The Virtual Machine
The virtual machine has been created and tested using VirtualBox . VirtualBox is able to run virtual machines on any of the three major platforms - Windows, Linux and Macs.It contains an installation of Ubuntu 10.04 which contains all the necessary In particular for kernel programming it is important that you use this version of the linux kernel, as there are subtle differences between kernel versions.
How to install the Virtual Machine
- Install VirtualBox - follow the instructions on the web site. You must also install the extensions - they are necessary to get USB to work.
- Copy the files
/home/archive/exr/Ubuntu 10.04 (OS).ovf
/home/archive/exr/Ubuntu 10.04 (OS).vmdk
(or \\socs-smb\archive\exr\Ubuntu 10.04 (OS).ovf etc. as a Windows share) to your local machine
Warning: these files are huge (almost 2GB in total), so the best way is to create one DVD or bring your laptop into the School and use the wireless network to copy the files. - Start VirtualBox and import the file Ubuntu 10.04 (OS).ovf. It should create a new virtual machine named Ubuntu 10.04.
- You can now start this virtual machine from the main window of VirtualBox.
How to use the virtual machine
This virtual machine has network access via NAT. This means that you all outgoing connections will be handled by VirtualBox and appear to come from your host computer, whereas incoming connections are possible only from the host computer. This should be sufficient for data transfer via scp, or mounting shares via smb.The root password is "opsys'11" (without the quotes), and there is also a non-priviledged user with username "user" and password "opsys'11".