VirtualBox 3.2.2 has been released

A new maintenance release for VirtualBox just out. SMP kernel hang problem seems fixed. Few VT-x issues also fixed.

Test MeeGo 1.0 on VirtualBox 3.2

MeeGo, another Moblin based netbook linux is out. Try it on my VirtualBox hosts and encountered the same hang issue during boot from CD image.

On the other hand, installation goes very fine but first boot fall into black screen after finalize the installation.

Same tricks for ‘startx’ works but cannot see Moblin interface yet.

Improving iSCSI performance on FreeNAS with LACP

Preparing the iSCSI storage for 11gR2 RAC and try to fine tune network performance by using LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol). Sometime it called NIC teaming or NIC bonding or trunking.

My original setup was 1 NIC for public network so that administration can be done. Another NIC was used for iSCSI between the NAS and the 2 RAC nodes. It became the bottleneck of 11gR1 test labs and I hope LACP may help as it is better than having one NIC dedicated for each RAC node.

Here are my steps:

New VirtualBox 3.2 with improved performance on VT-x

Just increase the RAM of my ubuntu host to 8G and found that VBox 3.2 is out.

Formal name changed as per acquisition of SUN by Oracle.

Exciting news include ‘Experimental support for Mac OS X Server guests’ and performance for 64-bits host with VT-x enabled guest will have better performance, CPU and memory can be increase/decrease even when guests is running (depends on platform of hosts and guests). Multi-monitor guests setup is supported for Windows guests.

VirtualBox 3.1.8 is out

New version of VBox is out now, tested on all existing VMs and they all run fines.

Guest addition information is much clearer than before.

Test Ubuntu Moblin Remix on VirtualBox

Try the Ubuntu Moblin Remix after dissatisfaction about the standard Moblin release. It boot from ISO file directly without any tricks. It is better when compared to the standard Moblin. It does not need PAE to be enabled too.

Messy menu still happen and need to install guest addition to resolve but installation seems only available when boot.

It respond a bit better than the standard Moblin but still not that usable when compare to other netbook based distribution.

Lucid Lynx Netbook Edition on VirtualBox

Installed 10.04 Netbook edition of ubuntu in my VBox 3.1.6 environment and it works quite good except the following issue after installed the guest additions.

It will switch back to ‘Home Screen’ quickly no matter which application I execute. This make it almost unusable.

A quick workaround is to switch to console terminal (press Host+F1) and back to X windows (press Host+F7). Hope to find a permanent fix later.

Running Moblin 2.1 on VirtualBox

Tried few netbook linux distributions in VBox like UNR 9.10, 10.04; EasyPeasy 1.5, 1.6; xPUD 0.9.2; Puppy Linux 4.3.1; Browser Linux 360,362; MacPuppy Opera 2; eeebuntu 3, 4beta; slax 6.1.2; kuki 2.8; Jolicloud. Yet, unable to boot Moblin.

Finally, after reading this, Moblin 2.1 now can boot and run under VBox 3.1.6.

Here are the steps:
– Create a virtual machine with Fedora as guest OS
– Enable PAE/NX in the VM’s settings or it will complaint
– Boot from the live CD image
– Choose the option to boot for install or it’ll hang

Branch out for Virtual Machines

Decided to branch out VM stuff to this blog.

Main focus will be on Virtual Box while other VM softwares may be review too.