Build your own Linux based graphics workstation

Workstation. It’s a term in the IT industry that either gets you very excited because of the sheer performance of such systems due to the hardware associated with a workstation. Or on the other hand, the term may scare the hell out of you because workstations usually cost many thousands of dollars.

More so than an everyday desktop system designed for checking your email. Workstations are specially designed and built systems set for a specific task. The graphics and animation industry is a prime example of what workstations are used for. And that’s what we’re going to do today in this article. I’m going to show you that you can put together a Linux based workstation designed for graphics based tasks that can easily rival that of commercial workstation systems.

 Recommended hardware extras

 Dual LCD displays

Software requirements

1.  Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS
2. GIMP
3. Inkscape
4. Dia
5. Blender
6. Abiword
7. Gnumeric

Operating system: Ubuntu 10.04.4 LTS

 I’ve chosen to recommend Ubuntu 10.04.4 for our graphics workstation primarily for the fact that it has great support right through to 2015 as it is a long term support release. And also, because it still uses to Gnome 2.x base for the graphical interface. Which is a very capable graphical interface. And especially suited to the tasks required by running graphical software on a workstation. Probably more-so than Unity or Gnome 3.

 All the software below should be in the default Ubuntu repositories. So no extra tweaks or modifications are necessary other than the installation of the mentioned packages. Which can all be installed with one easy command:

 sudo apt-get install gimp inkscape dia blender abiword gnumeric

 Or if you wish, you can install each package individually.

 - GIMP

 GIMP is an absolute essential piece of software for anyone interested in image editing or design. With a large variety of functions to suit amateurs and enthusiasts right through to professionals. it features awesome file support too. GIMP is the first piece of software that you need to be installing.

 - Inkscape

The complement GIMP, you need Inkscape. Inkscape is a vector image designer and editor. And regarding its functions, it is the closet software on Linux that you’ll find to CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator. Inkscape is similar to GIMP in a sense that it does take some getting used to. Especially for users migrating over from standard commercial Windows applications. But once you get used to Inkscape, you’ll soon realize that it does everything required, plus more if you really get involved, to very professional standards.

- Dia

 Diais a neat little package that differentiates itself from both GIMP and Inkscape. Dia is designed for diagram and layout creation. Dia is very

 simple to use yet so powerful, at the same time. Once you’ve used Dia for the design and layout of your projects, you’ll never use another

package again. Definitely one of my favorites!

 - Blender

 Blender is an awesome package to say the least. And out of all the packages on the workstation, Blender is easily the most powerful, yet demanding of them all. It is powerful in a sense that it can easily compete with any commercial grade 3D creation software, which usually costs many thousands of dollars alone, on top of the cost of the workstation hardware and system itself.

 The extras: Abiword and Gnumeric

 The last two packages really are not necessary for your workstation but may come in handy. And almost an essential for any modern system, regardless of its primary purpose. Abiword for word processing and Gnumeric to handle your spreadsheet requirements.

 Once you add Abiword and Gnumeric, your workstation is ready. So go and get creative and enjoy the awesome benefits and raw processing power of what can be done on a Linux based workstation and potentially saving you thousands of dollars in the process.

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Coverflow ALT-TAB- A nice extension for Cinnamon

Coverflow ALT-TAB is a great  extension for cinnamon that  let’s you Alt-Tab through your windows in a cover-flow manner.

Installation of Coverflow extension:

1- Download coverflow extension from this link

2- Extract the extension to your desktop and copy it to  ~.local/share/cinnamon/extensions , ~.local is a hidden folder in your home directory, unhide folders before to copy.

You can do that also by command line, first extract the file and copy it to ~.local folder:

cp -r CoverflowAltTab@dmo60.de ~.local/share/cinnamon/extensions

3- When installed, go to cinnamon settings ( Menu–>Preferences–> Cinnamon settings)and activate the extension

Then activate the extension:

 

4- Now restart cinnamon, ALT + F2 and type r.

