VM Tools on W7 Host

As some may or may not know, for the last few years I have primarily used VirtualBox for all my type two hypervisor needs on my Linux based desktop. Well, the time finally came to work in the reverse direction and start virtualization on the wife’s laptop so I could be more comfortable in my Linux distributions on a Windows host. Rather than install VirtualBox though, I decided to give VMware Player a go as many people have been telling me they find it is much easier to work with.

Similar to VirtualBox guest additions, VMware Player has what are referred to as “Tools” which allow for advanced features required to get the most from our virtual installations. In this short How-To, I wanted to cover getting those installed as the instructions at VMware aren’t really as cut and dry as many people would prefer. In this example, we will be installing the extra tools for a Debian 7.2 guest installation. Just for the record, I went through this once already installing Mint 16 and it was even easier with that distribution then with Debian, however, most of the steps are close to the same.

First thing to do is launch the VMware PLayer

As we will be working with Debian 7.2, we’re going to select that from the left hand column and get it up and running

The next image shows what the installation is like to work with before the VMware Tools are installed. In this condition, working with your VM is less than fun to say the least considering the entire screen size on this particular laptop is only 15”. What we want to do is max this out so that working in our VM is as close to a native installation as possible.

The above view shows the VM maximized on the host. When in the default window size before loading in the extra tools, we will be working with a screen that looks like the one below. We want to click on the button below the VM desktop that says install VM Tools.

After this, in the footer, it’s going to give some instructions to follow but don’t worry about those too much; those instructions are what we are covering here. What we need to do next is eject the disk (if it’s still in the drive) or in this case, I used the iso file to install the OS so we need to go into Places and eject the iso file from the virtual drive. Once the iso is ejected from the virtual drive, the VM will automatically mount the VMware Tools disk and open it for us to get to the Tar file inside which holds the information we are looking for.

Once we are in the drive and find our Tar file, we want to copy this over to the tmp folder found in our root files; simply copy and paste to do this. There is no need to become root to paste this file into the tmp folder.

Once the Tar file has been copied over, eject the disk from the virtual drive and come back to the temp folder. Perform a right-click on the Tar file and extract the contents directly into the tmp folder. There is nothing more than another folder inside the Tar file called vmware-tools-distrib that holds the files we need to do our installation. Once that file is extracted, double click on it to get inside.

Once inside this file, we will find the compiled program we want to run and it needs to be run from the terminal. In some distributions, there is an option to “run terminal from here” which is one of my favorite handy dandy apps (so much easier than having to navigate through the CLI). If that is not an option, open a terminal as root or become root in a terminal and navigate to the folder with vmware-install.pl in it. Run the command as in the screenshot above to run the installation.

./vmware-install.pl

Accept all the defaults

If we are lucky, such as was the case when I did this with Mint, there will be no dependency packages to have to chase down. With Debian, I had to shut down the installation and install some dependencies then come back and do these steps all over again. Not a big deal really, but just slightly annoying. The installer is pretty smart and knows how to deal with this situation so don’t panic if the first time around you have to go back and do some other stuff. It will rewrite everything and repeat the process as many times as necessary without breaking anything.

Once all is said and done, restart your installation and when the OS has completely boot click on maximize and now we should be working with a full screen installation such as the one below.

Definitely a better looking environment and more practical than the tiny screen we started out with.

This is one way to do the installation which is simply a variation to the original instruction found at VMware located at the link below. In their instruction they will walk you through the command line operations. They’re kind of dated, but the concept is pretty much the same.

http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/new_guest_tools_ws.html

VMWare on W7

From some of my previous articles, people know that I have been using VirtualBox for sometime on Linux systems for a variety of tasks but primarily to run Windows as I’m not a big fan of dual-booting. After discussions with others who use type 2 hypervisors, I decided it was time to give VMWare a whirl so I installed it on my wife’s laptop running Windows 7 allowing me to be more comfortable using my Linux distribution in place of Windows. With so many people promoting VMWare, including my cousin over at Apple, I had high expectations from this software and still do aside from the following error I had to get through to install on the laptop.

When the first installation didn’t go through I was actually very surprised and preceded to try the installation again. On the second go around I got the following error:

Well, these things just happen now and again so I turned to my friends at Google and see what I can dig up. A few different opinions as to what the problem could be, many of which involve Avast but that’s not the issue in my case.

Another problem some people seemed to have was not having appropriate permissions to install the software on their machine so following those directions make sure to have administrative rights on the machine. Odds are good this is not the problem with most installations so on to the solution that worked.

Follow the path as shown in the image above and DELETE everything in the Temp folder. I had some 600+ files sitting in there which are all unnecessary stuff used by various programs and operations performed at one point or another. It’s completely safe to delete these files and if a person runs Disk Cleanup religiously, it should keep the files down to a manageable state.

Clearing Temp Files

Once the Temp folder has been cleared out, restart the computer and navigate over to the installation file for VMWare again BUT instead of simply clicking to install, perform a right click which should bring up an options window and click on “ Run as Administrator”. At this point the installation should go as planned.

