Check the version of numpy

NumPy is the fundamental package needed for scientific computing with Python, see link for more information. To get the version of the installed numpy package, in a Python shell (e.g., IPython), do:

import numpy
numpy.version.version

~ts

Keep getting "Enter your password to perform administrative task" in Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat custom install

I have a custom Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat install using alternate install. Part of the minimal install was a lean GNOME configuration with only the bare minimum applications installed.

I have added synaptic and update-manager to keep the system up to date using GUI application. The issue was that when I open up Synaptic, I keep getting:

Enter your password to perform administrative task

To fix this, add desktop-base, thus say:

sudo aptitude install desktop-base

Enjoy!

~ts

Load langs.xml failed! in Notepad++

I got Notepad++ 5.7 installed in Windows 7 Professional, used to work nicely but lately I am getting the following error:

Load langs.xml failed!

One reason could be that lang.xml got corrupted. This is not unexpected as Windows 7 I am using tends to hang-up and I need to force a hard reboot.

One way to fix this is to:
1) Navigate to C:\Program Files\Notepad++.
2) Rename lang.xml to lang.xml.1.
3) Copy lang.model.xml to lang.xml

Enjoy!

References:
http://superuser.com/questions/67128/notepad-load-langs-xml-failed

~ts

How to provide MSAA Name for MFC edit controls

Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) can be used in GUI test automation or for accessibility. For test automation purposes, IAccessible::get_accName can be used to retrieve name of an edit box. To make this to work for MFC based applications, the tab order sequence should be modified such that the static label at the left of the edit box is one number lower. For example, if the edit box's tab order number is 5, the static label on the left should have tab order of 4. For MFC based application created using VS2010, menu Format | Tab Order (Ctrl + D) should show the order sequence graphically.

Note that this is applicable to the following test automation tools/frameworks:
- Test Partner
- Rational Robot
- UI Automation

Just to stress this out again, you need to have a static label to the left of the edit box for this work.

Enjoy!

References:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd373597(v=VS.85).aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd318483(VS.85).aspx

~ts

Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat in VirtualBox

Ubuntu 10.10 was released 10/10/10 (October 10, 2010) what an amazing date. The new version was praised with the latest packages (kernel 2.6.35, gcc 4.4.5, Firefox 3.6.12, GNOME 2.32.0 and many more). The fanfare was heavily geared towards the new Ununtu font that was purported to be crisp and clear.

Since everyone is busy and I have time to mock around with the new distro, I made a series of screen captures that shows the installation sequence and a peek at how the desktop looks like.

I have done this using Virtualbox 3.2.10, see below for my configuration:

General
Name: ubu1010
OS Type: Ubuntu
 
System
Base Memory: 1024 MB
Processor(s): 1
Boot Order: CD/DVD-ROM, Hard Disk
VT-x/AMD-V: Enabled
Nested Paging: Enabled
 
Display
Video Memory: 12 MB
3D Acceleration: Disabled
2D Video Acceleration: Disabled
Remote Display Server: Disabled
 
Storage
IDE Controller 
  IDE Secondary Master (CD/DVD): Empty
SATA Controller 
  SATA Port 0: ubu1010.vdi (Normal, 120.00 GB)
 
Audio
Host Driver: Windows DirectSound
Controller: ICH AC97
 
Network
Adapter 1: Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (Bridged adapter, Microsoft Loopback Adapter)

Serial Ports
Disabled

USB
Device Filters: 0 (0 active)

Shared Folders
None

With VirtualBox guest ready, it is time to load ISO image(ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso). Below are the series of screen captures as the OS is being installed.

Figure 1. Boot-up screen

Figure 2. Preparing to install

Figure 3. Allocate drive space

Figure 4. Confirm allocation of drive space

Figure 5. Your current location, this will be used for calculating your local time.

Figure 6. Select your keyboard layout, defaults are normally okay.

Figure 7. This would be the first user of this computer

Figure 8. Welcom to Ubuntu 10.10

Figure 9. Installation complete, now reboot!!!