Now use the extension by pressing ALT+TAB

That`s all.

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XBMC 11 Eden RC1 has been released! PPA UBUNTU

XBMC 11 Eden RC1 has been released, this beta release comes 3 weeks after Beta3 release. According to the announcement, this release comes with a number of updated XBMC translations for final release, resolved a number of outstanding Airplay issues,  allowed specified movie sets to be sorted by title, rather than year, without changing the default sort order on other sets and added a  useful feature of IP weather look up.

For the complete change, check this link 

Installation in Ubuntu and LinuxMint:

For Installation of XBMC 11 Eden RC1 in Ubuntu and LinuxMint, you need to use this unstable PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:team-xbmc/unstable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc

For other LinuxDistro, download the package from this link

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How to Backup and Restore MySQL Database on Fedora16, Centos and Redhat

The mysqldump client is a backup program originally written by Igor Romanenko. It can be used to dump a database or a collection of databases for backup or transfer to another SQL server (not necessarily a MySQL server). The dump typically contains SQL statements to create the table, populate it, or both. However, mysqldump can also be used to generate files in CSV, other delimited text, or XML format.

 Mysql-server info

Source RPM  : mysql-5.5.20-1.fc16.src.rpm
 Build Date  : Fri 27 Jan 2012 09:17:21 AM CET
 Build Host  : x86-04.phx2.fedoraproject.org
 Relocations : (not relocatable)
 Packager    : Fedora Project
 Vendor      : Fedora Project
 URL         : http://www.mysql.com
 Summary     : The MySQL server and related files

1- Start  mysql  server

[pirat9@Fedora16 ~]$ sudo service mysqld   start

Connect  to the  Server   with

[pirat9@Fedora16 ~]$ mysql -u root -p
Output
 Enter password:
 Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
 Your MySQL connection id is 2
 Server version: 5.5.20 MySQL Community Server (GPL)

Copyright (c) 2000, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
 affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
 owners.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

mysql>

2- Create new database

In my case i created a new database called unixmen

mysql> create database unixmen;

Query OK, 1 row affected (0.00 sec)
-Show databases with

mysql> show databases;
 +--------------------+
 | Database           |
 +--------------------+
 | information_schema |
 | mysql              |
 | performance_schema |
 | test               |
 | test1              |
 | unixmen            |
 +--------------------+
 6 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

3- Backup  mysql database

Backup MySQL database to <databasebackupfiles>.sql

<databasename> = Target existing database name
<databasebackupfiles> = Preferred backed up file name

# mysqldump -u root -p <databasename> > <databasebackupfiles>.sql
 Enter password: <Type your mysql password and press enter

i will back up the database named <unixmen> to mylbackup file. This will taking backed up all the tables including the data :

# mysqldump -u root -p unixmen > backup.sql
 Enter password:

 View the content on mysqlbackup.sql

more mysqlbackup.sql

4- Restore MySQL database

To restore the backed up database named “mbackup.sql” to new database named “new” as below :

# mysql -u root -p <mysqlpassword> <databasename> < <databasebackupfiles>.sql

<mysqlpassword> = MySQL password
<databasename> = Database name that will be restore
<databasebackupfiles> = Backed up database file, normally .sql file

Create the new database mysqlnew :

mysql> CREATE DATABASE mysqlnew;
 Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

As example, i will restore the mysqlbackup.sql backed up file to database named “new” :

# mysql -u root -p password new < mysqlbackup.sql

or

mysql -u root -p new < mysqlbackup.sql

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Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin Beta1 has been released! News & Screenshots Tour

Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin Beta1 has been released! News & Screenshots Tour

It’s time to take another look at what is happening with the development of Ubuntu 12.04. As it stands, the first Beta of Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin has been released (Official Announcement), there is still no official announcement yet (Beta1 iso  has been uploaded). I just updated my own system.

