time and fired it up just last night to connect to Windows 2003 Server.  Works like a champ.

Toad for SQL work

The app from Quest?  Pretty sure that's Java based, should run fine on any Linux distribution once you get a JRE on it.

Maybe VMWare or Xen... which would run off an external disk device if necessary.

I ran VMWare on Linux for years.  They offer a basic 'player' version now for free that you could try out.  Xen recently announced it was going to be free in basic form too.

Can anyone comment on the above and a linux distro that'll get the job done with an eee-1000 with either 1 or 2GB RAM?

Half the stuff you're looking for (Toad, VMWare) is going to come outside the package management system, so I wouldn't worry about the distro too much.  A JRE, rdesktop, and PPTP client are so basic that anybody should have them.  Ubuntu is where I'd start.

[AZRedhawk44]

MikeB, thanks for the recommendation for VirtualBox.  Wow, is that a neat product.  Every bit as good as MS Virtual Server or VMWare, as far as I'm concerned.  Nifty.

Gonna start playing with Wine now... haven't used it in eons.  Hopefully it's come a ways since then.

[MikeB]

MikeB, thanks for the recommendation for VirtualBox.  Wow, is that a neat product.  Every bit as good as MS Virtual Server or VMWare, as far as I'm concerned.  Nifty.

No problem. It quickly became my favorite of the Desktop type Virtual Hosts. With the one caveat, I do use VMWare Fusion and Parallels on one of my Macs - 3D Virtualization is still not perfect, but I do like games. For the netbook format though where you're unlikely to be trying to run modern 3D games, Virtual Box with it's small footprint is perfect. Open Source is always nice too, which although Virtual Box is not entirely Open Source in it's binary package, it's close.

Gonna start playing with Wine now... haven't used it in eons.  Hopefully it's come a ways since then.

Wine and it's commercial variants like Crossover have been hit or miss for me. I can't get most things I try to work, but then I am usually trying some more obscure stuff like phone system interfaces. Virtual Machines are just better for that at this time. To run MS Office or things like that Wine has come a long ways.

[CNYCacher]

BTW, I've had it with SanDisk USB drives.

They partition their drives with a separate sub-filesystem that shows up as a CDRom, packaged with some utilities.  The utils are neat, but the sub-filesystem makes the USB drive unsuitable for use as a USB boot media.  I couldn't figure out how to de-partition the thing.

I had to buy a new generic thumbdrive in order to put together my boot disk.  Grrr.  Argh.

I believe it is not a partition, but a seperate device.

[Vodka7]

Sandisk has a program on their website that will delete the partition for you.  Actually, most manufacturers put the removal tool on the partition itself, so all you have to do is click the launcher and select "uninstall."  I guess SanDisk doesn't.

[AZRedhawk44]

Sandisk has a program on their website that will delete the partition for you.  Actually, most manufacturers put the removal tool on the partition itself, so all you have to do is click the launcher and select "uninstall."  I guess SanDisk doesn't.

Ah, there it is!  Hidden inside the "U3 Launchpad" goofy little start-menu-wannabe app.  Oh, well.  I bought a clean drive yesterday to get my system to boot.

[AZRedhawk44]

Okay, messing with VirtualBox.  Try to start up a VirtualPC and I get an error:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine.

Looking at my modules, apparently I need to have a mod called vboxdrv running.

So, I run the following:

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv start

I get the following error output:

No suitable module for running kernel found.

Does this mean kernel recompile, looking for this module and recompiling it as well?  What do folks use for kernel compiles nowadays?  Is xconfig still in vogue, does menuconfig still work, or what is the tool of the day now?

[mtnbkr]

I too have been playing with VirtualBox.  I installed and ran OpenSolaris on an XP laptop with 1gig ram.  I wouldn't suggest doing that, but it worked.

Going to try it at home where I can dedicate more resources to the virtual system...

