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Friends and family often ask me what laptop they ought to purchase. My answer is always the same: "It depends". Then I proceed to break down the pluses and minuses of different types of laptops and try to determine where to start looking. After that, I find out more about exactly what [...]
Lately, I’ve been getting quite interested in virtual machines. Namely, Linux/UNIX on Linux. When I got my new T61 laptop, even before, I have been looking forward to virtualizing Linux operating systems. Gentoo, Fedora, OpenSUSE, etc. So, first thing first, find a good virtual machine to run these guests.
I had already known about VirtualBox, so I thought I’d give that a try. To my surprise, VirtualBox OSE was already in the Debian Sid repositories, and it’s in Ubuntu Gutsy, so I did an aptitude install, and had it down the pipe and installed on my system in no time flat.
I fired it up. Unfortunately, to my surprise, VirtualBox was complaining that the modules for the kernel were not installed, and that I would not be able to start a virtual guest until they were installed. Bummed, I began searching Google for how to get these modules installed. Again, to my surprise, it was easier than expected. If you’re running VirtualBox OSE, and have run into the same issue, which you probably will, here’s what you can do on a Debian/Ubuntu system to get VirtualBox and the modules in place:
sudo aptitude install virtualbox-ose virtualbox-ose-source module-assistant sudo m-a prepare sudo m-a a-i virtualbox-ose sudo adduser [user] vboxusers
Now, you should be able to install and run virtual guests with ease. Currently, I hawe Fedora Core 6 installed (for RHEL 5 instruction and learning) and Gentoo (although I’m currently faced with a kernel panic). Future guests will most likely include Open|FreeBSD, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu and OpenSolaris. I can run them simultaneously, although that might be a bit of a resource hog, or one at a time.
The only hiccups that I currently face with this setup, is getting bridged networking functional. I should be able to ping the guest from the host, and ping the host from the guest. Currently, I can only do the latter and not the former. Also, I have installed the guest additions, but I seem to not be able to run a guest at higher than 1024×768. Seeing as though I have 1680×1050, it would be nice to utilize full screen, but it’s not working for me, even with Host+G. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.
Yesterday, my new laptop came via UPS. I decided on the Lenovo Thinkpad T61, which it seems to me, has turned out to be a fairly popular laptop. I’m glad I made the purchase. Hopefully, we’ll see a great deal of hardware drivers to the kernel and elsewhere getting this machine to run smoothly. So far, the only issues I have left are getting the sound and suspend/hibernate working properly. Other than that, video, fingerprint reader, some hotkeys and wireless are all working, and working well.
Here are the specs of the system:
It screams. I can patch, compile and install a new kernel in under 15 minutes. I can extract an entire 80 minute CD to lossy Ogg Vorbis at 192Khz in under 2 minutes. I can do both, plus check my email, watch a flash movie, browse the web, and not even feel the heat. Needless to say, I think it’s a bit of overkill for what my needs are, but hey, for the price, I couldn’t beat it. More importantly, this is the first time that I’ve been able to truly roam wirelessly (no LAN cable and no power cable) for years. I’m happy.
I chose to install Debian Sid over Ubuntu Feisty or Ubuntu Gutsy, due to the newer kernel and some hardware driver patches to get the operating system up and running smoothly. Wireless wasn’t smooth, I can say that. However, everything else has been painless. I plan on documenting my steps on the needed wiki’s to help others out who also have this laptop. This doesn’t mean that I’ve lost my passion for Ubuntu- I definitely haven’t. I’m just interested in getting my Linux operating system installed as painlessly as possible, and surprise, Debian was it. And yes, Microsoft Vista was completely removed from the system before it could even boot. I’ll be getting my refund on that.