Download Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin Beta1  

What changed since Alpha?  Not much, really. In fact, there’s really nothing groundbreaking or any new features added. Unity has been updated to version 5.4.0 which also sees the introduction of the new HUD feature. HUD still apparently has many outstanding bugs, but developers maintain that all bugs will be ironed out before Ubuntu 12.04 goes gold. also added recommendations to Ubuntu software center,  new tool called “privacy”and other small new features.

There’s also the usual software package updates. For example, Chromium Browser has been updated to 17.0, Firefox has been updated to 11.0 and VLC has been updated to the new 2.0.0 version, containing the much touted interface changes. And a nice update for VLC it is.

The user-interface has also been frozen. So you’re going to see no changes from now on through to final release. Not that any are required. I think the default Unity interface is just fine. And once HUD is introduced with the new Unity update, it should theoretically make it even better than what we currently have.

As a side note; I’ve noticed very fast download speeds from the Ubuntu 12.04 repositories in comparison to previous Ubuntu releases. And especially in comparison to the 10.04 repositories, which I also use as my primary operating system. I have no idea whether this improvement has been intentional from Canonical, because I can’t seem to find any relevant information related to the topic. But a lot also depends on where your source mirror is pointing to. Perhaps there’s been an improvement somewhere in between.

And in the mean time, upgrade your own system for the latest changes and let us know what you think. Or if you haven’t already got Ubuntu 12.04 installed, now is a good chance to test it out. But as always, please use it with caution and only for non-critical tasks as it is still under development.

Some visual changes with Screenshots by M. Zinoune

- The Ubuntu button now has quicklists with nice look

- HUD is now default in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin

- Added new tool called privacy

- The volume bar got a new look , and  Rhythmbox has replaced banshee as a default player in Ubuntu 12.04

- Added recommendation to Ubuntu software center: When turned on, USC will put applications related to our preferences  at the bottom.

More screenshots :

- Default applications

Download Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin Beta1

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Why GIMP wins over Photoshop

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is an iconic example of successful free software for image management in the age of Digital Photography. Thanks largely to some advanced software such as GIMP and some proprietary photo imaging software such as Photoshop – creating and editing photos, artwork – is now not just for professionals and Film Studios but for personal use as well.

Though there is a sizeable market for Photoshop, at the heart of digital photos industry are experts who swear by the scope and wide-ranging flexibility GIMP offers them. Be it filters that allow them to start artwork from scratch, GIMP to many users, is more than an ‘image manipulation’ tool. Because, if the need arises all it takes are personalized scripts that can render the desired effect professionals are aiming for- Versatility remains GIMP’s core feature.

Add to it high-performance features such as better gradient tool, an expert lasso tool and definitely a better ink tool; Drag handles for both rectangle /ellipse select tools, and you have all the right function-features that are not so comfortable to use on Photoshop. GIMP definitely makes for quicker and more intuitive use.

While Photoshop does offer a ‘well-packaged’ software for professional photographers as against the ‘upgrades and support’ by GIMP developer community, GIMP becomes a more comfortable software to use as it overcomes, Photoshop’s sluggishness on even slightly older software. GIMP remains- fast and easy to install (is much smaller than Photoshop).

You can forget about using curves tools in Photoshop, over an open window. For one, it will not allow you, and besides, it is embedded in not in the Colors menu as in GIMP, but in the image-adjustments menu!

However, this is not to say Photoshop is not good as a technical tool. It is, but at the price tag and bundled features it offers, GIMP wins hands down because of the free-to-use licensing it adopts.

A great deterrent in using Photoshop is the very strict licensing stipulations; it becomes expensive and limits the number of users.  Free-to-use GIMP does not squabble about the number of people using its software and instead encourages greater user adoption, propagating FOSS philosophy.

Probably, where GIMP, really makes the difference is in the ‘right click’ on an image to get to a menu, which incidentally are not more than a layer deep. In Photoshop the multi-layered drop down menu, which are not accessible on open windows, do not just limit the user experience, but are actually frustrating in the long run.

Photoshop is definitely, it has to accepted, smoother but GIMP does make up for the jerks in paintbrush cloning with the undistracted work flow it makes possible- cloning, scaling more quicker, easier and intuitive.

