2007-06-21

Linux Boots!

What was that, Satan? You want another log for the fire? No! Bad Satan, bad! No more logs for you, I don’t care how cold it is.

EDIT: Oh, it’s not as bad as I feared. Hell hasn’t frozen over, Linux is still a pain in the backside.

Now it appears that VMWare Server won’t run on Ubuntu unless you install the kernel headers, patch the “VMMon” file (whatever that is) part-way through the installation process, recompile things, edit a load of config files in a text editor, then run a few (seemingly non-existent) Perl scripts.

That’s the Linux I’m used to - completely arse-about-face way of doing everything. And yet no-one can see a problem with this. I need to uninstall VMWare to re-install it again so that I can do all of the manual stuff. Except I’ve got better things to do. So long, VMWare. Let’s give Parallels a go instead.

EDIT EDIT: And Parallels is not much better. Steps so far:

  • Download DEB file
  • Run DEB file
  • Run Parallels - complains libqt3-mt is missing
  • Look around for solution on internet
  • Install libqt3-mt with Synaptic
  • Run Parallels - complains parallels-config has not been run
  • Run parallels-config - complains about unexpected operators and tells me to check the installation log
  • Installation log complains that it can’t find /bin/sh
  • Look around for solution on internet
  • Discover that Ubuntu doesn’t have “sh” set up as an alias for “bash”; edit three config files (“/usr/lib/parallels/autostart/drivers_start”, “/usr/lib/parallels/autostart/drivers_stop” and “/usr/bin/parallels-config”), changing the first line to “#!/bin/bash”
  • Run parallels-config - complains that it cannot compile or install link drivers and tells me to check the installation log
  • Looks like “sh” is called somewhere else in the make script that “parallels-config” is running

  • Search on the internet and come up with a solution to make a symlink to sh (I think that’s what it does):

    sudo mv /bin/sh /bin/sh.bak sudo ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh sudo parallels-config

  • Run parallels-config again; discover that it now wants prlnet.o

  • Find that I need to install “compat-libstdc++”, which doesn’t exist in any of the Ubuntu repositories

  • Find another kernel to install, which I’m now about to do.

What are the chances of this working? Zero, probably. This might be the last time I use Firefox in Ubuntu 7.04… Just for the purposes of comparison, here’s the installation method for getting Parallels running on a MacBook:

  • Download Parallels;
  • Run installer.

EDIT EDIT EDIT: It wasn’t a new kernel (despite being billed as such), it was a new build of Parallels. And - shock - it works! Windows XP is now installing under Parallels in Ubuntu. If I couldn’t see it with my own eyes I’d never have thought it possible. Well, obviously I’d have thought it possible yesterday; that’s why I’m in this mess in the first place. An hour or so ago, though, when I was fighting with VMWare; that’s different.