I´d like to humbly propose a change in the user manual, after I spent 30 minutes of my time going in circles trying to install the Virtualbox Linux additions in Ubuntu Netbook Remix 10.4
The problem is that Ubuntu (Netbook remix is what I´m using but I suppose the regular Ubuntu does as well) comes with the root account disabled by default. So you cannot "su" to root from a shell. You always get "authentication failed" despite entering the right password. The number of incidents if you do a Google search for "su authentication failed" is mind blowing.... over 55,000 results. All why? Because the error message "authentication failed" should really say "root account logins are disabled". Now THAT would give users some hint about what is happening. But I disgress. Back to Virtualbox. "SU" not working was the first problem. The second problem was finding where Ubuntu Netbook Remix mounts the CD/DVD media. The "new" UI in the netbook edition is confusing already, but you have to go to System-> Disk utility (which has a hard disk as its icon), I thought it was fdisk or other partitioning tool but no, it actually gives information about all storage devices. Then click on Local storage->cd/dvd drive and there you will find the mount point, which on Ubuntu Netbook remix is just "/media". I WAS LOOKING FOR /MNT/CDROM or /CDROM there no such mountpoints. I was further confused because /etc/fstab does not contain anything regarding removable cd or dvd drives. So, TO MAKE A LONG STORY SHORT. Here´s my proposal to edit the VBox user manual, so in Page 63, section 4.2.3 where it says: --------- Change to the directory where your CD-ROM drive is mounted and execute as root: sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run --------- it should read --------- Change to the directory where your CD-ROM drive is mounted*. *On traditional Linux systems it is "/mnt/cdrom", in others "/mnt/media" or in more recent Debian derivatives, just "/media". Check the documentation of your Linux distribution to find your removable media mount point. and execute as root**: sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run ** Recent Debian derivatives and other distros have root log-ins disabled by default. If you enter "su" from the command line, you might get "authentication failed" even if you supply the right password. To work around this, enter "sudo -i" and then execute required VBoxLinuxAdditions .run file. --------- So here´s the procedure to get the Linux additions installed in the latest Ubuntu Netbook Remix: sudo -i cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS_3.2.6_63112 ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run FC ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This SF.net email is sponsored by Sprint What will you do first with EVO, the first 4G phone? Visit sprint.com/first -- http://p.sf.net/sfu/sprint-com-first _______________________________________________ VBox-users-community mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/vbox-users-community