Where GIMP truly wins over Photoshop would be its portability. It can go on CD’s, memory sticks and sometimes the Xbox 360 (Microsoft) as well. GIMP UI small real-estate, CMYK and 3D-features does give it the scope of a Photoshop package but with the expensive price-tag.

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Download ICON THEME : Nice collection of icon sets for your Linux Desktop with installation instructions| Ubuntu PPA

Nice collection of icon sets for your Linux Desktop with installation instructions| Ubuntu PPA

This is a nice collection of iconsets  for your Linux Desktop, so if you are a fun of changing default themes of your Linux Distribution, then this post is for you. I tried to collect the nicest and most updated icons themes existing in this moment, i included also a detailed howto install the themes for Ubuntu/ LinuxMint and Fedora based distributions.

I tested the icon themes in Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin Beta1, icons did work just fine.

1- Faience:

2- Meliae Iconset theme

3- Gnome Colors

Ubuntu users, use the following PPA:

sudo apt-get install ppa:gnome-colors-packagers/ppa
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install gnome-colors

4- Hydroxygen_iconset

5- Humanity Icons Colors Version

For Ubuntu & LinuxMint use the following PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ravefinity-project/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install humanity-colors

 

6-  Vibrant Icons

7- Awoken 2.4 (PPA Ubuntu)

8- AdriX icon theme

9- Faenza Icons:

PPA for Faenza icons for Ubuntu:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tiheum/equinox
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install faenza-icon-theme

How to install and activate the new icons? (detailed for newbies

1- Download and extract the icons :

• cd the directory where you downloaded the icons

• Now extract directly to /usr/share/icons, example Adrix icons theme us

sudo tar xvjf AdriX-gnome.tar.bz2 -C /usr/share/icons/ 

If the archive is tar.bz use this command (Change icons-theme-name withe the name of the downloaded file):

sudo tar -xvzf icons-theme-name.tar.bz -C /usr/share/icons/

 For icons with PPA use the PPA above to install them.

2- Activate the icons:

You need to install Gnome Tweak Tool, use the following command:

sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak-tool

- For Fedora and other rpm based distro, as root type the following command:

yum install gnome-tweak-tool

3- Now open Gnome tweak tool and under theme choose the icon you want

I installed humanity icons theme and chosed the blue ones, this how does it looks.

For Ubuntu users, if you want more icons themes, use the following ppa, it contains a large number of icon themes. For a complete list check launchpad

 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/themes

List of themes in this PPA can be found in this link : https://launchpad.net/~webupd8team/+archive/themes

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How to- Disable SELinux on Fedora/Centos/RHEL/SL

 Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux) is a Linux feature that provides a mechanism for supporting access control security policies, through the use of Linux Security Modules (LSM) in the Linux kernel. It is a set of Kernel modifications and user-space tools that can be added to various Linux distributions. Its architecture strives to separate enforcement of security decisions from the security policy itself and streamlines the volume of software charged with security policy enforcement .

In this post will show you  : How  to  disable  Selinux without  having to reboot ?

• First   check  the  Selinux  status  with

#getenforce
Output Enforcing 

• Disbale the  enforcing  with

#setenforce 0

This  the  the  temporally   disabling of the  selinux, but how  to disable  is  permanently ?

• What you need to do is to  change “SELINUX=enforcing” to “SELINUX=disabled” in /etc/sysconfig/selinux

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system. # SELINUX= can take one of these three values: # enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced. # permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing. # disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=enforcing # SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values: # targeted - Targeted processes are protected, # mls - Multi Level Security protection. SELINUXTYPE=targeted

TO

# This file controls the state of SELinux on the system. # SELINUX= can take one of these three values: # enforcing - SELinux security policy is enforced. # permissive - SELinux prints warnings instead of enforcing. # disabled - No SELinux policy is loaded.
SELINUX=disabled # SELINUXTYPE= can take one of these two values: # targeted - Targeted processes are protected, # mls - Multi Level Security protection. SELINUXTYPE=targeted