Figure 10. Login screen

Figure 11. GNOME desktop, system now ready.

Comparing with OpenSUSE 11.3, the installation experience, personally, is more polished in Ubuntu 10.10 but it is just me...

I have been enjoying Maverick Meerkat so far, though I admit I am only using it to surf the web. For good reason, I feel safer using *nix based OS wondering around the net.

Enjoy!!!

QNX Momentics TFTP server is not running

I have QNX Momentics 4.6.0 running in Cent OS 5.4 and I was trying to load QNX board support package using TFTP server but I couldn't make it to work.

Looking at the Momentics TFTP server view shows:

Cannot start server: error: Unable to bind to server port.

This go me thinking about xinetd super service deamon but it was not running. Then I came to realize that of course the IDE was not running as root. So, to upload data to the tftp client, Momentics should be run as root user.

~ts

Loading Freescale P1020 board support package via tftp in Momentics

Relevant information:
  Development System: Windows XP Sp3 with QNX SDP 6.5.0 (this is only to demonstrate loading via tftp. BSP for P1020 in QNX foundry was documented as targeted for QNX 6.4.1)
  Target: P1020RDB

Host machine preparation:
Step 1. Download Freescale P1020 board support package, see this link. As of this writing, we only have support for QNX 6.4.1. I have it saved in D:\tmp\bsp-nto641-freescale-p1020-rdb-trunk-201009282107.zip. Take note that they continually update this package so the name may change.

Step 2. Extract the zip file, it should look like this: D:\tmp\bsp-nto641-freescale-p1020-rdb-trunk-201009282107.

Step 3. Open QNX Momentics (assuming you have this installed already).

Step 4. Open Resource Perspective (Window -> Open Perspective -> Other..., then select Resource).

Step 5. In Resource Perspective, create new project, i.e.:
  a) File -> New -> Project...
  b) Select General -> Project
  c) For project name type data, leave the  rest as default values.
  d) From Project Explorer, select data then do New -> Folder.
  e) Click Advanced >>.
  f) Click Link to folder in the file system.
  g) Browse to D:\tmp\bsp-nto641-freescale-p1020-rdb-trunk-201009282107\images. (Change folder structure as appropriate).
  h) Click Finish.

Step 6. Open Preferences ( Window -> Preferences) and navigate to QNX -> Tftp Server -> User Search Paths.

Step 7. Do click on New...

Step 8. Click on Browse Workspace... select data -> images then click on OK.

Step 9. Close Preferences dialog box.

Step 10. Change to QNX System Builder Perspective.

Step 11. From TFTP Server view (located in lower left in default layout or do Window -> Show View -> TFTP Server). Select Tftp Server Input -> User Search Path. Now we are ready for the host development machine.

Step 12. Install Tera Term or something similar. Set serial port (baud rate = 115200, data = 8bit, parity = none, stop = 1bit, flow control = none).

Target machine preparation:
Step 1. Connect P1020 (UART0) to your development machine.

Step 2. Connect CAT-5 (ethernet) cable to the same switch as your development machine. You can use the port closest to the first USB connector.

Step 3. Power on P1020, wait for the uboot prompt (note that you may have to press ESC to prevent it from booting into the default boot media).

Step 4.  Type setevn ipaddr 192.168.0.254 (where 192.168.0.254 is an available address in your network, this should also be reachable by your development machine).

Step 5. Save changes, type saveenv.

Step 6. Load QNX image, type tftpboot 0x100000 192.168.0.108:ifs-p1020rdb.raw. Where 192.168.0.108 is the IP address of the development machine.

Step 7: Jump to QNX OS, type go 0x100000.

You should now have QNX running in your P1020RDB board.

Enjoy

~ts

Enjoy Linux tools in Windows via Cygwin

Many of us don't have a choice but a Windows environment, be it XP, 2k3, W2k8, W7. If you are working for a company that is a Windows shop, you have few options and probably not supported by IT.

