Posts Tagged ‘windows os’

How to install VirtualBox Virtual Machine to run Windows XP on Ubuntu Linux (11.10)

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

Enable_VirtualBox_Windows_XP-fullscreen-with-vboxguest-additions-iso
My beloved sister was complaining games were failing to properly be played with wine emulator , therefore I decided to be kind and help her by installing a Windows XP to run inside a Virtual Machine.My previous install experiments with running MS Windows XP on Linux was on Debian using QEMU virtualmachine emulator.
However as Qemu is a bit less interactive and slower virtualmachine for running Windows (though I prefer it for being completely free software), this time I decided to install the Windows OS with Virtualbox.

My hope was using VirtualBox would be a way easier but I was wrong… I've faced few troubles and I thought many people who initially try to install Virtualbox VM to run Windows on Ubuntu and other Debian based Linux distros will probably experience the same problems as mine, so here is how this article was born.

Here is what I did to have a VirtualBox OS emulator to run Windows XP SP2 on Ubuntu 11.10 Linux

1. Install Virtualbox required packages with apt

root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install virtualbox virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-guest-dkms root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install virtualbox-ose-dkms virtualbox-guest-utils virtualbox-guest-x11
...

If you prefer more GUI or lazy to type commands, the Software Package Manager can also be used to straight install the same packages.
virtualbox-dkms virtualbox-guest-dkms packages are the two which are absolutely necessery in order to enable VirtualBox to support installing Microsoft Windows XP. DKMS modules are also necessery to be able to emulate some other proprietary (non-free) operating systems.
The DKMS packages provide a source for building Vbox guest (OS) additional kernel modules. They also require the kernel source to be install otherwise they fail to compile.

Failing to build the DKMS modules will give you error every time you try to create new VirtualMachine container for installing a fresh Windows XP.
The error happens if the two packages do not properly build the vboxdrv extra Vbox kernel module while the Windows XP installer is loaded from a CD or ISO. The error to pop up is:

Kernel driver not installed (rc=-1908)

The VirtualBox Linux kernel driver (vboxdrv) is either not loaded or there is a permission problem with /dev/vboxdrv. Please reinstall the kernel module by executing

VirtualBox vboxdrv not loaded error Ubuntu Screen

To fix the error:

2. Install latest Kernel source that corresponds to your current kernel version

root@ubuntu:~# apt-get install linux-headers-`uname -r`
...

Next its necessery to rebuild the DKMS modules using dpkg-reconfigure:

3. Rebuild VirtualBox DKMS deb packages

root@ubuntu:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-dkms
...
root@ubuntu:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-guest-dkms
...
root@ubuntu:~# dpkg-reconfigure virtualbox-ose-dkms
...

Hopefully the copilation of vboxdrv kernel module should complete succesfully.
To test if all is fine just load the module:

4. Load vboxdrv virtualbox kernel module

root@ubuntu:~# modprobe vboxdrv
root@ubuntu:~#

If you get some error during loading, this means vboxdrv failed to properly compile, try read thoroughfully what the error is and fix it) ;).

As a next step the vboxdrv has to be set to load on every system boot.

5. Set vboxdrv to load on every Ubuntu boot

root@ubuntu:~# echo 'vboxdrv' >> /etc/modules

I am not sure if this step is required, it could be /etc/init.d/virtualbox init script automatically loads the module, anyways putting it to load on boot would do no harm, so better do it.

That's all now, you can launch VirtualBox and use the New button to initiate a new Virtual Machine, I will skip explaining how to do the configurations for a Windows XP as most of the configurations offered by default would simply work without any tampering.

After booting the Windows XP installer I simply followed the usual steps to install Windows and all went smoothly.
Below you see a screenshot showing the installed Windows XP Virtualbox saved VM session. The screenshot letters are in Bulgarian as my sisters default lanaguage for Ubuntu is bulgarian 😉

VirtualBox installed MS Windows VM screenshot

I hope this article helps someone out there. Please drop me a comment if you experience any troubles with it. Cya 🙂

Linux Mint 14 – “Nadia”: how to Display Trash icon on Desktop

Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

Recently Linux Mint is taking lead among preferred Linux distributions. From my little experience with it mainly installing it on friends PCs I should say Mint develops done a great job to make it more graphically convenient for users migrating from Windows OS.

Though it is generally intuitive, there is one little thing that might be useful for novice Mint user – where from to make Trash icon.

There are two ways to do it.

1. Is by installing / launching gnome-tweak-tool

Linux Mint 12 desktop trashbin screenshot

I personally prefer gnome-tweak-tool, cause it has plenty of nice options related to how GUI environment, behaves. I believe even non Linux-Mint GNOME 3 users should take a look at gnome-tweak-tool if already haven't as it allows user to tailer plenty of desktop nice stuff.

2. Through [Main Menu]

-> Preferences -> Desktop Settings -> Desktop -> Desktop icons

Linux Mint desktop how to visualize trash bin on desktop screenshot

Fun: Development of Windows OS graphic interface 1995 – 2008, Computer design is repeating itself

Sunday, January 27th, 2013

history from aol to windows mobile phones OS history of IT is repeating itself or where Windows OS stole their interface from :)

Do you remember the old days, when AOL (America on Line) was part of Windows 95 / 98 progam components / menus? Most brand new Windows 95 and Win 98 installations had AOL by default. Though AOL was standard internet ISP in America, I think they never took the lead in Europe in my home country it was impossible to use AOL, so Win installs back in the day just had desktop shortcut which had to be deleted. However in America AOL was well known company providing Internet access via dial up in the yearly days of Internet years 1995 – 2000.  In above picture you see screenshot of the order of buttons, design and coloring of AOL Windows 95 / 98 application compared compared to modern (Mobile) Windows powered 8 / Windows phones, the likeness is striking! Doesn't seem too much like incident or innovative design, does it? 🙂 The difference between 1995 and now in functionality is not significant too the main difference is in 95 the Net was slow, there are some improved graphics and mobility which is so common today, the res is just redesign and re-inventing the steel. Probably if one takes the time to compare other old computer interfaces with newer one find many similarities. This is also true for Macintosh / Apple products.
Big thanks to my dear friend Nomen for handing me in the pic 🙂