• Check the  status  again

#getenforce
 Output 

Disabled

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The growth of LibreOffice over Microsoft Office

LibreOffice after one and half-years as an open source office productivity suite has grown from being just a fork of OpenOffice.org (OOo) and emerged as an independent tool for those who prefer the openness and scope of work copyleft offers over claustrophobic copyright licenses and proprietary software. Following the game-changing split and backing by The Document Foundation (TDF) LibreOffice has over 25,000 code commits and 330 contributors. Secondly, it has over 15million Linux OS users, a further 10 million users are split between Microsoft (90-percent) and Mac OS X (5- percent). 

Even as these numbers speak of the domination of LibreOffice over the Office tools segment, there is room for thought, that it will soon break critical mass and move and become the most used office suite as Microsoft Office looks traction because of two major aspects – the phenomenal prices at which each version of the suite is sold and the claustrophobic licensing factor. In contrast LibreOffice, encourages and engages in the opposite, offering any number of downloads and use for almost the same set of tools – for spreadsheets, database creation, Math or desktop publishing. Despite paying due credit to Microsoft’s more mature platform and dedicated development input, the increase in contribution and excellent open governance model is fast moving LibreOffice to streamline its suite and offer a great package.

Additionally, there are umpteen limitations Microsoft Office struggles with – Document Sharing, technical support which is handled by trained office desk personnel as against developers who offer hands-on solutions for LibreOffice suite users. Another very vital and potentially dangerous issue is that of security. Every time Microsoft Office has a security-hole, and there have been many, users are typically unaware of the lurking dearth as they are not informed of such issues. Microsoft usually tries to patch them with standard security updates that they offer.

Interface on LibreOffice is its mainstay; frugal, minimalistic but highly functional and easily accessible. Microsoft’s ribbon interface, though now spread over all its products remains an acquired method.

Microsoft Office is limited to running on Windows or Mac. LibreOffice’s advantage is that not only will it run on other platforms, Windows, Linux or Mac, it actually runs on legacy hardware as well, which is simply not possible with Microsoft Office.

Perhaps, where LibreOffice truly delivers is its agility. With great implementation- in terms of algorithm, architecture and language, minimal layers and a integrated minimal program that LibreOffice has truly delivers on the speed over Microsoft’s Office.

LibreOffice 3.5 includes template creator for Writer, tweaked better performing Calc and elliptical arcs; Additionally, LibreOffice is to be available for tablets and a browser launched online LibreOffice suite. And for commercial users, LibreOffice is to offer integrative features for Microsoft SharePoint.

A recent development in this direction is Intel’s open move to encourage LibreOffice code improvement and offers download via Intel website. SUSE, in fact developed the Windows version of LibreOffice. Intel in fact, is considering adding LibreOffice to its AppUp Center providing users a great alternative to use vendor neutral productivity suite.

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How to Configure conky-Lua in Ubuntu (11.10 & 12.04), Fedora, debian and LinuxMint | Howto Conky

Configure conky-Lua in Ubuntu (11.10 & 12.04), Fedora, debian and LinuxMint | Howto Conky

Conky is a free, light-weight system monitor for X, that displays any information on your desktop. There are many nice themes available for conky that can display clock, CPU usage, ram usage, swap, disk, net and more, one of these nice themes is Conky-Lua,  this theme (See screensot bellow) allow you to display nice rings for Clock, cpu …, the theme is available for Ubuntu, Linuxmint, fedora, and Debian.

In this post i will show you step by step on how to install and configure this awesome conky script called Conky-Lua. The installation has been done in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS Precise Pangolin Beta1. As usual, i tried to make the post newbies freindly
1- First of all we need to install conky, use the folowing command:
- For Ubuntu, LinuxMint and Debian use:

sudo apt-get install conky-all

-For Fedora use :

yum install conky-all

2- Download Conky-Loa from this Link

3- Now go to your Download folder and extract manually the file (double click on the archive or right click and select extract)

4- Now extract the 6 archives by selecting  and extracting them

5- Now select the folder you need, for example if you want to install it on LinuxMint select Conky Mint-lua, for Ubuntu use Conky ubuntu-lua (In my case i`m installing this on Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin).