One can install Linux/OpenSolaris/QNX/BSD on a virtual machine to enjoy the fun offered by this operating systems. Another option would be to use Cygwin. Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows, for more information please visit their website.

I normally configure my Cygwin installation with the following packages installed:
- Base package (default selection)
- Emacs
- MinTTY
- Python

This selection makes me comfortable [happy :)] in any Windows enviroment (ease of use and power of Windows + power of Linux/Unix tools).

~ts

Installing a light-weight svn server in Windows

For those who are not familiar with SVN, it is a revision/version control system. This is much the same as CVS or Microsoft SourceSafe. The good thing with SVN is that it is designed to be a better CVS, so most features of CVS can also be expected of SVN. Directories, renames and file meta-data are versioned as well. Commits are truly atomic, meaning no part of a commit takes effect until the entire commit has succeeded. SVN can also use HTTP-based WebDAV/DeltaV protocol for network communications and the Apache web server to provide repository-side network service. It also has a standalone server option which is what we are going to discuss here how to setup in Windows XP OS. And a lot more. Visit http://subversion.tigris.org/ for more information.

Outlined below is one of the means to install/setup a standalone svn server.

1) Goto http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=91
2) Download http://subversion.tigris.org/files/documents/15/36797/svn-1.4.3-setup.exe or later version.
3) Run the installer, it should put the files in C:\Program Files\Subversion\.
4) Create a folder somewhere, say d:\svnserve.
5) Copy the following files from C:\Program Files\Subversion\bin
a) intl3_svn.dll
b) libapr.dll
c) libapriconv.dll
d) libaprutil.dll
e) libdb44.dll
f) libeay32.dll
g) ssleay32.dll
h) svnserve.exe

6) On the repository directory edit conf\svnserve.conf. Enable/uncomment "anon-access = read", "auth-access = write", and "password-db = passwd"
7) On the repository directory edit conf\passwd. Under [users] add a user and a password.
8) In d:\svnserve, run
svnserve.exe --daemon --root drive:\path\to\repository

For more information visit http://www.excastle.com/blog/archive/2005/05/31/1048.aspx

Update:
Version 1.6.4 can be downloaded from here (link).
Version 1.6.5 can be downloaded from here (link)
Version 1.6.6 can be downloaded from here (link)
~ts

Embed Javascript in blog post

This shows a simple example of embedding Javascript in blogger. Not sure if this is supported as it messes up the anchor tag when post is edited using "Compose" instead of "Edit HTML".

Click on "Hello world" below to see Javascript in action.
Hello world


The key to embed the script is the CDATA tag.

Hello world

Reference(s):
Adding javascript to Blogger posts (link)

Screen capture tour of OpenSUSE 11.3 installation

This is a screen capture tour of installing OpenSUSE 11.3 in VirtualBox guest machine. I have been trying to do a screen capture documentation of the top 5 linux distributions from www.distrowatch.com. So far, this is the first distribution that suggests to have 1GB of RAM during LiveCD installation.

Though the 1GB requirement is unusual, the installation is straightforward. As can be expected from the top linux distributions nowadays, all of the activities are being done through GUI.

Below is my guest configuration:

General
Name: opensuse113
OS Type: openSUSE
 
System
Base Memory: 1024 MB
Processor(s): 1
Boot Order: CD/DVD-ROM, Hard Disk
VT-x/AMD-V: Enabled
Nested Paging: Enabled
 
Display
Video Memory: 12 MB
3D Acceleration: Disabled
2D Video Acceleration: Disabled
Remote Display Server: Disabled
 
Storage
IDE Controller 
  IDE Secondary Master (CD/DVD): Empty
SATA Controller
  SATA Port 0: opensuse113.vdi (Normal, 120.00 GB)

Audio
Host Driver: Windows DirectSound
Controller: ICH AC97
 
Network
Adapter 1: Intel PRO/1000 MT Desktop (Bridged adapter, Microsoft Loopback Adapter)
 
Serial Ports
Disabled

USB
Device Filters: 0 (0 active)

For this post, I have used Live KDE ISO for the installation.

