Michael Harper’s Tech & Art Blog

Last night I upgraded my Toshiba Satellite from Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 with only minor issues. I had an 8.10 CD so I added that as a software source, allowed version upgrades and refreshed my update list. I began the upgrade to 8.10 and waited. I had to download around 1 GB of files for upgrade. I restarted my computer and, because of my previous tinkering with the Alsa sound mixer, was greeted with a banshee-like (mic and speaker feedback) call from my laptop’s speakers during boot-up. I plugged in a pair of headphones and let the boot-up continue.

Yet another benefit of having Gmail is its incredible amount of storage that is given to you for free. I think that it is currently around 7.5 GB per user. I ask, “so why not take adavantage of that space?” If you use an app like Gspace, then you can. Gspace integrates with Firefox and allows you to easily drag and drop files into a mini filesystem with directories that can be accessed from any another Firefox browser using the same add-on. This app works great for me because I am constantly switching between my desktop and laptop. Now I can easily transfer and store files through Gmail’s excess space. This is great. Check it out at www.getgspace.com.

I’ve spent the last 3 hours trying to get VirtualBox setup and running on my Fedora 10 system. I’ve scowered the web in search of assistance for a “can’t create COM object” error - whatever that might be. I’ve had no luck. No support on any forums from anyone. I’ve even found where other Fedora users have complained of this issue, but so far I haven’t found where anyone has followed up or solved the error. First Adobe Flash Player had issues, now VirtualBox. Currently, Sun is only providing a Fedora 9 compatible package. It’s lacking full compatibility with version 10 and that causes a few problems.

You wouldn’t think that doing this would be so complicated but apparently it is. I tried multiple methods of simply downloading the RPM install file from adobe.com but to no avail. The real problem is getting Firefox to recognize the new add-on. Either way, just to cover all the bases, I’m going to list the steps and explain what I did to the best of my knowledge. This works for the 32 and 64-bit architecture. SKIP the 5th step if you are only using the 32-bit architecture of Fedora.

In my last post, I mentioned an audio problem I was having with Ubuntu. The mic was not capturing audio so I went through a tutorial on how to fix my audio with a few modifications. Those modifications set me my audio askew and I realized what the problem was. If you bring up the volume control panel and click on File > Change Device, you might see 5 or more choices for audio devices. You must be sure to choose the correct device for audio to function properly. For some reason, the Alsa mixer works almost universally from what I’ve read and experience personally. It is my default, or 1st option, on the device list. There was another option for “analog input: front” which turned out to be my front volume switch however the Alsa stilled managed to function better (as in more volume). I’m still trying to figure out why my mic isn’t working when I’m able to get feedback and echos when I bring up the Alsa Mixer app by typing “alsamixer” in the terminal window, but we’re making progress.

Much learned in this past week. I’m blogging from my laptop while I watch the Fedora install and update on my HP xw9300 Workstation. Yes, I went ahead and decided to install trhe 64-bit Fedora 10. My xw9300 was running a 64-bit Ubuntu 8.1 and Windows XP Pro. I’ve been doing a lot of software testing recently and XP absorbed quite an infection. You know the type - incessant IE pop-ups that just will not go away. After trying every spyware, malware and virus scanning program I had, I dropped XP and pushed Fedora into the xw9300. The HP xw9300 hardware was originally developed in cooperation with Red Hat, Microsoft and Nvidia. I’m tired of XP so I decided to give the machine a try with Red Hat’s Fedora. I installed Windows Server 2003 first just for dedicated Adobe CS3 support and then installed Fedora. Fedora was quick and easy to install and also provided a Boot Loader section for dual-booting. Wifi worked immediately along with other hardware. Two minors bugs related to additional package installation and updates but mostly a walk in the park.

Over the past week, I have been exploring some of the other Linux distro options available to me. Initially I branched out when I had to do some data recovery on a corrupted Windows XP hard drive. A friend in the business recommended Puppy Linux for fast load times and non-destructive viewing of the hard drive’s contents. Puppy Linux has the very useful ability to load itself directly into RAM as opposed to loading itself on the local disk drive. The Live CD is only around 90 MB but is amazingly a fully featured OS with an office suite, CD/DVD burners, graphic programs, audio editors and more. I quickly loaded Puppy Linux onto a bootable CD and a few minutes later I was extracting the data I needed from the corrupted hard drive. Nicely done. I might also mention that Puppy Linux is among quite a few different Linux distros that can be completely loaded to RAM.

I realize I’m more than one week behind on this post but it was time for a VirtualBox shout-out. In case you’re not familiar with VBox, it is an open-source, virtualization software package that allows you do some amazing things. VirtualBox is available for the majority of OSs available and it’s free. As you might have read, I recently switched over to Ubuntu Linux on my laptop and work desktop. So far so good if you exlude the fact that I use Adobe CS3 for work and play around the clock. Yes, I’ve tried Wine (Windows Emulator) for Linux but it doesn’t meet my standards - I needed full compatibility. I needed software that would run the Adobe apps I needed to run in a somewhat optimized and efficient manner. That’s when I discovered virtualization, or, the act of virtualizing an entire computer and OS on your current computer and within your operating system. To summarize, I’m running Windows on my Linux laptop thanks to VirtualBox. The beauty of the software is that I can run “seamless” mode which creates the illusion that a Windows application is actually running on my Ubuntu desktop. To switch gears entirely, I can just run full-screen mode and tuck my Ubuntu desktop out-of-sight while I Photoshop away and create websites with Dreamweaver and Flash Professional. It is fairly impressive as far as switching between Windows and Ubuntu as if it were just another app. The primary OS (in my case Ubuntu) is referred to as the “Host OS” whereas the secondary OSs (Windows, OS X, Solaris, etc.) are referred to as the “Guest OSs”. You can add as many Guest OSs as you would like. The OSs share the resources on your machine (RAM, processors, hard drive space, etc.) which can all be fine-tuned and adjusted as necessary to give you the performance you need. Another added feature is the ability to “save the current machine state” and essentially hit the pause button on your guest OS, saving the layout and current view in your guest OS. This put an end to my dual-boot and multi-boot OSs. The next step for me is to optimize my virtualization process to get the machines running at full capacity but that’s a completely different post.