Converting VirtualBox to VMWare

The new set of online, free courses available this spring emerged on http://www.coursera.org - among the ones I'm trying this spring is
Software as a Service: http://www.saas-class.org/
Instructions for setting up for labs appears on the book's website, http://saasbook.info.

I prefer running VMware-Fusion on my macbook-pro.   Armondo Fox (one of the instructors) was in the process of updating the script they use to configure an image, so  I dug around.  Converting their VirtualBox image might be a better approach.

I started with this post for starters (you can use it for reference if you like):
http://www.ctrip.ufl.edu/howto-convert-virtualbox-to-vmware
For reference, I'm running:
First, download a VirtualBox image for the class, as per recommended instructions on http://www.saasbook.info/bookware-vm-instructions.

Download the ovftool, unzip and install the package.  I made sure it was in my path with the following:

ln -s "/Applications/VMware OVF Tool/ovftool" ~/bin/ovftool

You can select whatever destination is appropriate and in your path (e.g. /usr/local/bin/).

  Export the Appliance

From the VirtualBox manager, select your SAAS image.


From the menu File => Export Appliance, get to the export settings.

Choose a location, change the name of the exported extension to .ovf and continue (none of the checkboxes should be selected).


  Edit the OVF


Open a terminal, and change to the directory where you exported your VirtualBox image (for me, the default was ~/Documents).  There are 3 sections I needed to fix up in the exported *.ovf file:

  • the VirtualSystemType;
  • the SATA Controller section;
  • add an item option to the sound card section;





I dropped the Caption line out of the SATA controller area (this is not necessary).  That resource subtype is LSILOGIC.

  Convert

Now, in the terminal, convert the virtual image using ovftool (adjust the filenames as appropriate):
$ ovftool SAAS-edited.ovf SAAS-new.vmx
The conversion will run a while, showing a percentage indicator.

  Import

From your VMware Fusion Virtual Machine Library window, select:
  • Create New
  • Continue without disc
  • Use an existing virtual disc
  • Select your target conversion disk - in the example above, that would be SAAS-new.vmdk
  • Select "Take this disc away from the machine currently using it" - since we just converted it, there is no one using this.

Finish the process with remaining defaults, and you should be ready to  boot your vm in VMware.  You will probably want to perform any system updates (Ubuntu), and then install VMware tools:


Virtual Machine > Install VMware Tools




The new Unix

It's been a while since I posted. Unix / Linux - like systems are everywhere!

One of my new "linices" is a MacBook. It didn't take long to see it was much quieter than my Ubuntu desktop (or even the netbook I'd loaded Ubuntu on). At first, I use VNC to connect to my Ubuntu box, but later VirtualBox on the laptop.

I'll look at some of the smaller tools I used to accomodate "unix" usage of my macbook in a later post. It's been 6 months, and I would not have thought I'd be this satisfied. Perhaps the biggest stumbling block is understanding what Windows license to get for a virtual box (so as to be able to make test within a windows environment). I was spoiled by having a pre-release version of Windows 7 (which expired). I do not currently have a pressing need to investigate windows - so I let it go, and remain mostly, increasingly unfamiliar with it.

There are a few mac-specific tools (scripts) I've found to accomodate my unix habits. I'll share those in the future.

In the meantime, welcome to the new unix-ish machine!

Ubuntu - ubdate bug... again...

The latest Ubuntu upgrade today broke my system.  At first, I thought it overwrote my /etc/fstab.   Further checks showed what really happened - UUID references stopped working properly:
mount  -t ext3 /dev/disk/by-uuid/....
failed to mount the correct disk partitions (instead, mounting something other than the uuid partition described in the fstab).

As it is,  /dev/disk/by-uuid  is populated with relative symbolic links to the referenced partitions,  e.g.

   /dev/disk/by-uuid/12345-xxxxxx  =>  ../../sda9

What was actually mounted was a similar partition number from a different disk -  in my case, for /home, and /local (root partition was - at least - correct).

I updated fstab to point to the raw devices directly (e.g. /dev/sda9, as appropriate).  As a defensive measure, I also now version my /boot/grub and /etc spaces  (I use mercurial; either git or mercurial would be equally simple).

Does somebody want to report this?  Maybe this is a more longstanding problem (?) that was triggered by todays  kernel update on my box.

*sigh*
[update: 5/4/2010]:

It seems there was another casualty of this update (I think):   Skype.   I only accidentally found out, as I have been using skype since.

