Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
On 08/03/2014 02:59 PM, King Beowulf wrote: > > Sure, Vbox can be a bit flaky. That's why I use QEMU instead. If I ever have some more spare time I'll have a look at QEMU. Thanks for mentioning it. -- Regards, Dick Steffens ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
On 08/03/2014 10:11 AM, Damo Gets wrote: > -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- > Hash: SHA256 > > G'morning Dick & King Beowulf. > > Couldn't help but notice that you both were talking about utilizing > VirtualBox here. I just wanted to mention my experiences with this > suite. I've been using Virtual Box for several years to run some old Winders programs I still use from time to time. I'm also using it to run a session of Ubuntu 10.04 because of a couple of programs that broke in different degrees between 12.04 and 14.04. They still run fine on 10.04, and are tools I use pretty much every day. I haven't had a problem with them, and I have copies on multiple machines. So, if one should fail I can restore from another. They don't hold any data, they just play audio files under the control of a foot pedal, so even if they fail while in use, nothing is lost. Thanks for the heads up, though. -- Regards, Dick Steffens ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
On 08/02/2014 11:04 PM, King Beowulf wrote: > On 08/02/2014 05:45 PM, Dick Steffens wrote: >> I've downloaded slackware64-14.1-install-dvd.iso, and the md5sum matches >> slackware64-14.1-install-dvd.md5. >> >> I've created an empty virtual box virtual machine with 1024 MB memory >> and 8 GB virtual drive. >> >> I've pointed the virtual DVD drive to the above mentioned .iso and >> started the virtual machine. >> >> Where can I find instructions on partitioning that virtual 8 GB? The >> tutorials that I've found all tell me to partition the space for a >> primary partition and a swap partition, and assume that I know how to do >> that. Does anyone know where to find something that spells out what to >> call that virtual drive for fdisk? Also, since the purpose of the >> installation is just to get to know Slackware, what is the recommended >> swap partition size? I recall something about making it some multiple of >> the memory, but don't recall if that was 1:1 or something else. >> >> Thanks for the advice. >> > You don't need a swap partition for the VirtualBox VM. > > Just create one partition with cfdisk once you boot the > DVD and log in. Yeah. Other reading confirmed your recommendation. > I would recommend the following: > > 1. Use 20GB for the VM disk. A full slackware install is ~7GB+ so > you'll want some room to play. Virtualbox can be set to grow/shrink the > virtual disk as needed. I managed to hit 12 instead of 20. I'll have about 4.2 GB to play with for now. I can always reinstall if It I find I need more. This is just for experimentation, so I'm not too concerned about it. > 2. Once you get a base install that works/boots, tell Virtualbox to > create a snapshot. Then, if you screw something up, you can revert to > the working version of the VM. I'll do that. > 3. Virtualbox has a backup function > > Slackware has an "official" documentation wiki; check it out: > > http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:install > http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:beginners_guide Thanks. -- Regards, Dick Steffens ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
On 08/02/2014 06:12 PM, Rich Shepard wrote: > On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Dick Steffens wrote: > >> Where can I find instructions on partitioning that virtual 8 GB? The >> tutorials that I've found all tell me to partition the space for a primary >> partition and a swap partition, and assume that I know how to do that. >> Does anyone know where to find something that spells out what to call that >> virtual drive for fdisk? > Dick, > > I have a small virtualbox drive on my laptop mounted as /mnt/vm. Perhaps > the mount command will tell you the name. Following your recommendation, below, cfdisk didn't require me to know in advance that the virtual hard drive is SDA, it just offered to format the drive it found. > For partitioning, I use cfdisk; it's a bit more friendly than plain fdisk. Indeed it was. > The swap partition (type 83) is generally twice the memory. Given the size > of your virtual hard drive that would not be a limiting factor. I'll save that for when I do an install on hardware. As I discovered, the VM takes care of that stuff. > Even on an installation for learning I'd suggest three partitions: /, > swap, and /home. Depending on what you intend to do with the virtual machine > I'd divide the non-swap partitions (type 82) equally, 60/40 (either way) or > 70/30 (either way). That will give you sufficient room to play, work, and > learn the distribution. Thanks. I think I'll just stick with the single partition for now. -- Regards, Dick Steffens ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
On 08/02/2014 06:11 PM, Larry Brigman wrote: > For virtual machines, don't do any swap and only one partition. Further reading confirmed that the VM takes care of swap issues. Thanks. -- Regards, Dick Steffens ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
On 08/03/2014 10:11 AM, Damo Gets wrote: > G'morning Dick & King Beowulf. > > Couldn't help but notice that you both were talking about utilizing > VirtualBox here. I just wanted to mention my experiences with this > suite. > > I've had to rely on it at several points in the past, during low budget > periods of geeking out. It worked very well for me for awhile; that > is, until I started having some hard crashes for my host, while the VM > was running. > > It wasn't until this had happened a couple of times that I ran into an > unrecoverable situation, but I'd had friends with more IT experience > than myself telling me for some time to migrate away from Virtual Box > due to its fondness for eating disk images. > ... > So I guess, yeah, I just wanted to mention, tread softly on that > beast. If you're doing anything involved, it might be a lot better to > go with VMWare, or the like. I've never had any problems with VMWare, > ever. > > Just my own experiences in the matter. Best wishes, y'all! > > > -- > > Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the owner of this > corporeal, rotting porksuit, nor its fiat-currency waving handlers. > > -Damo > For just fooling around, VirtualBox is fine. Its easy to set up and use. I don't think Dick was worried about a "production environment" but was just looking for an easy way to install and test new linux distros. Sure, Vbox can be a bit flaky. That's why I use QEMU instead. -Ed ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA256 G'morning Dick & King Beowulf. Couldn't help but notice that you both were talking about utilizing VirtualBox here. I just wanted to mention my experiences with this suite. I've had to rely on it at several points in the past, during low budget periods of geeking out. It worked very well for me for awhile; that is, until I started having some hard crashes for my host, while the VM was running. It wasn't until this had happened a couple of times that I ran into an unrecoverable situation, but I'd had friends with more IT experience than myself telling me for some time to migrate away from Virtual Box due to its fondness for eating disk images. I had run a very customized and personally configured BBS server, along with kerberos, LDAP, and multiple other headache-inducing virtual machines on some of these systems. Unfortunately, after digging through and being able to recover them a couple of times, I ran into a case where I couldn't even restore to a former snapshot. I was a little unhappy, to say the least, and contacted technical support regarding the issue. The developers flat out told me not to utilize the snapshot function for any sort of functional backups. That would've been kind of nice to know in the docs, you know? Regardless, I kept at it, being much more anal with the extent of my tarred & compressed backups. Unfortunately I was not anal enough. I lost another few machines & disk images, and I was done with it. There's no way I'll use VirtualBox ever again without having a periodic, at least daily, rsync script feeding incremental changes to a local or reliable, remote server. So I guess, yeah, I just wanted to mention, tread softly on that beast. If you're doing anything involved, it might be a lot better to go with VMWare, or the like. I've never had any problems with VMWare, ever. Just my own experiences in the matter. Best wishes, y'all! - -- Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the owner of this corporeal, rotting porksuit, nor its fiat-currency waving handlers. - -Damo -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.13 (OpenBSD) iF4EAREIAAYFAlPebTwACgkQerX40lUXtCOKpQEAlkaGFOfdkeYEEtL0FLME8roH 8Gktjcgv1REqLCmSEhUA/iMcjuEcRVEppJbGYcQxObuqOpyvy6rxVGVL34yeDXT3 =V1a+ -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
On 08/02/2014 05:45 PM, Dick Steffens wrote: > I've downloaded slackware64-14.1-install-dvd.iso, and the md5sum matches > slackware64-14.1-install-dvd.md5. > > I've created an empty virtual box virtual machine with 1024 MB memory > and 8 GB virtual drive. > > I've pointed the virtual DVD drive to the above mentioned .iso and > started the virtual machine. > > Where can I find instructions on partitioning that virtual 8 GB? The > tutorials that I've found all tell me to partition the space for a > primary partition and a swap partition, and assume that I know how to do > that. Does anyone know where to find something that spells out what to > call that virtual drive for fdisk? Also, since the purpose of the > installation is just to get to know Slackware, what is the recommended > swap partition size? I recall something about making it some multiple of > the memory, but don't recall if that was 1:1 or something else. > > Thanks for the advice. > You don't need a swap partition for the VirtualBox VM. Virtualbox will take care of running out of "memory." You can get by with just one partition to start and worry about partition schemes later. On mechanical drives, a good partition scheme helps with data backup and hard drive crash recovery. This is pretty much worthless on vm: if the VM gets corrupted, all the partitions are toast anyway - use snapshots or overlays. Just create one partition with cfdisk once you boot the DVD and log in. I would recommend the following: 1. Use 20GB for the VM disk. A full slackware install is ~7GB+ so you'll want some room to play. Virtualbox can be set to grow/shrink the virtual disk as needed. 2. Once you get a base install that works/boots, tell Virtualbox to create a snapshot. Then, if you screw something up, you can revert to the working version of the VM. 3. Virtualbox has a backup function Slackware has an "official" documentation wiki; check it out: http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:install http://docs.slackware.com/slackware:beginners_guide -Ed ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
For virtual machines, don't do any swap and only one partition. On Aug 2, 2014 5:46 PM, "Dick Steffens" wrote: > I've downloaded slackware64-14.1-install-dvd.iso, and the md5sum matches > slackware64-14.1-install-dvd.md5. > > I've created an empty virtual box virtual machine with 1024 MB memory > and 8 GB virtual drive. > > I've pointed the virtual DVD drive to the above mentioned .iso and > started the virtual machine. > > Where can I find instructions on partitioning that virtual 8 GB? The > tutorials that I've found all tell me to partition the space for a > primary partition and a swap partition, and assume that I know how to do > that. Does anyone know where to find something that spells out what to > call that virtual drive for fdisk? Also, since the purpose of the > installation is just to get to know Slackware, what is the recommended > swap partition size? I recall something about making it some multiple of > the memory, but don't recall if that was 1:1 or something else. > > Thanks for the advice. > > -- > Regards, > > Dick Steffens > > ___ > PLUG mailing list > PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
Re: [PLUG] Slackware on Virtual Box
On Sat, 2 Aug 2014, Dick Steffens wrote: > Where can I find instructions on partitioning that virtual 8 GB? The > tutorials that I've found all tell me to partition the space for a primary > partition and a swap partition, and assume that I know how to do that. > Does anyone know where to find something that spells out what to call that > virtual drive for fdisk? Dick, I have a small virtualbox drive on my laptop mounted as /mnt/vm. Perhaps the mount command will tell you the name. For partitioning, I use cfdisk; it's a bit more friendly than plain fdisk. The swap partition (type 83) is generally twice the memory. Given the size of your virtual hard drive that would not be a limiting factor. Even on an installation for learning I'd suggest three partitions: /, swap, and /home. Depending on what you intend to do with the virtual machine I'd divide the non-swap partitions (type 82) equally, 60/40 (either way) or 70/30 (either way). That will give you sufficient room to play, work, and learn the distribution. Happy computing, Rich ___ PLUG mailing list PLUG@lists.pdxlinux.org http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