Figure 1. Boot menu

Figure 2. Language, keyboard and EULA

Figure 3. Clock and time zone setting

Figure 4. Suggested partition layout

Figure 5. Create new (default) user as well as set the root password

Figure 6. Display the current installation settings

Figure 7. Confirm installation, note that if this is being done on a bare metal machine, this can be a destructive operation. For a virtual machine, we are safe to continue here.

Figure 8. Installation complete, reboot machine.

Figure 9. Full KDE desktop!!!

This is the most streamlined install I have ever done on a Linux distribution. Kudos to the OpenSUSE team for making the user experience wonderful.

Version info:
Linux kernel: 2.6.34-12-default
KDE: 4.4.4 Release 2
Firefox: 3.6.6

~ts

Installing VirtualBox guest additions in Mandriva 2010 Spring

In this blog post, I have documented via screen capture how to install Mandriva 2010 Spring. I haven't explicitly mentioned that it was being done in VirtualBox guest machine as it does not really matter much, at least for the most part not unless you have a hardware that is not supported by the distribution out of the box.

Mandriva installed VirtualBox guest additions by default but using OSE.

[timus@localhost bin]$ /usr/bin/VBoxControl -v
3.1.8_OSEr61349

What's nice with VirtualBox is that it is progressing at a very quick pace, releasing an update almost on a monthly basis. Majority of the changes since 3.1.8 are small enhancements and bug fixes. You have two options in keeping current, using OSE version or PUEL version. In this post, I will document updating guest additions based on PUEL.

Online repositories are not setup by default in Mandriva, I believe this is a conscious decision to detect the best connection where the user is located. To setup the software online repositories, drill to "Application Launcher Menu() | Tools | System Tools | Configure Your Computer". This can also be accessed from the Plasma Panel . This functionality requires root privileges. Then, select and open Software Management | Configure media sources for install and update.  Click on Add button, then Full set of sources, then hit on Yes. Wait and relax, this can take several seconds on fast internet connection. Once the update is done, you will be presented with a pre-selected items, the default selection should be fine, so click on Ok button.

While we are in this window, it is not a bad idea to try to update the system for any new version of the software, so do Software Management | Update your system. Follow the screen instructions to update your system. Once done, close Mandriva Linux Control Center.

Next, we have to install linux sources. To accomplish this quickly, we need to drop to CLI (command line interface). Do Application Launcher Menu | Tools | Konsole.

From the console, we need to elevate our privileges to a root user, so:

[timus@localhost ~]$ su
Password: 
[root@localhost timus]# 

Here, we issued su command (super user). Supply the root password as required. You should now see root@localhost.

Next stop, install linux sources and devel packages.

[root@localhost timus]# urpmi kernel-`uname -r |cut -d- -f2`-devel-latest kernel-`uname -r | cut -d- -f2`-devel-`uname -r | cut -d- -f1`

This is a long command, if you like to do it quick do copy and paste.

This should not take long on fast internet connection (8Mbps). We should now be ready to install PUEL VirtualBox Guest Additions. From the main VirtualBox menu, do Devices | Install Guest Additions.... You should get a popup that a media has been plugged in, click on VBOXADDITIONS_x.y.z, then select Open with File Manager. This will mount the virtual cdrom for us.

Figure 1. Open with File Manager.

Now, back to the console, do:

[root@localhost /]# cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS_3.2.8_64453/
[root@localhost VBOXADDITIONS_3.2.8_64453]# ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run 

Of course, VBOXADDITIONS_3.2.8_64453 maybe different in your system depending on your current version number. If all goes well, you should see something like this:

Verifying archive integrity... All good.
Uncompressing VirtualBox 3.2.8 Guest Additions for Linux........
VirtualBox Guest Additions installer
You appear to have a version of the VBoxGuestAdditions software
on your system which was installed from a different source or using a
different type of installer.  If you installed it from a package from your
Linux distribution or if it is a default part of the system then we strongly
recommend that you cancel this installation and remove it properly before
installing this version.  If this is simply an older or a damaged
installation you may safely proceed.

