LinuxMint 8 and Parallels Desktop 4 Windows (PD4W)

Ok, so LM8 x64 works just fine in PD4W, so it looks like the issue is x64 support for this version of *nix.  To be fair, Ubuntu 9.04 is the latest version to be officially supported by Parallels.

LinuxMint 8: VM Test

I just noticed that LinuxMint 8 is now out and apparently the 4th most used home OS behind Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu.  I wanted to play around with it in a VM before I install it over my LM7 machine.

1st try: WinVPC–no x64 OS support, x86 ISO no joy, added “vga=791 noreplace-paravirt” to the boot parameters, boots ok, no sound error, but no sound either. (install completes, install boots, then the VM crashes and the window closes)

2nd try: Parallels Destop 4 Windows:  fail–black screen after booting, hit enter get a “initramfs Unable to find a medium containing a live file system” 

3rd try: VMWare Wks 7–boots ok, error about the sound card, no sound

4th try: Virtual Box 3.1–boots ok and sound, installs easy, VMTools installed, no issues

VBox wins this preliminary round

Missing “Create Virtual Machine” in the “%username%\virtual machines” folder

Below is the fix for the virtual machines folder for WinVPC when the folder here “%username%virtual machines” is missing the “Create Virtual Machine” option.

 This has bitten me twice now.  Once on my desktop after a fresh install of WinVPC and just now on my notebook.

The fix is pretty simple (thanks to Vinod Atal from MSFT when I first hit the problem back in May), copy and paste the following lines into notepad and save to a *.reg file, then double-click to run it (you shouldn’t need to reboot for the fix to take effect, close and re-open the window:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\BagMRU]
[-HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local
Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\Bags]

Hyper-V and Linux

Yes, you can run Linux distros on Hyper-V, including more than the 4 supported

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service Pack 2 (x86 Edition or x64 Edition)

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service Pack 1 (x86 Edition or x64 Edition)

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service Pack 2 (x86 Edition or x64 Edition)

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 (x86 Edition or x64 Edition)

Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.2 and 5.3 (x86 Edition or x64 Edition) (Emulated devices only)

Check out Matthew Mattoon’s blog: http://blog.allanglesit.com/ He’s done a lot of hard work on the Hyper-V ICs and “unsupported” Linux distros

WinVPC and Floppy disk images

While there’s no exposed floppy disk image support in WinVPC, it is still there.  While this info is a little old you can get the scripts you need here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/arun/archive/2009/08/12/windows-virtual-pc-floppy-support.aspx

and more info here:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprovirt/thread/62f8eaf1-23f9-497e-a431-f4a1ad643d38

Accell UltraAV B087B-002B DisplayPort/DVI-D Dual-Link Adapter (Black)

Hooked up my Accell DisplayPort to DVI adapter and I’m back to 3 monitors!

I really hope Eyefinity is as cool as it appears, since I’ve spent way too much money on this already.  My “old” ATi 4850 X2 is one of the best cards I’ve owned, not many video cards with 4 DVI ports.

Somehow, I have a feeling that Eyefinity is going to require me to have 3 identical monitors, so my right and left 1600×1200 monitors aren’t going to “sync” with my main 1920×1200 monitor…(how will I explain the need to get 3 new matching 24″ monitors to my wife?)

Update: I can get all 3 monitors into eyefinity, the only “issue” is my 24″ 1920×1200 gets dropped to 1600×1200, since all 3 monitors have to match.

Eyefinity on new ATi video cards requires an active DisplayPort adapter

Boo!  After listening to the marketing guy from ATi/AMD at the Ready to Launch show I was all set for a new ATi 5870 for Eyefinity.  Of course, the 3rd port needed is a displayport and I’ve only got DVI LCDs.  He specifically mentioned the Startech DisplayPort DVI adapter available at Newegg as an inexpensive solution if you don’t have displayport monitors.  Well, guess what, he was incorrect.  You need a $100+ active displayport adapter to do 3 displays.  So, now I’m stuck with 2 monitors working until I can get an active displayport adapter next week.

I guess that’s what I get for taking technical advice from the marketing guy.  He also mentioned how the AMD Phenom II X4 965 was faster than all the competitor’s CPUs…doing a little benchmark reviews shows that this isn’t accurate either.  My current i7 is on par or faster than the 965 even when not overclocked.

Don’t get me wrong, I love AMD and ATi, I have AMD stock and after six months of random nVidia Nvlddmkm.sys blue-screens with no consistent solution, I am only purchasing ATi cards for my new systems. (I am still using my older nVidia cards in some of my test boxes)

Update:  The actual AMD docs do specifically mention that you need an active DisplayPort  to DVI adapter and the passive can only be used on a 2 monitor system.  I received my active DisplayPort adapter today (1 day late from Amazon) and will be giving it a try tonight.

Sun VirtualBox 3.1.0 now available

Visit the VirtualBox site

The following major new features were added:

• Teleportation (aka live migration); migrate a live VM session from one host to another (see the manual for more information)
• VM states can now be restored from arbitrary snapshots instead of only the last one, and new snapshots can be taken from other snapshots as well (“branched snapshots”; see the manual for more information)
• 2D video acceleration for Windows guests; use the host video hardware for overlay stretching and color conversion (see the manual for more information)
• More flexible storage attachments: CD/DVD drives can be attached to an arbitrary IDE controller, and there can be more than one such drive (the manual for more information)
• The network attachment type can be changed while a VM is running
• Complete rewrite of experimental USB support for OpenSolaris hosts making use of the latest USB enhancements in Solaris Nevada 124 and higher
• Significant performance improvements for PAE and AMD64 guests (VT-x and AMD-V only; normal (non-nested) paging)
• Experimental support for EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface; see the manual for more information)
• Support for paravirtualized network adapters (virtio-net; see the manual for more information)

and 40+ bug fixes.

New Website Content: Installling Windows NT 4 in WinVPC

I just added a new PDF, Installing Windows NT 4 Workstation in Windows VPC, to my website. Also added is an ISO of NT4SP6 and IE6 for NT4, which should ease the efforts of getting NT4 to a working SP level.

This is my second PDF on installing an unsupported OS in WinVPC, the first was for Win98