Gotta love those small bugs that keep you on your toes.

Dolphin Tricks

For people who have finally taken the plunge to change from Windows (or Mac) to a Linux distribution and choose the KDE desktop, this is a small introductory How-To on some of the useful features of the Dolphin file system. For what is considered a “lightweight” file system, Dolphin is feature rich with all the functionality anyone could ask for. This article is going to touch on some of the functions that the average user is going to want to explore or take advantage of and maybe even one or two they might not have considered. Lets face it, a lot of people never take the time to explore the file manager and miss out on built in functions that could actually make their lives a little easier. Many of the steps covered here can be accomplished using various shortcut keys, but for those who don’t use these time savers on a regular basis the following steps are based on navigating through the display. 

The following image is a screenshot of the basic Dolphin display. Just above the working space on the left is the directory icon with the full path to the current directory from root. Normally, this will be an icon of a blue file cabinet unless a person chooses to create and edit their own directory icons. Above the path is the tool bar which can be configured with regularly used commands.

Navigate up the menu bar at the top and click on View > Panels > Places and the pane shown below on the left will show up. Highlighted is the current directory if it has already been added to the list. To add any directory to this list, simply select the directory and drag it into a location in the list. To remove a directory, right click on the directory in the list and select Remove Entry. I recommend keeping this list short with only the most basic of locations used on a regular basis.

Now navigate back to the menu bar and again through View > Panels > Folders. Right above the shortcut places is now the directory tree which allows at-a-glance view of exactly where a user is in the structure. Similar to the shortcut pane, the current directory is highlighted for fast identification of location. Select any location within the tree to navigate directly there. This view is beneficial to see all the directories, sub-directories and so on when working with a large system and is a lot faster than clicking from directory to directory to directory and so forth.

For people who started using Linux to learn how to get a little deeper into a system than is allowed with a proprietary OS or just want to practice their skills using shell commands, try View >  Panels > Terminal. As can be seen at the bottom of the display is now a location where shell commands can be directly entered. This is handy especially for new learners as it allows the user to jump back and forth between using the display GUI (Graphical User Interface) and shell commands. The following link is a really well written guide to the more basic useful commands:

http://linuxcommand.org/index.php

Sometimes users aren’t thrilled with the default settings of the toolbar or they may want to add frequently used functions . With Dolphin, it’s really simple to modify the toolbar to be exactly the way any user would want it set up. Simply navigate to Settings > Configure Toolbars and the following display will open. Changing options in the shortcut toolbar becomes as simple as drag and drop or use the arrows between the two displays to add or subtract to the way that is most comfortable.

Last item of interest for this article is the “preview” option. This is a really neat feature which allows a user to get a quick preview of what lies underneath the directory icon without actually opening the directory. This is particularly handy for photography people or those who sometimes have a tendency to lose things and don’t want to hunt through every folder looking for a particular file of which the name eludes them. The following two images show the difference between non-preview first and preview second.

Non-Preview

Preview

For a more in-depth look and information on Dolphin and all the various features, simply try playing around or go directly to the source.

http://userbase.kde.org/Dolphin/File_Management

VirtualBox Updated

I’ve read through a lot of forums on how to update Oracle’s VirtualBox and never really found many of them to be all that informative. I find a lot of answers to be rather short, fairly direct but not very good at giving directions. While the process is fairly simple, when someone hasn’t done it before and isn’t sure what they should do, the idea can be a little daunting. I run VBox on openSUSE with a few instances running and it is fairly easy once a person has done it a few times. Here is how it gets done using openSUSE.

Obviously, the new version needs to be downloaded with the extension pack that goes with it. It is important to note that the extension pack and VBox version numbers need to match as they are harmonious in their usage. Keep the both of them together and possibly make a backup if necessary.
 
First thing to do is make a backup of the directory housing all the virtual machines. The update process doesn’t mess with these, but it doesn’t hurt to have a backup anyway since as we all know “stuff happens”. Since a lot of the machines I run are installed directly from the iso files for various Linux systems, I keep these in a directory the same as the virtual machine directory and back them up as well. Doing this keeps all our data in a nice cozy spot that can be accessed just in case things don’t go as planned for some odd reason.
 
Next, open YaST and in the search box on the left type in Oracle and click on the box checked with VirtualBox until it become a red X to signify removal of the software from the system then click “Accept” to have it removed. Once that is done click the rpm VBox file and let it install itself. Believe it or not, the process is almost half done.
 

Start VBox and go to File > Preferences > Extension and select the old version of the extension pack and remove it. Then of course select to add a new extension and add the new one in its place. Now both the new VBox and the new extension pack that goes with it are installed and almost ready to be used. Now go into system runlevels and restart VBox.
 

Go back into YaST and go to System Services (Runlevels) and once that opens scroll down to the V’s and there should be an asterisk next to a couple of the VBox items that need to be running for it to work. Select each one with an asterisk and click on “Enable” to get them running again. Remember, don’t forget to click on “Ok” in the lower right corner or none of the changes will get registered with the system! If for any reason something doesn’t restart right, then check with the support team over at openSUSE and find out why, but there shouldn’t be any problems.
 