Do you wish to continue anyway? [yes or no]
y
Attempt to remove old DKMS modules...
Done.
Building the VirtualBox Guest Additions kernel modules
Building the main Guest Additions module                        [  OK  ]
Building the shared folder support module                       [  OK  ]
Building the OpenGL support module                              [  OK  ]
Doing non-kernel setup of the Guest Additions                   [  OK  ]
You should restart your guest to make sure the new modules are actually used

Installing the Window System drivers
Installing X.Org Server 1.7 modules                             [  OK  ]
Setting up the Window System to use the Guest Additions         [  OK  ]
You may need to restart the hal service and the Window System (or just restart
the guest system) to enable the Guest Additions.

Installing graphics libraries and desktop services components   [  OK  ]

If you have made this far, that means that you have updated your guest additions successfully. Reboot the system and enjoy!!!

Note that if you receive new versions of VirtualBox that you only have to do the steps from mounting the guest additions from VirtualBox main menu downwards.

References:
VPNClient - How to configure & install Kernel Headers (link)
~ts

Screen capture tour of Mandriva 2010 Spring installation

Mandriva 2010 Spring was released July 8, 2010. It comes with kernel 2.6.33 (2.6.33.5-desktop586-2mnb), KDE 4.4.3 and Firefox 3.6.6. It actually comes with tons of applications.

Its a pretty good distribution, I particular like the functionality where it removes any unnecessary packages during the installation. I haven't seen this in Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, PCLinuxOS, Mint, OpenSUSE nor CentOS.

What follows is a series of screen captures installing this distribution.

Figure 1. Boot menu

Figure 2. Language, this will be the language that will be used by the system.

Figure 3. License agreement, of course click Accept to continue if you are happy with the agreement.

Figure 4. Timezone, this will be used to show correct local time.

Figure 5. Allows you to select the correct time, on some machines the BIOS can be set to localtime or UTC.

Figure 6. Select appropriate keyboard for your system.

Figure 7. Start of the Wizard for installing the rest of the system.

Figure 8. Partition layout, in my case I am installing this on VirtualBox guest machine so the default are just fine.

Figure 9. Remove unused packages, this is I believe a first in Mandriva, at least when I wrote this blog. I saw that it did try to remove unused drivers and packages that I will not be needing on this virtual machine.

Figure 10. Boot loader options, for multiboot machines like having Windows, Linux, Solaris in one machine, you may have to pay attention here otherwise the default will be fine.

Figure 11. Select the image that will be used to used to boot the machine, in a virtual machine environment default is fine.

Figure 12. Installation of Mandriva is now complete!!! Restart the system, next would be to configure the system.

Figure 13. See up root password and add a user. Root user is the superuser of the system.

Figure 14. Congratulations!!! you've now a working Mandriva system.

Figure 15. Register an account with Mandriva, this is optional but this is probably the least you can do to help the distribution.

Figure 16. Upload your hardware configuration to Mandriva, again would be nice to help this distribution by letting them know of the hardware profile that users have.

Figure 17. Installation is Done!!!

Figure 18. Logon screen

Figure 19. This is a capture of how it looks like, pretty looking desktop.

Enjoy!

~ts

Disabling the beep sound in Windows machine

Some PCs have internal speaker that can be used by Windows to produce beep sound. This was inherited from old systems when sound cards were not common place.

Windows produces beep sound on many cases. One being when user presses enter key on a treeview control or an enter key on a textbox control. This is used to alert the user that the input is not acceptable for the control with the focus.

But when you are using "SendKeys{System.Windows.Forms.Sendkeys}" to simulate keystrokes, this can get annoying.

To disable this beep sound in Windows XP (should be applicable to Windows 7), open Device Manager (devmgmt.msc if you are cli buff). From the View menu, select Show hidden devices. See figure below.

Figure 1. Show hidden devivces.

Then drill down to Non-Plug and Play Driver/Beep, then open properties dialog.

Figure 2. Traverse to the Beep device.

