How to (manually) mount a shared folder with VBox with Ubuntu guest.

Well, it is supposed that this "mounting/sharing thing" should do it all automatically, and seems like for many people it does, but sadly not for me.

I've been using vbox for the last few years, and I have never been able to use that functionality, not at least without some console work first. The problem is that every time I want to share something, providing I don't have access to what I need via gmail or ssh, I need to use some sort of share folder between my host and my guest. So I always find my self in the situation where I don't know how to do it, and my google-job starts over again.

So, this time I wanna record what I've done (and perhaps millions of others, previously), so that I could find it easily later (and others, too).

Well my guest is a Linux (Ubuntu 12.04 64 bits) and my Host is Mac OSX 10.7.5.

So, first I create the shared folder in Vbox, as shown in the figure below:

Here we can see the directory Iam trying to share, and the name I gave it, "opnet" (this I will be using later in the mount command at the shell).

Once I click "Ok", it is supposed to auto mount in the /media directory of my guest (Ubuntu), but that's not what happens.

So, in order to use the directory, I have to open a terminal session, and mount the directory with the command:

sudo mount -t vboxsf opnet /media/shared-folder

Ok, and that's it. Now I have access to the opnet resource in my Ubuntu Guest.

Reference

https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch04.html#sharedfolders

D key showing the desktop in XRDP

After trying many remote desktop clients for Ubuntu 11.04, I finally decided to use XRDP.

But when I started using it, I encountered one (big) problem, by pressing the "d" key, all my windows minimizes and the desktop was shown. Well, for those of us who live more in a terminal window, that could be a real problem.

I've tried two solutions, I don't exactly know which of them worked (maybe both of them), but as I google it for a solution, many people seem to solve the problem with either one of them, i will include both situations here:

1 - Change in System Preferences

• Go to System-->Preferences->Keyboard Shortcuts
• Find the entry "Hide all normal windows and set focus to the desktop"
• Here, change the default value (the d letter) or disable it (that's what I did)

2 - Change with gconf-editor

• Open a terminal windows
• Write gconf-editor to launch the program
• Go to app --> metacity --> global key binding
• Find the "show_desktop" option
• Change the value to a different key combination or  "disabled"it.
• Close and restart (I think it is mandatory)

Well, that's all for now. I hope it would be helpful for others, too.

Reference: Ubuntu Forum 

XRDP for Linux

I've trying to use remote desktop in Ubuntu for a while, but the default option available is not working for me, well at least not as I expected. First of all, I wanted to change the default port, but with the latest update it seems not possible (ubuntu 11.04).  Another thing is that once I get connected, it can only let me "share" my desktop (ie, let other see/interact with my session).

I was looking for some more "windows remote desktop" like version, and that's not definitely what Ubuntu has.

I've tried x11VNC server, but it was even more complicated. It worked, but once I started it, the application menu disappears and the only way to close it was by killing it, awkward.

Well, after a lot of time looking for some "useful" remote desktop app, I found XRDP for Linux. It was easy to install, configure and use. I can change many setting in a "unix like" manner, by editing a .conf file and that's it. In a few minutes I had a running version of my xrdp up and running.

In the middle, I've found some (annoying) problems, but that is a subject of other post. So far, my xrdp is fully functional and save me a lot of time by allowing me working from home. That's precisely what i have looking for.

Installing CM7 on a nook color

A friend of mine lend me a tablet (from Barnes & Noble), and I wanted to try it out, but with some more "open"version of Android.

In order to install it, I've found in the xda-developers forum a great post about how to download and install Android into this tablet. I've tried out and it worked great!.

Right now I'm trying it, specially for books reading. To start, I've installed Moon+Reader. I will write some reviews after a while, to see my experience with this reader.

The tutorial could be read here (great job!)
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1000957

The only thing I have to add, is that after  copying the image to the sd card by using the "dd command", then a "Backup"partition is created with 130 MB of size.  At the beginning I didn't understand this, but then I just copied the CM7 image file into this partition and booted into the nook device. After this, the new version of Android (CM7) started to install.

More info about these to come (I hope!!).

How to restore Grub after installing a new kernel (or Windows)

To reinstall my working grub, i've read and applied the steps mentioned in this tutorial. It worked like charm!

Using Ubuntu 9.10 livecd or higher
Here assuming the Ubuntu partition is sda7,and /boot partition is sda6 (if you have a separate /boot partition).
Boot up ubuntu from the livecd,open terminal and run:

sudo -i
mount /dev/sda7 /mnt
mount /dev/sda6 /mnt/boot  #skip this one if not have a separate /boot partition
grub-install --root-directory=/mnt/ /dev/sda

If you miss “grub.cfg” file,use following to recreate:

mount --bind /proc /mnt/proc
mount --bind /dev /mnt/dev
mount --bind /sys /mnt/sys
chroot /mnt update-grub
umount /mnt/sys
umount /mnt/dev
umount /mnt/proc
exit

can't set the locale; make sure $LC_* and $LANG are correct problem in Ubuntu 11.10 (32 bits)

I had this problem after installing Ubuntu 11.10 (32 bits). From a terminal, every time I executed some commands (apt-get install, update, man xxx, etc), some locale warnings appeared, like this one

can't set the locale; make sure $LC_* and $LANG are correct

Also this error messages were shown:
Cannot set LC_TYPE to default locale: No such file or directory

I solved the problem by adding in /etc/environment the following line
LC_ALL="en_US.utf8"

and then rebooting the system.

With this line, everything worked just fine. No more errors/warnings at the console!!

sshd not enabled in Ubuntu 11.10

I don't know why my Ubuntu installations does not have sshd enabled by default. I always have to install sshd after the system installation is complete.

I issue the following comand in order to install ssh server and client (if the later is not already installed)


sudo apt-get install openssh-server openssh-client


Then I just can try it typing the command
ssh localhost



And from a remote host
ssh server-ip


With all of these performed, everything worked like charm

update-apt-xapi takes lot of cpu usage

I've had the same situation described here http://naveenubuntu.blogspot.com/2011/10/ubuntu-update-apt-xapi-takes-lot-of-cpu.html. Every time I tried to use anything, update process takes all available cpu time.

I solved the problem by following the indications mentioned in the above post (actually, what solved the problem was to kill -9 the process and then chmod it).

How to install D-Link G-132 in Ubuntu (32 bits only)

I've tried to install my old wireless adapter, but with no satisfactory results. I've read a lot of posts I found in the internet, but none of them worked.

When I was about to give it up, I found one great article from a guy from brazil nick named Vindemiatrix (based on its forum domain , i assume) who solved the problem.

Well, I'm not going to "copy/paste"the whole post, I'm only referencing the article so other people could use it as well.

http://www.tocadoelfo.com.br/2010/08/d-link-dwl-g-132-no-linuxubuntu.html

Basically, he downloaded ndiswrapper, the drivers from d-link official site, and then installed them.

The only thing I have to mention, is that it only works on 32 bits architecture. I've tried with 64 bits with no successful results (dmesg warms about the problem with 64 bits).

I hope this helps anybody else in the same situation!.