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Ubuntu Kernel update borks VMware

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

One of my favorite pieces of software is VMWare. I hate clutter, and VMWare allows me to run 2 (and more) OS’s on one system. At work, my host system runs Dapper Drake 6.06 LTS with Windows XP SP2 in a VM for Outlook and a few other Windows only programs. At home, my host system is Feisty 7.04 with a test domain complete with a Domain Controller, Exchange Server and an XP SP2 client to practice for MSCE’s in VMWare. I’ve just recently added a MOSS server to test prior to implementing at work. I interact with VMWare daily. It is the one piece of software that I would truly be lost w/out. In a word - indispensable.

That being said, every so often an Ubuntu update will render VMWare unusable. The update in question is a kernel update. After applying the update, and trying to open VMWare, nothing happens. No error, no fireworks - just blank.

To fix this, open a terminal and type:

sudo vmware-config.pl
VMware will begin the reconfiguration process that looks much the same as the initial install script. However, it will hang at the following line:
What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running kernel? [/usr/src/linux/include]
If you hit enter, the following error line will be returned:
The path "/usr/src/linux/include" is not an existing directory.

Solution

Unfortunately, the kernel update won’t update the header files. Checking the path, /usr/src/linux/include/ will reveal your previous header files but the most recent is not present. A little tip: to check what kernel you are running simple type uname -r in a terminal. Anyway, a manual update is necessary to download the most up-to-date header files. So in a terminal, type:

sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`
Now simply go back to the vmware configure script, vmware-config.pl and complete the header reconfiguration. This time around, VMWare automatically locates the C header files as seen in the highlighted text below:
What is the location of the directory of C header files that match your running kernel? [/lib/modules/2.6.15-52-386/build/include]
Just click the Enter key to continue the update.

Note: Remember, to click Enter or type yes when coming to this line:

Would you like to skip networking setup and keep your old settings as they are? (yes/no) [yes]
to keep the old network settings. Otherwise, you’ll have to re-network everything!

So, after a kernel update, this 5 minute fix will have VMWare running good as new.

Posted in VMWare, Ubuntu | Comments Off

MacBook with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04

Monday, November 26th, 2007
ubuntulogo.png

The last few years I have really become a fan of the Linux distribution, Ubuntu. I’ve tried other distro’s and they each have their good points but what I liked about Ubuntu was the large community and expansive support. Not only that, but Ubuntu is a snap to get up and running. Yes, I’ve set up a Debian and a Slackware box but at this point I’m more impressed by a distro that I can start using immediately with minimum fuss.

That being said, I am also a fan of the latest Apple MacBook. It’s small, powerful and now that it’s powered by Intel processors, I don’t have to settle for a PPC version of Linux. So below is a down and dirty on the steps I took to set up my MacBook with Ubuntu 7.04. Your mileage may vary….

INSTALLATION

  1. Insert CD: Follow all default instructions, (US Keyboard, EST time zone, Partition entire disc, etc…)
  2. After installation is complete reboot and enter configuration phase

HOSTNAME

  1. Open System > Administration > Network and change hostname to nixbook.somenet.local. In addition, add correct DNS settings.
  2. In Hosts tab edit IP address with correct Alias information (192.168.1.x = nixbook.somenet.local, 127.0.1.1 = nixbook.somenet.local, 127.0.0.1 = localhost, nixbook.somenet.local)

REPOSITORIES

  1. Go to http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty#How_to_add_extra_repositories to edit correct repositories.
  2. Run sudo apt-get update to acquire all updates

DISPLAY RESOLUTION

  1. sudo apt-get install 915resolution
  2. Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart GDM and then edit display settings.

COMPILE TOOLS

  1. sudo apt-get install build-essential or sudo aptitude install build-essential

TOUCHPAD

  1. see http://help.ubuntu.com/community/macbook
  2. For touchpad delay, this site has some good info….

FONT SMOOTHING

  1. add the following lines to /etc/apt/sources.list
    deb http://wwww.telemail.fi/mlind/ubuntu feisty fonts
    deb-src http://www.telemail.fl/mlind/ubuntu feisty fonts
  2. sudo aptitude install libfreetype6 libcairo2 libxft2

WINDOWS FONTS

  1. sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts

SPEED UP GNOME

  1. Open your text editor of choice and copy and paste in the following text:
    gtk-menu-popup-delay = 0"| tee -a .gtkrc-2.0
  3. Save the file into your home directory with the name .gtkrc-2.0 (don’t forget the period before the filename), and restart your session (CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE). You’ll notice a nice speed boost when browsing within a category in your menu.
  4. 1. gtk-menu-popup-delay = "0" | tee -a gtkrc - 2.0
    2. Save into home directory