From the dialog window, goto Drivers tab then click on "Stop" button. This should immediately disable the device. If you want this to be disabled permanently, select Startup type to "Disabled" and hit on OK.

Figure 3. Beep Properties

~ts

Google Chrome cannot be installed in PCLinuxOS 2010.07

I have documented in another post that Google Chrome cannot be installed in CentOS 5.5 due to Linux Standard Base library is outdated.

I would expect differently with PCLinux OS as it is trying to get as updated as possible to the extent that the distro is releasing new version quarterly.

Here is the version of Chrome that I am trying to install:

[root@localhost Downloads]# rpm -i google-chrome-stable_current_i386.rpm 
warning: google-chrome-stable_current_i386.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID 7fac5991
error: Failed dependencies:
 lsb >= 3.2 is needed by google-chrome-stable-5.0.375.127-55887.i386

As you can see, it complains that lsb needed by the package is 3.2 but what is installed is 2.0.x.

[root@localhost Downloads]# apt-cache show lsb-release
Package: lsb-release
Section: System/Base
Installed Size: 19233
Packager: Texstar 
Version: 2.0-5pclos2007
Depends: bash
Provides: lsb-release = 2.0-5pclos2007
Architecture: i586
Size: 1
MD5Sum: 
Filename: 
Summary: Linux Standard Base tools
Description: 
 LSB version query program
 
 This program forms part of the required functionality of
 the LSB (Linux Standard Base) specification.
 
 The program queries the installed state of the distribution
 to display certain properties such as the version of the
 LSB against which the distribution claims compliance as
 well. It can also attempt to display the name and release
 of the distribution along with an identifier of who produces
 the distribution.

It is interesting to note that LSB 2.0 was released around September of 2004. So this package was not updated for 6 years. This feels like eternity in internet time.

Well, fallback to Firefox :)

~ts

Installing minimal Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid Lynx) in VirtualBox

I have been using Ubuntu for a while and I pretty much like it most of the time. It has the latest and the greatest and it looks nice too, at least that's the way I perceived it. In fact, back in Ubuntu Intreprid I played around installing a minimal Ubuntu. This time around, I would like to install a pretty much stripped down version of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx, it is kind of a minimal install that still looks like Ubuntu.

Install method has not changed much since Intreprid actually. Without further ado, let us get our hands dirty. Okay, download the latest minimal iso from Ubuntu. You can always download it from the mirrors, I find USC mirror to be quite fast.

While download is busy, let us configure our guest Ubuntu machine in VirtualBox. Here is what I have:

General
Name: ubu1004mini
OS Type: Ubuntu
 
System
Base Memory: 512 MB
Processor(s): 1
Boot Order: CD/DVD-ROM, Hard Disk
VT-x/AMD-V: Enabled
Nested Paging: Enabled
 
Display
Video Memory: 12 MB
3D Acceleration: Disabled
2D Video Acceleration: Disabled
Remote Display Server: Disabled
 
Storage
IDE Controller 
  IDE Primary Master: ubu1004mini.vdi (Normal, 80.00 GB)
  IDE Secondary Master (CD/DVD): Empty
 
Audio
Host Driver: Windows DirectSound
Controller: ICH AC97
 
Network
Adapter 1: Intel PRO/1000 MT Server (Bridged adapter, Microsoft Loopback Adapter)
 
Serial Ports
Disabled

USB
Device Filters: 0 (0 active)
 
Shared Folders
None

Once download is done, then we are ready to rock'n roll. Power-up guest machine, my case it is ubu1004mini then mount mini.iso. Figure below shows that I have selected mini.iso.

You probably need to do a reset of the guest for the machine to boot using mini.iso. Once in the boot prompt, type:

cli <ENTER>

See below for a screen capture of how it looks like.

Since I am in an English speaking country, I selected English in the figure below. Of course you can select whatever language that best fit your needs.

Select your country here, not that this can be important when selecting the correct timezone.

Since I know my keyboard layout, I select No here.