Chris

[zahc]

They partition their drives with a separate sub-filesystem that shows up as a CDRom, packaged with some utilities.  The utils are neat, but the sub-filesystem makes the USB drive unsuitable for use as a USB boot media.  I couldn't figure out how to de-partition the thing.

two words: dd

[AZRedhawk44]

two words: dd

Yeah, but I didn't have DD at my disposal since I was getting a flash drive setup using Windows as a base environment.

[CNYCacher]

Okay, messing with VirtualBox.  Try to start up a VirtualPC and I get an error:

Failed to open a session for the virtual machine.

Looking at my modules, apparently I need to have a mod called vboxdrv running.

So, I run the following:

sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv start

I get the following error output:

No suitable module for running kernel found.

Does this mean kernel recompile, looking for this module and recompiling it as well?  What do folks use for kernel compiles nowadays?  Is xconfig still in vogue, does menuconfig still work, or what is the tool of the day now?

Aurgh, I just ran into this myself and I can't remember what the fix was, but it was stupid and simple.

Something about the driver is not updated automatically when you update the kernel through apt-get.  You are on ubuntu, right?


PS.  You never have to recompile the kernel for a module.  That's why it's called a module.

two words: dd

Again: not a partition.  The thumbdrive presents itselft as two separate external usb devices.  One is a fake CD-ROM drive, which just happens to have a fake CD-ROM installed, which just happens to have an autorun.inf file that loads the godawful Sandisk app.  The other device is the USB mass storage drive that you expect.

[MikeB]

Aurgh, I just ran into this myself and I can't remember what the fix was, but it was stupid and simple.

Something about the driver is not updated automatically when you update the kernel through apt-get.  You are on ubuntu, right?


PS.  You never have to recompile the kernel for a module.  That's why it's called a module.

Nope, but you probably do have to compile the module for a particular kernel. I've run into similar problems with VMWare server before with certain distros.

AZRedhawk44, what linux distro are you using? Do you have the kernel header files installed? You may want to try reinstalling VBox, it should ask you to compile modules for the network/video etc for the Virtual Host.

[CNYCacher]

Nope, but you probably do have to compile the module for a particular kernel. I've run into similar problems with VMWare server before with certain distros.

AZRedhawk44, what linux distro are you using? Do you have the kernel header files installed? You may want to try reinstalling VBox, it should ask you to compile modules for the network/video etc for the Virtual Host.

Are you on ubuntu?

sudo apt-get install virtualbox will compile and install the module for you, but there is some special case that puts it into a funny state where you get the wrong module version. . .

Oh I know.  If you have upgraded the kernel but not rebooted yet, you wind up with the wrong module version until you reboot.  Also, the dependancies are not complete for the module package, so it doens't get re-compiled when you upgrade the kernel or something.

Something really dumb like that.

Virtualbox WILL install and work using just the package manager on ubuntu, it's just a little picky

[Vodka7]

Are you on ubuntu?

sudo apt-get install virtualbox will compile and install the module for you, but there is some special case that puts it into a funny state where you get the wrong module version. . .

Virtualbox WILL install and work using just the package manager on ubuntu, it's just a little picky

DONT DO THAT!

Not if you want USB support anyway.  The version in the Ubuntu repositories is Virtualbox's open source edition, which, among other things, is completely missing USB support.  You want to go to their website and get the PUEL edition.

http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads

They have links to the .debs at the top, or if you still want to manage it through Synaptic and update manager, you can add their key and repository by following the intstructions on the second half of the page.  Also note the tip about dkms and modules at the very bottom.

Virtualbox has a few little quirks--stuff like audio and USB being disabled by default, and really quirky mouse behavior until you install the end user tools.  Once you get it up and running though, it's a real champ.

[zahc]

sudo apt-get install virtualbox

No. Because the open source edition of Vbox that is in the repos is crippled. Get the good one from the vbox website like Vodka says.

[AZRedhawk44]

Argh!

I cannot find the source for kernel 2.6.28-8-eeepc anywhere.

I need the source to compile the VirtualBox module.