6-Now open the folder you chosed (For Ubuntu use : conky ubuntu-lua folder) and rename the file called conkyrc to .conkyrc, then move it to your home directory.

7- Now move the renamed file .conkyrc  to your home directory

 

8- Now Open your home directory and unhide the folders, create a new folder called .conky and copy the other 2 files to this new folder(PNG image and clock_rings.lua).

 

9- Now open the file .conkycr (Right click on the file and use open with text editor) to edit or by command :

 gedit .conky

10- Now change the patch to the new one in the home folder (See screenshot bellow):

/~.lua/scripts/clock_rings.lua
 to
 ~/.conky/clock_rings.lua

11- Now open terminal and run conky

conky

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Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix- A new distribution from canonical for companies and government institutions

Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix is a new distribution from canonical based on Ubuntu11.10 and is dedicated to companies and government institutions. It is a combination of  free software applications, certified commercial apps, and Canonical’s management solution and the main goal is to give  companies and institutions a free solution to save time and money while keeping productive.

.

.

The Ubuntu Business Desktop Remix contains all the software needed to integrate into your IT infrastructure while removing games, social networking and file sharing applications, development and sysadmin tools, and other software that organizations don’t commonly support.

This first release includes the Adobe Flash Plugin, VMware View, and the OpenJDK 6 Java run-time environment, while removing social networking and file sharing applications, games and development/sysadmin tools.

If you have a small business and you want to try Ubuntu Business Desktop remix, you can register and download it from this Link.

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Fedora17 Beefy Miracle release Schedule

Fedora17 codename Beefy Miracle will be released in May 2012, bellow is the complete release schedule.

Planning & Development Begins

2012-01-24     Feature Submission Deadline
2012-02-07     Feature Freeze–Planning & Development Ends
2012-02-07     Branch Fedora 17 from Rawhide– Branch Freeze
2012-02-14     Software String Freeze
2012-02-14     Alpha Change Deadline
2012-02-28    Alpha Release
2012-03-13     Software Translation Deadline
2012-03-20     Beta Change Deadline
Features 100% Complete
2012-04-03    Beta Release
2012-04-23    Final Change Deadline
2012-04-24    Compose ‘Final’ RC
2012-05-08    Fedora 17 Final Release

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Ubuntu Tweak 0.6.1 comes with support for 12.04 X Precise Pangolin| PPA

Ubuntu Tweak 0.6.1 has been released with support to Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, according to the announcement, this  is a bug fixes release, that also introduce also a few tweaks,  Add support for Ubuntu 12.04, Remove the background change in Login Settings, because the LightDM for 12.04 already support read user background setting, add “Dash color” setting to Unity Settings, dd “Desktop Font” setting to Fonts Settings, hide the Session Control for Lubuntu.

You can install Ubuntu Tweak in 12.04 Precise Pangolin using the following PPA

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:tualatrix/ppa
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-tweak

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How to use VirtualBox in Terminal / Command line?

Procedure for how to use VirtualBox in Terminal / Command line

 

In this post, we discuss on how to manage VirtualBox in command line or terminal. VBoxManage is the command which is used to manage VirtualBox in commandline. Using VBoxManage, one can create and control the virtual OS and there are many features than GUI VirtualBox.

Here is a simple tutorial on how to create a virtual OS (Ubuntu10.10) using VBoxManage and access it remotely from the host machine.

INTRUCTIONS

To create a virtualmachine(Ubuntu10.10), use the below command or copy and paste it in terminal. If you want to create a virtual machine for fedora or some other OS, change the name Ubuntu10.10 to fedora or slax or kubuntu etc.

