Archive for the Linux Category

06 02 2008

Why Linux will not displace Windows

Posted by: Wiebe Niehof in General, Linux, Vista
I found this post on ZDNET and it totally convinced me! 

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“You are kidding arent you ?

Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ?That sounds preposterous to me.

If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this.

Microsoft just spent $9 billion and many years to create Vista, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Windows. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Microsoft.

Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible.

I think you need to re-examine your assumptions. ”

http://talkback.zdnet.com/5208-12355-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=31199&messageID=579806&start=-9530

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02 04 2007

Installing VM additions on Linux

Posted by: Erik Luppes in Linux, Virtualization

Yesterday i came back from San Diego (MMS 2007) and was due to a jetlag unable to sleep, so i had to spend my time wiseley ;)
So i decided to try the new Virtual Server R2 SP1 beta 2 and installed CentOS 4.4 in it as a guest system. I allways use CentOS cause it’s a free RedHad Enterprise alternative based on RedHad’s Distro, so i can use RPM and Yum for installation and updates.

This was my download list :

CentOS Server CD
Virtual Server R2 SP1 beta 2
Microsoft Virtual Machine Additions for Linux (You need to register on connect for this download)

Let’s have a beer and fire the Virtual Server installation up.

After installing Virtual Server on my machine i created a Virtual Machine with all the default options and mounted my CentOS ISO image in it. After starting the Virtual machine i selected the text setup, so the Virtual Machine was not so stressed during the installation.

I installed only the development and editor packages in CentOS + SSH and no other services, to ensure that my system is as clean as possible.

All the other settings are default.

After the installation of CentOS I took a beer and logged on to my machine and tried to install the VM additions.

First I’ve mounted the VM Additions CD into my Virtual Server using the webinterface.
In Linux i also have to mount the CD before I could use it, to mount the CD in Linux I used the following command:

mount -t iso9660 -o ro /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom

Now I switched to the CD-rom using cd /media/cdrom
I try to install the VM Additions by typing rpm -ivh vmadd-full-0.0.1-1.i386.rpm --force but unfortunatly the logfile tells me that installation was unsuccesfull cause the Kernel Module was not found and a compiler was not installed.

Damn, time for an other beer and think things over, what could i have missed. I’m just a Linux novice but played a bit with an other server also and remeberd that if i had to make a package i allways had to something with GCC, so lets try to install that first.

yum -y install gcc

The cool thing about yum is that it checks for dependencies and also downloads them to. After installing GCC i tried installing the VM additions again, but stil the logs telling me that the Kernel Modules could not be found. Man, if this keeps going i would be out of beer in no time (no i’m not a problem drinker,’i drink to solve my problems ;) )

Lets search the net to find a solution and after a few minutes i found how to install the Kernel Modules for my system.

By running the following command i got my Kernel Version :
uname -r
The result was : 2.6.9-42.0.10.EL

Ok now i could install the Kernel Modules :
yum install kernel-devel-2.6.9-42.EL (note how the kernel version is used in this command)

I rebooted my server and damn it is installed but still not working :
Failed VM Additions

Time for more beer and think things over. Lets try to install the VM Additions again, now all modules are installed maybe it will work better. First i had to mount the CD again (it keeps losing the mount after a reboot) and installed the VM Additions again. I did’nt want to reboot again so i tried to start the VM additions manualy:
service vmadd start now i got a green Ok telling me the additions are working.

Ok lets take a beer to celebrate and wath the machine coming up again:

VM Additions Fixed

Because i dont use SCSI on my virtual machine a removed the symbolic link to S30vmadd-scsi from the folders : /etc/rc.d/rc3.d/ and /etc/rc.d/rc5.d/ so my machine don’t load the VM Addtions for the SCSI interface.

Now in my Virtual Server Web interface it sees my VM Addtions for Linux :

VM Additions 1.2

but a little bug (i think it is) is the Virtual Server Logfile, it tells me that the beta VM Additions are outdated, but i dont give a f*** ;)

bug

This post was powerd by Grolsch.

Have fun out there,

Erik Luppes

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