Virtual Howto Examples.

toga · 10-14-2009, 02:39 PM

Would it be possible to set up a thread of virtualization examples for installation of the different Linux distros?

It would be very helpful if the examples followed a standard format so comparisons could be easily made. Also specific window managers don't help if the example is for a Gnome WM and and the user is using KDE. What program is actually being used to perform a step or function would help for understanding the whole process.

The 2 most popular Linux distros today are Ubuntu and Fedora. Maybe the first 2 examples could be setting up (1)Ubuntu to run a virtual Fedora and setting up (2)Fedora to run a virtual Ubuntu.

Thanks

brianL · 10-14-2009, 04:10 PM

Installing a "virtual" distro is the same as installing a "real" one, once you've set up the virtual hard drive to install it to.

kirukan · 10-14-2009, 11:34 PM

Quote:

The 2 most popular Linux distros today are Ubuntu and Fedora.

I hope this based on your assumption however i think in desktop (personal pc) side, may be these two are popular but in Server side i don't think so these are more popular.

Quote:

installation of the different Linux distros

Yes you can install different operating system within virtual environment, there are some opensource softwares available (try the virtualbox)

dyasny · 10-15-2009, 06:44 AM

you mean someting like http://www.howtoforge.com/howtos/virtualization ?

steve02169 · 10-15-2009, 08:05 AM

I've run into issues installing guests on VBox and certainly there will always be issues and limitations configuring networking and probably usb as well. I think this is a good idea and would volunteer to contribute of others are interested.

ermeyers · 10-15-2009, 06:56 PM

I just loaded VirtualBox on Ubuntu 9.04 to try it out. Pretty good stuff.

I've been trying to learn more about partitioning disks with RAID, LVM and Encryption, and getting no help in these forums.

I think that the virtualization programs like Virtualbox could really help all of us out in creating better Wiki documentation of the various installation procedures. We don't often get to see a lot of graphical representations of the Text-based debian installer, used on the Ubuntu Alternate disk, and having some snapshots of the installation steps in help.ubuntu.com and ubuntuforums.org would be really CLEAR and helpful.

If Virtualbox would allow me to define disks beyond what I found was IDE Primary Master, IDE Primary Slave, IDE Secondary Slave, then some examples of the complex RAID, LVM and Encryption configs could be documented and run in VirtualBox. We could easily develop complex kickstart and preseed installation scripts without being tied directly to the keyboard and monitor of the target machine.

catkin · 10-16-2009, 01:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ermeyers

If Virtualbox would allow me to define disks beyond what I found was IDE Primary Master, IDE Primary Slave, IDE Secondary Slave ...

Don't you have the option in the Hard Disks section to enable an additional virtual controller which may be SATA or SCSI? I have, after installing from VirtualBox-3.0.6-52128-Linux_x86.run.

ermeyers · 10-16-2009, 06:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catkin

Don't you have the option in the Hard Disks section to enable an additional virtual controller which may be SATA or SCSI? I have, after installing from VirtualBox-3.0.6-52128-Linux_x86.run.

No. I have three slots Pri-M/S and Sec-S. I have Virtualbox Open Source Edition (OSE) version is 2.1.4_OSE. http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Editions

From the User guide PDF: "In VirtualBox, each virtual machine has one IDE controller enabled by default. You can therefore connect up to four virtual storage devices to a virtual machine. Since one of these (the secondary master) is always configured to be a CD-ROM/DVD drive, this leaves you with up to three virtual hard disks that you can attach to a virtual machine’s IDE controller."

Looks like a configuration change. I'll look. Thanks.

j1alu · 10-16-2009, 06:48 AM

ermeyers:

Quote:

I think that the virtualization programs like Virtualbox could really help all of us out in creating better Wiki documentation of the various installation procedures. We don't often get to see a lot of graphical representations of the Text-based debian installer, used on the Ubuntu Alternate disk, and having some snapshots of the installation steps in help.ubuntu.com and ubuntuforums.org would be really CLEAR and helpful.

http://wiki.debian.org/LennyIllustratedInstall
go, tell it on the mountain

kidding aside: its for the debian-graphical installer, but besides the ugly background image which will be missing its the same if you go for the text-install.
greetings

ermeyers · 10-16-2009, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ermeyers

Looks like a configuration change. I'll look. Thanks.

I looked, and I don't see SCSI or SATA options in this OSE version.

ermeyers · 09-24-2010, 07:57 AM

ermeyers · 09-24-2010, 08:02 AM

I've found how to use QEMU (apt-get install qemu) with virtual SCSI disks.

Create 4 disk images of type qcow2:

Code:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 sda_9r1GB.qcow2 9.1G
qemu-img create -f qcow2 sdb_9r1GB.qcow2 9.1G
qemu-img create -f qcow2 sdc_18r2GB.qcow2 18.2G
qemu-img create -f qcow2 sdd_9r1GB.qcow2 9.1G

Using ~/Downloads/xubuntu-10.04-alternate-i386.iso as cdrom image:

Code:

qemu -m 256 -drive file=sda_9r1GB.qcow2,if=scsi,bus=0,unit=0 -drive file=sdb_9r1GB.qcow2,if=scsi,bus=0,unit=3 -drive file=sdc_18r2GB.qcow2,if=scsi,bus=0,unit=4 -drive file=sdd_9r1GB.qcow2,if=scsi,bus=0,unit=5 -boot d -cdrom ~/Downloads/xubuntu-10.04-alternate-i386.iso -soundhw ac97 -net nic -net user

Select F4 Modes: "Install an LTSP Server"

Learn about The Keystrokes and Monitor for QEMU:
* Keys: http://wiki.qemu.org/download/qemu-d...pcsys_005fkeys
* Monitor: http://wiki.qemu.org/download/qemu-d...ys_005fmonitor

The QEMU Monitor screendump command:

Code:

Ctrl-Alt-2 ## switch to Monitor
monitor console
QEMU 0.12.3 monitor - type 'help' for more information
(qemu) screendump current_image.ppm
Ctrl-Alt-1 ## switch to emulation