$VBoxManage createvm --name Ubuntu10.10

In the above command, “createvm” is used to create a virtual machine and “–name“defines the name of the virtual machine. After executing this command it will create virtual machine called “Ubuntu10.10.vbox” in home folder under “VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu10.10/Ubuntu10.10.vbox”

*Note: If the name has space, then it should be given within quotes.

Say for example, ”Ubuntu 10.10″.

Now, create the hard disk image for the virtual machine using the below command

$VBoxManage createhd --filename Ubuntu10.10 --size 5120

In the above command, “createhd” is used to create hard disk image and “–filename” is used to specify the virtual machine’s name, for which the hard disk image is created. Here, “–size” denotes the size of the hard disk image. The size is always given in MB. Here we have specified 5Gb that is 5120MB.

After creating a virtual machine, the VirtualBox has to be registered. “registervm” command is used to register the virtual machine. The full path of the virtual machine’s location has to be mentioned.

$VBoxManage registervm '/home/user/VirtualBox VMs/Ubuntu10.10/Ubuntu10.10.vbox'

or

The virtualmachine can be registered while creating virtual machine using “–register“. Below is the command

$VBoxManage createvm --name Ubuntu10.10 --register

Now set the OS type. For example, if the Linux OS has to be installed, then specify the OS type as Linux or Ubuntu Or Fedora etc.

$VBoxManage modifyvm Ubuntu10.10 --ostype Ubuntu

One of the most important command in VBoxManage is “modifyvm“. Using “modifyvm”, one can modify many features in virtual machine like changing the memory size, name of the Virtual Machine, OS type and many more. The name of the virtual machine has to be specified inorder to modify it. In the above command, Ubuntu10.10 has been explained. The command “–ostype” is used to set the OS type like Linux, Windows, Ubuntu, Fedora, etc,.

Now, set the memory size for the virtual OS, i.e. the ram size for the virtual OS from the host Machine.

$VBoxManage modifyvm Ubuntu10.10 --memory 512

The command “–memory <size>” is used to set the RAM size for the virtual machine from the host machine. The size should be defined in MB.

Now create a storage controller for the virtual machine.

$VBoxManage storagectl Ubuntu10.10 --name IDE --add ide --controller PIIX4 --bootable on

“storagectl <name>” is used to create a storage controller for virtual machine. Later the virtual media can be attached to the controller using “storageattach” command. The above command creates the storage controller called IDE. <name> defines the name of the virtual machine.

Here,

“–name <name>” specifies the name of the storage controller that needs to be created or modified or removed from the virtual machine.

“–add <options>” defines the type of system bus to which the storage controller must be connected. Available options are ide/sata/scsi/floppy.

“–controller <options>” allows to choose the type of chipset that is to be emulated for the given storage controller. Available options are LsiLogic / LSILogicSAS / BusLogic / IntelAhci / PIIX3 / PIIX4 / ICH6 / I82078.

“–bootable <on/off>” defines whether this controller is bootable or not.

$VBoxManage storagectl Ubuntu10.10 --name SATA --add sata --controller IntelAhci --bootable on

Using the above command, a storage controller called SATA has been created. The hard disk image can be attached to this later.

Now, attach the storage controller to the virtual machine using “storageattach” .

$VBoxManage storageattach Ubuntu10.10 --storagectl SATA --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium "filename"

The above command will attach the storage controller SATA to virtual machine Ubuntu10.10 with the medium i.e., to the virtual disk image which is created.

“storageattach <name>” is the command used to attach the storage controller to the virtual machine.

<name> defines the name of the virtual machine.

“–storagectl <name>” is used to define the name of the storage controller which needs to be attached to the virtual machine.

<name> defines the name of the storage controller.

“–port <number>” is used to define the number of storage controller’s port which is to be modified.

“–device <number>” is used to define the number of the port’s device which is to be modified.

“–type <options>” is used to specify the type of the drive in which the medium should be attached. Available options are dvddrive / hdd / fdd.