The last thing to do is reboot the system and launch VBox. Each of the machines will need to have the new extension pack re-installed for it to take effect.
 

Oracle VirtualBox Repaired

For those individuals who choose to run other operating systems inside of VirtualBox instead of a dual boot system and run into the problem associated with a Linux kernel update, this short tutorial is what needs to be done to resolve that problem. It’s not as devastating as some may think it’s just a matter of where to go and what to do. Do not lose hope, all is not lost. This tutorial covers how to get an Oracle V-Box back up and running with no loss of any data or having to freak out looking for any other file upgrades or anything like that.

In an ideal world, when the kernel updates come through there really shouldn’t be any issues with our virtual machines, as it happens though, for whatever reason this is not the case. When the system kernel gets updated, the link gets broken between the virtual machine and the kernel that allows it to utilize system resources. Fixing this is really easy to do and I’ll walk through the process step by step as I have done a few times in the past.

The most immediate notification of this circumstance is when someone tries to open a virtual machine and gets this pop-up notification that something has gone wrong an VirtualBox needs attention before it will work again.

While the instructions are there of what needs to get done to repair the problem, since those instructions have already been followed once when the virtual machine was installed they really aren’t what needs to be done now. The key in the pop-up is the vboxdrv file which will need to be restarted in YaST. To do this, go to YaST and scroll down to System then select System Services (Runlevel) such as shown below.

Once inside, don’t be fooled by what is shown that all the files associated with VirtualBox are in fact running. They are, but just like certain updates to a system they need to be re-started for the changes to take effect. In the uppermost top left is a radio button that says Expert Mode, click on this button and scroll down until the vboxdrv file is viewable. Click on this file line to select it and at the bottom of the screen is a button that says Start/Stop/Refresh. Go ahead and select restart to restart the instance of the file with the new kernel installed. Just for good measure, I restarted all the files associated with VirtualBox. REMEMBER TO CLICK ON OK IN THE LOWER RIGHT CORNER! If ok is not clicked the change will not be recorded with the system so do not forget!

Now go back and start whatever operating system is being used inside of VirtualBox and everything should work as planned. No system re-boot is necessary as the changes have already been recorded with the system when the ok button was pressed.

Dexpot - Virtual Desktops for Windows

For those people who are still using Windows, or especially those frustrated with having to use it at work or some other reason when the preferred OS is a Linux distribution, this free program can make life a little bit tolerable. Dexpot is a nice little program that allows Windows users to enjoy the functionality of multiple virtual desktops we Linux users have come to appreciate and rely on to be more productive. After years of working with multiple desktops, sitting in front of a Windows machine and flipping through tabs and tabs of open applications I constantly remind myself how spoiled I am to have something so simple associated with my OS that just makes daily life a little easier.

The writers have done a great job at making installation as simple as just a couple of mouse clicks. After all is installed, this little program runs in the background and when set up, can show icons of all the desktops in the taskbar.

A simple click of the dropdown arrow or icon in the taskbar will show the control panel for Dexpot where the user can go into the program and make tweaks and adjustments to set the program up to their own personal liking.

For those who have never worked with virtual desktops before, I would personally suggest trying a variety of settings to see which ones work best for their particular style of usage. I actually prefer a little bit of extra “eye candy” to my daily functions so I prefer having the cube do my desktop switching graphics. I have also found it handy to have icons show up in the various taskbar screens so I have a reminder of what I have open and in which desktop. The image below shows that there is quite a bit of functionality built into this little program that by the way, is FREE for private use!

From the standpoint of a seasoned virtual desktop user, the most used functionality I found was under the General tab (of course) to select the number of desktops and under Switching Desktops and Plugins and Extras. Clicking on the various plugins will activate them so there’s no worry about getting lost in all the functions available or running into stuff not necessary while doing various things.

Under the controls tab, users can select a variety of mouse gestures or hotkeys that may be useful for some individuals. Just remember that assigning hotkeys to Dexpot could interfere with other hot key controls that are used for other routine functions so proceed with caution when exploring with these options.

Below is a shot of the options available with mouse controls. Sometimes it’s handy to be able to switch desktops just by pushing the mouse to the right or left of the screen and waiting a few hundred milliseconds. Other people may find this annoying and turn this function off. Most options are off by default which makes it much easier to set up Dexpot to your liking since I believe that most people find it annoying to have options on then try and figure out what it is they need to turn off.

Below is a screenshot I captured of the cube plugin screen switcher option. As I mentioned, there is a lot of options to go through and a lot of useful functionality built into this free program. If a person is accustomed to using a Linux OS and wants the functionality of their virtual desktops carried over to a Windows machine then this is the answer to make your life more tolerable. For those who are already Windows users and really don’t understand much about what is being presented in this article, I suggest giving it a whirl and in just a matter of minutes it will become clear. Either way, Dexpot is one of those great free programs that has changed the way Linux users appreciate the time they have to spend on a Windows machine.

Download Dexpot @ http://dexpot.de/