WIRELESS

  1. Go to NDISWrapper home page http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net. Find the installation page and follow instructions
  2. Make sure before compiling that you have sudo apt-get install build-essential to compile programs
  3. Download latest NDISWRAPPER version; 1.4.9 as of Nov 2007.
  4. After downloading to your desktop, go to the source-directory and run make distclean and make. As root, run make install. This should compile and install both the kernel module and the userspace utilities.
  5. Go to the “List” page in the NDISWRAPPER web page to find your version of wireless card. First, identify the type of card you have with lspci.
  6. To identify the driver that you need from List, first identify the card you have with lspci and note the first column such as 0000:00:0c.0 and then find out the PCI ID of the card by running lspci -n and locating the entry corresponding to the first column of lspci output. The PCI ID is third column or fourth in some distributions and of the form 104c:8400. Now you need to get the Windows driver for this chipset.
    In the List, find out an entry for the same PCI ID, and download the driver corresponding to it. Unpack the Windows driver with unzip/cabextract/unshield tools, and find the INF file (.INF or .inf extension) and the SYS file (.SYS or .sys extension). If there are multiple INF/SYS files, you may look in the List if there are any hints about which of them should be used. Make sure the INF file, SYS file and any BIN files (For example, TI drivers use BIN firmware) files are all in one directory.
  7. In the list I looked under “A” for the Atheros card that is standard on the Mac Core Duo 2’s . The executable on my desktop was from the Lenovo site and was 7iwc28ww.exe. The command to cabextract was cabextract filename, easy as can be!!
  8. Now use ndiswrapper to install. ndiswrapper -i NET5416.INF
  9. This copies all necessary files to /etc/ndiswrapper and creates the config files for your card. After installing you can run ndiswrapper -l to see the status of your installed drivers. You should see something like:
    net5416 : driver installed
    device (168C:0024) present
  10. Then you have to load the interface with modprobe, type this before hand to ensure there are no errors. depmod -a then modprobe ndiswrapper. The drivers should be loaded, now just ensure that your wireless interface is configured correctly by going to System > Administration > Network and ensure that your wireless interface is active.

WICD

  1. These steps are optional…I got WICD working intermittently - maybe it’s more stable since this post?
  2. Go to WICD sourceforge download package.
  3. sudo apt-get remove network-manager even if a fresh install.
  4. …or simply use Synaptic Package manager > search for WICD and install. It will remove other possible conflicting pages but continue with installation.
  5. To install it in the task tray open System > Preferences > Sessions, click new > in the name field type WCID and in command type /opt/wicd/tray.py

MULTIMEDIA

  1. changed /etc/apt/sources.list and changed all entries "http://us.archive...." by omitting the “us” nation portion.
  2. then added "deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/" to my list or use this one "http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu:Feisty#How_to_add_extra_repositories"
  3. then do sudo apt-get install w32codecs
  4. then do sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2
  5. Afterwards you can install mplayer and vlc.
  6. Ensure that you go into each players preferences section and edit the codecs being used. VLC was changed to the X11 codec and I think I set mplayer to OpenGL

VMWARE SERVER

  1. http://www.howtoforge.com/ubuntu_feisty_fawn_vmware_server_howto
  2. to find kernel version: sudo uname -r
  3. change old command sudo vmware-install.pl to sudo ./vmware-install.pl
  4. also run sudo apt-get install libx11-6 libxtst6 libice-dev libsm-dev libxt6
  5. continue with installation choosing defaults

VERSION CHECK

  1. in terminal lsb_release -a

FAN

  1. sudo sh -c "echo 6000 > /sys/devices/platform/applesmc/fan0_minimum_speed more than likely set for less, say 4500 (11.26.07)
  2. You must ensure you have the correct privileges assigned

JAVA

  1. Firefox plugin: sudo apt-get install sun-java6-plugin
  2. JAVA JDK: sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jdk
  3. Check version: java -version

That was easy!

Posted in Apple, Ubuntu | Comments Off

Manually install Firefox

Thursday, August 9th, 2007

I recently had an issue w/Ubuntu updating to the latest version of Firefox. For some reason all the releases of Ubuntu I’ve tried (Dapper, Edgy and Feisty) are packaged with Firefox 1.5. I haven’t researched too much into it but I vaguely remember reading something about licensing. Before I upgraded to the latest release, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t have any deprecated versions cluttering my hard drive. So below are instructions on a manual install of Firefox that removes all traces of old versions while retaining the previous versions bookmarks, plugins, etc…

First, go here to get the latest Firefox release.

After downloading, open up your favorite terminal and enter the following 3 commands:

tar -xzvf firefox-CURRENT_VERSION#.tar.gz
sudo mv firefox /usr/local/
sudo ln -s ../firefox/firefox /usr/local/bin/

That’s all folks!

Because /usr/local/bin is before /usr/bin in the default user PATH shell variable you don’t have to modify your default Firefox icon on the Gnome launch toolbar. The default Firefox launching shortcut points to the “firefox” command so it will the “/usr/local/bin/firefox” before the packaged “/usr/bin/firefox” command.

Definitely try Firefoxes’ own update mechanism located under the Help menu first. If that doesn’t work, the above will fix you up.

Posted in Ubuntu | Comments Off