However, yesterday, I installed a new computer (and skype on it).   Both skype's should work.   Quiting skype should log you out of that skype connection.   Today, I didn't get any calls on my Ubuntu skype.

I was puzzled at first, but after re-installing skype on Ubuntu, all works as expected. If logged into both, both ring when called. Logging out of one leaves messages in the other.

Since skype-ubuntu worked before re-installing, I expect that something in the libraries that affects sync with the skype server was either broken or severed (the Ubuntu upgrade involved a kernel upgrade). I can't tell what is at fault here, but it is not the first time I've noticed Linux-Skype behavior change, only to be repaired by a skype re-install.

Now, I will treat Skype (along with NVIDIA) as requiring a re-installation (at least, defensively) on kernel upgrades.

Upgrade Ubuntu (9.04 to 9.10)

Since last fall I had a terrible experience with upgrading Ubuntu from 9.04 to 9.10 (left my notebook unusable on the road), it was with great trepidation that, all these months later, I considered doing this.  I'd read a piece on "quickly", and tried it on my netbook (which has 9.10), so I wanted to try this for my desktop (particularly, to setup a template for other than bazaar, and other than Launchpad hosting - notably interested in using mercurial, and - because of Guido von Rossum's code review tool - Google Code).

I backed up my user spaces, swallowed hard and went forward.

I'm now running 9.10 on my desk.   There were a few problems, but nothing that apeared to hurt the install.  I also upgraded to the beta NVidia drivers (their performance seemed noticable on ION, so I thought I'd try them here too).

Here's the problems (such as they were) that did show up during the install:

  • Notice about ghc6-doc failing to install (documentation for the Haskell compiler - I just removed it for now;
  • Old rpm database for installed (?) rpm packages not usable with the new version;  (I just glanced at it - I think it must be empty... I'm not worrying about this)
I have (so far) noticed this:  when trying to bring up nautilus from a terminal window, I'm getting:

(nautilus:9916): Eel-CRITICAL **: eel_preferences_get_boolean: assertion `preferences_is_initialized ()' failed



The Official web2py Book

I use web2py, and we have had the PyCon registration system running under it for the past 2 years. It's an evolving framework - there are some really nice things about it. Lack of readily available documentation is one of the things that has been holding me back from considering running a sprint on the registration system (which itself could use some restructuring based on experience with the various users / people registering, sponsors, and so on).

Well, now there is an online web2py Book documentation (there has been a book, PDF, and online view of the PDF - but nothing this accessable) - and soon, I expect it to provide author / contributor logins, comments, etc. I'm really happy about this.

Have a look.

Google Chrome on Linux

My Ubuntu Firefox 3.5.*  seems to have been bogging down ... sometimes appearing to hang, no keyboard input for seconds...

This has gone on for a while.    It also has trouble I never bothered to track down with audio, particularly streaming video or internet radio/music (I use Opera to "just get around it.")

Last summer I spent some time building / debugging Google Chromium (the open source version of the browser) - so I know that was rapidly undergoing development for Linux.

A little while ago, I was happy to find Google Chrome Beta available for download for both my Linices.

Note:  I did find one problem reading SSL certificates with the 64-bit version (reported), but - now my keyboard is snappy, the websites that were picky (e.g. paying mortgage) and didn't like Firefox no longer complain.

I like the "feel" of Chorme, and did when I used it (partly in revolt of IE) in a corporate environment.

And now it's here.

Live USB Creator - CAUTION!!!

After having Ubuntu upgrade leave my netbook useless (I had to re-install), and - since this happened on the road when I really could have used my machine - I was determined (after doing a clean-install of Ubuntu 9.10)  to have alternate boot options on my netbook.

At least I'd have a way to keep working.

I also wondered if any of the existing installs would properly manage the touchpad (that is, allow disabling while typing).

I decided to install a small image of the original windows, an Ubuntu and a Fedora.

I set about to create various test live-images on USB so I could test what worked well, and then work out the backup and installation sequence I would need.

I started from a Fedora boot on my desktop.  Fedora images are created by Live USB Creator.   I could create other test images from Fedora with UNetBootin.

I had been using UNetBootin for a while - it seems pretty nice, automatically downloading a distro (or taking a path), and being pretty smart about selecting the USB it would configure.

I worked back and forth between Live USB Creator and UNetBootin.  At one point, I was testing a release candidate F12, and quickly used Live USB Creator (after using UNetBootin for the last several creations, including some USB ones).

Ach!   Live USB Creator picked a disk with my home directories, and DELETED user areas before I realized what it was doing.  VERY NASTY.

Beware!