Monthly Archives: July 2007

Running Windows within VMWare on FC6

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One of my current client projects requires me to VPN into their establishment. Rather than have a second machine running Windows, I thought I’d try running VMWare using a dual-boot (WinXPPro/Fedora Core 6) machine. A recent Linux Magazine article by Jason Perlow, “Run Your Windows with VMWare” pointed out that VMWare can read a Windows installation off disk and run it as if it were a virtual image, a feature I wasn’t aware of. You get the benefits of both having a VM and being able to dual-boot. Cool! So, I set about the process of installing such beast.

VMWare offers several versions for free (as in price, not as in speech) downloads. Their main install scripts (written in Perl) are pretty slick, detecting problems, coaching you for the correct actions, and advising about where more information can be found. Several cycles of script, run, error, re-configure, install, repeat got me to a working VMWare install. Extra clues were found in “How to Install VMWare Server on A Fedora Core 6 Desktop” and “Run Existing Windows Installation with VMWare Player.” Some obscure permission errors (VMWare reports that it can’t open the image or some related file) were fixed by adding my login to the ‘disk’ group so VMWare could read the raw disk, and giving the /dev/hda device group-read-write access (sudo chmod g+rw /dev/hda – there’s a way to do this permanently…). I confirmed VMWare was installed correctly by downloading and running one of the many VMs that can be found at the VMWare Virtual Appliance Marketplace. After a few tweaks to the settings in the Windows-from-disk virtual machine configuration file windows.vmdk and generating a separate file for the MBR from the disk, booting into the VM produced by startup GRUB menu! Selecting a Linux partition started Linux, but selecting the Windows partition just hung after the message “chainloader +1″.

It’s progress. Now to Google around and see what the next tweak needs to be…

What I’m listening to…

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July has found me working out more often and more consistently. One of the big challenges with staying on an exercise machine is the tedium. It is boring. I’ve found audiocasts have helped me pass the time, occupy my mind and make me feel the time spent is more worthwhile. This month and last, I’ve listened to:

I’ll plug them any chance I get: the GigaVox network has some of the best, most interesting, high-quality audiocasts for techies on the web. I’m a contributing member and I encourage you to do the same.

blog.pmarca.com: Essential HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and miscellaneous cheatsheets

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Marc Andreessen’s got a blog, entering its fifth week, and he’s been posting some great stuff. Lots of interesting insights, but useful links, too. Here’s a compendium of blog.pmarca.com: Essential HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, and miscellaneous cheatsheets. Prepare to spend a couple hours surfing!

Link via Havoc Pennington.

Wicked weather this way comes…

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“Cap’n, the dilithium crystals can’na take much more of this…” We’ve been getting battered by thunderstorms for days on end, a pretty unusual weather pattern for northern New England. Normally, we’ll get a line of showers through after a hot spell as cold air blows in. But we’ve been deluged since Sunday with oppressive clouds, lots of lightning and thunder, occasional downpours, ominous mid-day darkness and several blackouts. That’s a good reminder to make sure all your precious electronics are on surge suppressors or UPSes. The UPS on the iMac died an ugly death after a close lightening strike and power blink: it went off, beeped, kicked backed on, worked for a few seconds, beeped, went off,… I powered off the iMac quickly and disconnected the unit. Powering it up the next day, the UPS appeared to be okay, but once I put it under load again, it started showing the same symptoms.

Be careful out there. Power down everything and disconnect it from the walls when you see a storm coming in. Lightening crosses miles of open air to short-circuit the clouds to the ground; leaping across your surge suppressor isn’t even a challenge. And even if the manufacturer offers some cash coverage, it’s likely that having your machine working today, with your data and your applications up and running, is worth a lot more than the depreciated value of the hardware you might get reimbursed.