“–medium <options>” defines the hard disk image or ISO image file or virtual DVD. Available options are none / emptydrive / <uuid> / <filename>host:<drive>iscsi

*Note: If you decide to specify the filename, then specify the full path where it is located.

Example: “/home/user/Ubuntu10.10.vdi”

$VBoxManage storageattach Ubuntu10.10 --storagectl IDE --port 0 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium "filename"

Here, the above command will attach the storage controller IDE with the medium of ISO image as DVD drive. This medium can be closed after installing the virtual OS(Ubuntu10.10).

“filename“– Example: “/home/user/Downloads/ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso”

Next, add some features like audio, 3d acceleration, network, etc,.

$VBoxManage modifyvm Ubuntu10.10 --vram 128 --accelerate3d on --audio alsa --audiocontroller ac97

“–vram <size>” This sets the size of RAM that the virtual graphics card should have. The size should given in MB.

“–accelerate3d <on/off>” if the guest additions are installed, this sets the hardware 3D acceleration for the virtual machine.

“–audio <options>” is used to set the audio for the virtual machine with available host driver. Available options are none /null / oss / alsa / pulse.

“–audiocontroller <options>” is used to set the controller for the audio in the virtual machine. Available options are ac97 / hda / sb16.

$VBoxManage modifyvm Ubuntu10.10 --nic1 nat --nictype1 82540EM --cableconnected1 on

“–nic<1-N> <options>” with this the type of networking can be set for each of the VM’s virtual network cards. Available options are none / null / nat / bridged / intnet / hostonly / vde.

“–nictype<1-N> <options>” is used to specify which networking hardware is to be presented to the guest VirtualBox. Available options are Am79C970A / Am79C973 / 82540EM / 82543GC / 82545EM / virtio.

“–cableconnected<1-N> <on/off>” This allows to temporarily disconnect a virtual network interface from virtual machine. This might be useful for re-setting certain software components in the VM.

Now to start a virtual machine, use the below command

$VBoxManage startvm Ubuntu10.10

“startvm <name>” is the command used to start the virtual machine. By default it starts in the GUI mode.

<name> defines the name of the virtual machine.

Remote Desktop in VirtualBox

To activate the remote desktop, set the port number and address.

$VBoxManage modifyvm Ubuntu10.10 --vrde on --vrdeport 5012 --vrdeaddress 192.168.1.6

“–vrde <on/off>” is used to set the remote desktop ON or OFF.

“–vrdeport <number>” is used to set the port number in the port in which the virtual machine should be available. “default or 0″ will set the port in 3389.

“–vrdeaddress <address>” is used to set the “IP” address in which it should be accessable.

Now, start the virtual machine using the below command

$VBoxManage startvm Ubuntu10.10 --type headless

“–type <options>” is used to specify the mode in which it should start the virtual machine. Available options are gui / sdl / headless.

“headless“ produces no visible output on the host at all, but only delivers VRDP data. This front-end has no dependencies on the X Window system on Linux and Solaris hosts.

Alternative method to start virtual machine for remote access is VBoxHeadless. Use the below command.

$VBoxHeadless --startvm Ubuntu10.10

“–startvm <name>” is used to start the virtual machine. <name> defines the name of the virtual machine.

To access the remote desktop, use rdesktop command. By default the linux system should have rdesktop. If not, install it. Use the below command from the client machine to access the virtual machine remotely.

$rdesktop -a 16 -N 192.168.1.6:5012

To stop the virtual machine, check the below command

$VBoxManage controlvm Ubuntu10.10 poweroff

“controlvm <name> <options>” controlvm command is used to control the state of the virtual machine. <name> defines the name of the virtual machine. Some of the available options are pause / resume / reset / poweroff / savestate / acpipowerbutton / acpisleepbutton. There are many options in controlvm to see all the options available in it. Either type or copy and paste the below command in terminal.

$VBoxManage controlvm

Hope this will be helpful for you!!

If you found any thing wrong then pleas Let me know ...Write Your tips and suggestion in comment ... Thank you...