Select USA for the origin of the keyboard here. Again, select the correct information that applies you.

Select keyboard layout, commonly used layout is USA. You may leave the default value if that is your case.

Supply hostname of this machine. Linux hostnames can be as long as 64 bytes. It would be safe to use [a-zA-Z0-9] and dash for name. If you are planning to make this machine a web server, then take note that IE8 (probably IE7/IE6) have a security issue with a work-around from MS to delete the cookies instead.

In this screen, we have to select a mirror. As stated in the console text, your country may not be the best choice. For now, use your gut feel which one we would like to use. There are tools out there but if your machine is not yet up and running, you have but limited option.

Now select the mirror for the selected country. Mirror "us.archive.ubuntu.com" is pretty decent.

In most residential internet connection, you don't need an HTTP proxy so you can leave this blank. But this might not be the case if you are working for a corporation. You may need to consult with your network administrator for the HTTP proxy, if you are lucky you can probably get this information in your Windows Internet Connection configuration.

This part can take a while, so stay back and relax. Did I mention that you need to have a fast internet connection to make the experience worthwhile :).
Now it is time to set the proper time, Debain/Ubuntu guessed my timezone correctly :).

Since this is a virtual machine, I selected to use the entire disk.

Again, this is a virtual machine, so no worries. Hit ENTER to continue here.

Finally, commit partition changes to disk.

This part can take awhile... so go surf the next :)... I didn't expect that a while in this case can be as long as ~ 6hrs. Maybe my connection speed is not enough (8mbps as per the provider). But maybe I selected a slow mirror. By the way, I tried mirrors from the US and Netherlands. And oh, I got faster updates from Netherlands mirror :(.

Once base installation is done, now it is time to provide your name.

Then username...

Then password...

Re-enter password here to confirm...

Since I am not very particular with the data I store on this virtual machine, I selected not to encrypt the data in home directory.

For total system control, I selected "No automatic updates"

Again, virtual machine... so no problem install GRUB in MBR.

Since I am using VirtualBox 3.2.0 with the new "Hardware clock in UTC time" option, say "Yes" here.

Installation is done!!!

Initially thought that base install to be quick and fast but things happen. Anyway, reboot the machine then do initial login. I would recommend to shutdown the machine after this and make a snaphot.

Then do an update of base install, thus say:

[timus@localhost ~]$ sudo su
[root@localhost /home]$ aptitude update
[root@localhost /home]$ aptitude safe-upgrade

Observe that if the packages that need update includes the linux kernel, thus say linux-image-*, then a reboot is required.

Now, the moment of truth, install GNOME base with pretty icons just like a stock version of Ubuntu:

[root@localhost /home]$ aptitude install xorg gnome-core gdm gdm-themes gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf ubuntu-artwork ubuntustudio-icon-theme indicator-applet-session

This command will install 495 packages. Yap, you got it right, 495. Isn't it amazing? It checks for all the dependencies and install it for you? That's the beauty of Debian/Ubuntu. Anyway, again set back and relax, this can take a while.

By the way, the last package is required otherwise you will have an issue with OAFIID:GNOME_fastuserswitchapplet in GNOME session. Is it a bug? Mabye.

Once install is done, reboot guest machine. You should now see a GUI (gdm) for you to login. This is a good opportunity to take snapshot using VirtualBox.

To make our life a little easier, let us install synaptic.

[timus@localhost /home]$ sudo aptitude install synaptic

Actually, the above command is not necessary for this exercise but would be good to have it available in the future when installing new apps.

Since we will be compiling some stuff, let us install support packages

[timus@localhost /home]$ sudo aptitude install build-essential

From VirtualBox menu, do Devices | Install Guest Additions...
Then in GNOME menu, select Places | VBOXADDITIONS_*.

Go back to gnome-terminal and do:

[timus@localhost /home]$ cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS_3.2.0_61806
[timus@localhost /home]$ sudo ./VBoxLinuxAdditions-x86.run
[timus@localhost /home]$ sudo reboot

Enjoy!!!

~ts