n00b here, wondering about some things

[spencercarran]

I've been using Ubuntu for a few months now and thought I'd try out something else, so I threw VL5.9 standard in a virtualbox inside Ubuntu, allocating it 1GB of RAM and 32MB of video memory, which I thought should be more than enough. However, when I'm in VL (as I am now) there are intermittent random freezes. These are temporary and it soon is going again as though nothing happened, but why is it freezing at all? It shouldn't be an issue with system resources, as I have given it much more memory than the requirements.  Could it be a problem with VB? I set it up in VB as "Linux 2.6" since I didn't see anything in the VB menu that was closer, like Slackware. My hardware, in case it's  relevant, is a Macbook 3,1 (Santa Rosa) with 4GB of RAM and an Intel Core 2 Duo processor (2.2GHz). I don't currently have wifi or sound, but that may also be a VBox issue and I'm more concerned about getting basic usability out of the system (ie being able to use the computer without cursing the constant freezes) before I start to play with ndiswrapper.

[bigpaws]

First all the problems sound like VB problems.

I don't currently have wifi or sound, but that may also be a VBox issue and I'm more concerned about getting basic usability out of the system (ie being able to use the computer without cursing the constant freezes) before I start to play with ndiswrapper.

Wifi or sound would be setup in the VM not the OS its' self. It maybe that you are not familiar enough
with VB to understand the way a VM works in so far as hardware and the OS.

The hardware is virtual hardware not real hardware.

Bigpaws

[wcs]

Give it a try with a vector live cd... you can see if those freezes happen with your hardware.
Although it seems to me more like a VB thing.

[spencercarran]

First all the problems sound like VB problems.

I don't currently have wifi or sound, but that may also be a VBox issue and I'm more concerned about getting basic usability out of the system (ie being able to use the computer without cursing the constant freezes) before I start to play with ndiswrapper.

Wifi or sound would be setup in the VM not the OS its' self. It maybe that you are not familiar enough
with VB to understand the way a VM works in so far as hardware and the OS.

The hardware is virtual hardware not real hardware.

Bigpaws

That's what I was guessing. You are correct, I am not very familiar with VB, but the problem is that I'm already triple-booting and I don't feel quite ready to commit to a full HD install of VL quite yet. I might try out the livecd as wcs suggested.

[gamfa]

Try the LIVE CD.

[Windozer]

Hi spencercarran,

welcome to the forum - I'm a n00b here too, but I can say for certain that everyone here is very helpful. And it's nice for me personally to be able to jump in already too and perhaps provide some assistance.

Let me echo WCS's and gamfa's sagely advice: try a live CD.  But there are good reasons too for Virtual Machines (VM or VB).

VMs are cool since you can run more than one OS at once. I've used VMs a lot on multiple platforms, but not on Ubuntu. To try out networked configs, I often run several machines on *one* box! Yes, it's slow and gobbles up a ton of memory. Which might also be the problem you are having. Ubuntu, if I recall, is big, and a VM hogs a lot of resources - so your virtual drives might be thrashing a lot (swapping/reading/writing) because mem is low.

You do need to study the docs more as you often have to enable certain features, or load in host modules.

One of the most stable VB's I've used most is called simply "VirtualBox" from a company in Germany. I don't know if this is what's on Ubuntu - it was free last time I looked: http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads. 

[Yikes Sun bought them out ... hope they don't dork with it.]

Virtual Boxes can lockup or freeze. Yes, it usually is related to device drivers - the most common things you'll experience is the mouse jumping around and typing into popup text boxes turns a "hello" into "hhhhhhheeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooo".   

To get to the CD, use USB, wifi, or other items can mean jumping through some rather strange VM hoops!

good luck,
Howard in Florida
~~~~~~~~~~

[spencercarran]

WinDoze: Thanks for the warm welcome. It's not an issue of memory being low, I know that for sure. I have 4GB of RAM, which is more than enough- I comfortably VB XP inside this without any trouble. I am using the "VirtualBox" you referred to. I'll probably play around with it in livecd for a bit, and if I like it I might go whole hog and actually install it.

As an aside, why is it that every Linux distro I've seen has more out-of-the-box functionality than Windows? VL comes with an office suite, multiple web browsers, PDF reader, and all sorts of other things. XP comes with... um... solitaire.

Spencer in Florida and copying Howards sig

[wcs]

Not only software, but also hardware support.
It is common to get hardware devices working in Linux without doing anything, while in windows you would have to install 3rd party drivers. In Linux, a lot of the drivers you will need are part of the kernel.

The problem, of course, is those pieces of hardware that are not well supported in Linux... sometimes manufacturers only write Windows drivers.

Anyway, another thing to look at in Virtual Box is the X configuration. I remember trying it once with 5.9, and it would hang when installing, because of the X config. You had to skip that part and then copy the default vesa configuration to get it started.

This was in an older version of Virtual Box, so if you were abe to install it fine, it seems it doesn't happen anymore.

[GrannyGeek]

As an aside, why is it that every Linux distro I've seen has more out-of-the-box functionality than Windows? VL comes with an office suite, multiple web browsers, PDF reader, and all sorts of other things. XP comes with... um... solitaire.

Does the word "antitrust" ring a bell? Microsoft has gotten into a heap of trouble for including a media player and an integrated browser in the system. Imagine the hue and cry if Windows also came with an office suite, PDF reader, yada yada as part of the system. The "missing programs" are easily installed and you can find free versions of most categories of software.

Microsoft can't win. If it includes applications in the OS for which there are third-party versions, people complain about "unfair competition" and "antitrust." If Windows comes without these applications, people complain about not having them included.
--GrannyGeek

[tomh38]

GrannyGeek is right.  If Microsoft put a lot of software in as part of Windows, they would get into trouble.

To make things worse, of lot of computer manufacturers (OEMs) include a lot of trialware and and other junk that basically amounts to advertising on new machines.  A lot of this needs to be removed when you buy a new machine.  This isn't Microsoft's fault.

I say this in Microsoft's defense, and I'm not even a big fan of Microsoft or Windows.

Just my two cents.  That's all I can afford in this economy.

Tom