SolitaryGeek

gOS or “Good OS” is an operating system based on Ubuntu. What makes gOS special is it’s “mac” like look and feel, out of the box support for google apps like Gmail, Google Docs, Picasa, Youtube etc through a special mozilla application called prism.

gOS also provides skype, wine in the default installation. Since gOS is based on Ubuntu, ubuntu users will feel right at home when using gOS. All these facts prompted me to go after gOS.

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With VirtualBox in hand, installing operating systems is just like installing firefox or 7zip. It’ so easy. Previously I use to shy away from trying linux, but now, I never miss to install my favourite linux distros in my windows xp machine. Thanks VirtualBox.

Having tried many versions of Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSuse and PCLinuxOS, I thought of trying Solaris, but it was never easy. I ordered a free Solaris DVD from Sun but it would never install inside VirtualBox. I always viewed Solaris as something very complex to setup and needs extensive knowledge about it. My experience of installing it on VirtualBox reinforced it. I kept trying few times and eventually gave up.

But this is history now. As Sun took over VirtualBox from innotek, I hope the first thing they did was to provide excellent support for Solaris in it. Recently as I was pondering the VirtualBox website, I saw that they are providing good integration with Solaris in their latest version. What do you think I would have done…?

You are right. I straightaway dowloaded the latest version of VirtualBox along with OpenSolaris. (OpenSolaris iso image was only 686MB). What happened next was simply stunning…

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Ever had these questions in your mind..?

- You are a windows user but want to try linux

- You are interested in trying linux but don’t want to ditch windows either

- You want linux and windows in your machine without disturbing each other

- You are afraid of installing linux as it might make your machine unusable or might destroy your data

If your answer is “yes”, read further…

Read more…

I managed to install the VirtualBox guest additions for ubuntu without any problem. And as a result, I get some excellent features like “seamless mouse integration”, shared folder access etc, between my host (windows xp) and guest (ubuntu).

But when I tried to do the same for OpenSuse, I got into problem. I couldn’t run the VBoxLinuxAdditions.run from the terminal. I received an error messaage saying that “Please install GNU make, Please install GNU compiler”.

Then when I searched the web, I found this link quite useful.

As such, I executed this command in the OpenSuse terminal:

sudo zypper install gcc make automake autoconf kernel-source


It asked for my “root” password, and when i entered, it downloaded the necessary packages. (Though, i received an information that autoconf cannot be installed)

It took nearly 1 hour to download and install the necessary packages on my machine.

Then I ran the command:

sudo sh VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

after navigating to the appropriate “media” directory.

Then I was notified to restart the OS. And after that, I was able to use all the features I use with “ubuntu” as guest.

I also noticed that my OpenSuse resolution automatically increased to 1024×768 after installing the VirtualBox guest additions. (It was previously 800×600 only)

Oops…finally i managed to configure my ubuntu screen resolution to the fullest.

I have a Dell Vostro 1400 laptop with Windows xp professional. Ubuntu runs on my machine on top of VirtualBox.

But I never enjoyed working with ubuntu, since all i was able to view the ubuntu desktop at the resolution “800×600″ only.

After searching through the web, I finally managed to get the full resolution supported by my notebook. (1280×800).

These are steps i followed:

- installed the virtual machine add-ons provided by VirtualBox
- opened the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file and added the the resolutions “1280×800″ and “1024×768″ under the “Screen” section…

So here is how my xorg.conf file looks now…

———————————————————————————————-
# xorg.conf (xorg X Window System server configuration file)
#
# This file was generated by dexconf, the Debian X Configuration tool, using
# values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the xorg.conf manual page.
# (Type “man xorg.conf” at the shell prompt.)
#
# This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades *only*
# if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg
# package.
#
# If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated
# again, run the following command:
# sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg

Section “Files”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Generic Keyboard”
Driver “kbd”
Option “CoreKeyboard”
Option “XkbRules” “xorg”
Option “XkbModel” “pc105″
Option “XkbLayout” “us”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Configured Mouse”
Driver “vboxmouse”
Option “CorePointer”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/mice”
Option “Protocol” “ImPS/2″
Option “ZAxisMapping” “4 5″
Option “Emulate3Buttons” “true”
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Identifier “Synaptics Touchpad”
Driver “synaptics”
Option “Device” “/dev/psaux”
Option “Protocol” “auto-dev”
Option “HorizEdgeScroll” “0″
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “stylus”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/wacom”
Option “Type” “stylus”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “eraser”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/wacom”
Option “Type” “eraser”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section “InputDevice”
Driver “wacom”
Identifier “cursor”
Option “Device” “/dev/input/wacom”
Option “Type” “cursor”
Option “ForceDevice” “ISDV4″ # Tablet PC ONLY
EndSection

Section “Device”
Identifier “Generic Video Card”
Driver “vboxvideo”
BusID “PCI:0:2:0″
EndSection

Section “Monitor”
Identifier “Generic Monitor”
Option “DPMS”
EndSection

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “Generic Video Card”
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Modes “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “800×600″
EndSubSection
EndSection

Section “ServerLayout”
Identifier “Default Layout”
Screen “Default Screen”
InputDevice “Generic Keyboard”
InputDevice “Configured Mouse”

# Uncomment if you have a wacom tablet
# InputDevice “stylus” “SendCoreEvents”
# InputDevice “cursor” “SendCoreEvents”
# InputDevice “eraser” “SendCoreEvents”
InputDevice “Synaptics Touchpad”
EndSection

——————————————————————————————-
And the only change i made was here:

Section “Screen”
Identifier “Default Screen”
Device “Generic Video Card”
Monitor “Generic Monitor”
DefaultDepth 24
SubSection “Display”
Modes “1280×800″ “1024×768″ “800×600″
EndSubSection
EndSection

I just added “1280×800″ “1024×768″ under the SubSection “Display”.

Fortunately this worked for me.

(Note: I actually got this information from a VirtualBox forum thread and I sincerely thank the guy who provided this information. Thank you very much really)

Whatmore, if you choose the “Full screen mode” in VirtualBox, you get a feeling of just running ubuntu…

Ya, now i feel, i can slowly leave behind windows xp behind me…

More Ubuntu articles

Convert audio files in Ubuntu with Sound Converter

Convert video files in Ubuntu with FormatFactory

Working on ubuntu running on top of Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 started giving me lot of problems. Some of them are:
1. Need lots of tweaking during installation of ubuntu in virtual pc to provide even basic mouse integration. Need to enter additional parameters (i8042.noloop) during boot up and then need to configure some system settings to make the mouse work in ubuntu running under virtual pc.
2. No smooth mouse integration. You need to click inside the virtual operating system for the mouse to be effective inside and need to press “Right Alt” key to come out of virtual os.
3. No mouse scrolling support at all.
4. In a nutshell, virtual pc bothers least about linux environments. No addons, nothing. ( Please correct me if I’m wrong here. Thank you)

So, I started looking for alternatives.

I didn’t give much focus to VirtualBox until i read the news about Sun’s acquisition about VirtualBox. I respect Sun and their products. So i thought of giving VirtualBox a try.

- Installing ubuntu was smooth.
- No need to tweak any boot options like i did while installing ubuntu on top of virtual pc 2007.
- However i needed to press “Right Ctrl” key to come out of virtual box, initially.
- But, once i installed the “add-ons” for linux, i was amazed at the seamless mouse integration. I could click the firefox icon in windows xp and also on ubuntu on virtualbox (to and fro) without pressing any keys.
- I could scroll my mouse like i can scroll on xp.
- Excellent user interface.

However i have some concerns:

- very small resolution size (800 x 600 against my laptop resolution of 1280 x 780)

(NOTE: I managed to fix this problem. I’ve narrated about it here.
- need add-ons to provide usb support.

But overall, I feel that virtualbox is much better than Virtual PC 2007.
I regret for spending much time meddling around with Virtual PC 2007.
The fault is with me, I shouldn’t have tried a Microsoft product at first place.

Read more about virtualization/virtualbox here.