Changing directory for livePCs plus two other questions

The LivePC Engine does not have the capability to change the location of the LivePCs. A possible workaround would be to use linkd and junction points (NTFS file systems only)

The Backup option is only for LivePC Engine on a USB

For the mouse to return to the host (without using key combo), I'll see if there is a workaround. VMWare Server will not work with LivePC Engine.

Kevin

Thank you Kevin for your prompt reply, I will look into the first item solution (I am using WinXP Pro with NTFS), but was wandering whether there is a simpler alternative, like a registry key perhaps? (or am I thinking wishfully?).

And I am looking forward to a possible solution to item 3.

thanks again
Vic

Did you install VMware tools for your OS type?

See VMware tools from VMware.

See Installing VMware Tools section for Linux.

See VMware tools for Windows. I'm not sure if these work with XP but it's possible.

Kevin

thank you Kevin, I have been unable to continue working on this for few days and will be for the next several days but will let you know the results as soon as I can.
V.

Thanks Kevin, I have now installed both symbolic links and VMware tools, the tools with mixed results, which differ between guest Linux distro.
To redirect LivePCs to my D: drive I used a program called JUNCTION which can be obtained free from:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/Junction.mspx

It's easy and works faultlessly on my 32bit WinXP Pro SP2. Don't know if it would work with 64 bits machines.

I then created two Linuxes, a PCLinux2007 and a Ubuntu Feisty.
No problems with either until I installed the VMware tools.

The PCLinux mouse worked like a charm but I lost sound, received an error message at boot time telling me that the sound driver cannot be found.

The Ubuntu never got that far. I tried twice and twice got an error during the execution of the perl script, as follows:
"Detected X.org version 7.2
Problem extracting version of x.org
Excution aborted"
I could not use X after that.
I am using the latest version of the Engine, 1.0.9387.

And by the way, when I upgraded to this version, the PCLinux OS lost its Internet connection (ADSL) which worked well with the previous version, 1.0.8949. While Ubuntu had no such problem.

Neither problem is crippling but would be nice to have everything working perfectly with the latest version of the engine plus the tools.
Thank you
V.

Correction to my previous posting. Ubuntu internet connection also stopped working after the update to the latest version of the engine.

There are several items to check if the Guest internet connection stops working.
1. Can you ping the IP of the physical host?
2. Can you ping the IP of a host on another network?
3. Can you ping the same host by name?

If the above are YES, then the DNS is not resolving properly. We've encountered this situation as well and found the following workarounds:

Workaround 1: Stop and start VMWare NAT Service. The service is available in Computer Management.

Workaround 2: Run vmnetcfg.exe, select NAT. The VMnet host should already be set to VMnet8. Select Edit and select DNS. Change the Policy from Order to Rotate, Apply all the changes and Restart the NAT services.

vmnetcfg.exe should be in a similar path of C:\Program File\VMware\VMware Player.

LivePC Engine 1.0.8949 and 1.0.9387 both include the same VMware Player 1.0.4.

We'd love to here if anyone else is encounter this situation and whether the workaround allows DNS to work.

Kevin

Which sound card is configure for PCLinux2007? The default is an Ensoniq ES1371. You can change it to Creative SB16 if needed.

Have you tried the Ubuntu Feisty LivePC?

Which VMware tools version are you using so we can try to isolate the Ubuntu X issue.

Thanks

Kevin

Thanks Kevin. This is the status so far.

1)Internet connection now works fine on both PCLinux and Ubuntu after applying your second workaround.

2)I cannot find anywhere the version number of my VMware tools. But I can tell you that it was downloaded using this link:
http://download3.vmware.com/software/esx/linux.iso

which is the one supplied in your help document:
http://www.moka5.com/node/79

titled "Optimizing a new Linux LivePC.

Hope that helps.
If I need a different version, which is it and where do I obtain it?
Many thanks

V.

Those tools are not the newest version. You can get the newest ones as part of VMware Player 2.0. Instead of downloading the whole VMware Player, you can directly download the Linux tar file or the Linux rpm file. I'll upgrade the quick tips to point to the latest version, sorry about that.

-John

Thanks Kevin, I have downloaded the latest version and installed it in PCLinux and Ubuntu.

In Ubuntu everything works perfectly. All previously reported problems have gone away.

In PCLinux, all is well except for the internet connection, which was lost after the tools were installed. Restarting the network did not help.
Absolutely nothing happens when a URL is entered in Firefox or Konqueror.

I am not too concerned however as I only need one working Linux, and Ubuntu works well.

The only other feature I would like but have not yet implemented is file sharing between host and guest. I am now doing it via a USB memory stick, but it? a bit slow.
I have enabled file sharing in the config doc. What else do I need to make it happen?
Many thanks again for your help so far.
V.

You can check out the PCLinuxOS 2007 LivePC that I put together to see how I did it. I have some scripts that help with setting up and configuring Linux LivePCs. (I developed them so I can keep up with packaging a new distro every day for distro-of-the-day.) Once I clean up these scripts I'll post them and update the quicksteps page to make it a lot easier. If you check the "/etc/init.d/livepc" script it shows how to do file sharing between host and guest.

Once you install the VMware tools, you may have to reconfigure the network because the virtual network card changed. In PCLinuxOS 2007, you can reconfigure the network interface through the "PCLinuxOS Control Center" in the "Network & Internet" tab.

-John

Thanks John, I will download your live PCLinux sometime over the next couple of weeks and give it a try. I am also looking forward to your scripts, once you publish them.

Vic.

Hi, I can see the livepc script in init.d but I would like to know from which script it is executed or sourced.
In particular in a Debian based Linux (ie Mint or Ubuntu) as well as PCLinux.
Thanks
Victor

Hi,

Usually there is a symlink from the /etc/rc?.d directories to the script in /etc/init.d/. So there should be a symlink /etc/rc5.d/S80livepc pointing to /etc/init.d/livepc. The number 5 in the rc5.d directory corresponds to the runlevel; scripts in that directory are executed when you enter that runlevel. You can read more about how runlevel scripts work here.

-John

Thanks John for the info and the link. I have also discovered a useful script called "update-rc.d" which creates the symlinks for you. All works well now.
I have some more questions though.
1) moka5 (a fantastic program by the way) creates a log file called cow-io.log which grows to alarming proportions. Is it necessary or can it be deleted or configured out?
2)when creating a livePC, moka5 assigns it a really long file name (usually the name I assign, which could be simply Ubuntu, followed by a long sequence of digits), which makes it difficult to remember and use. Can it be avoided in any way?
3)I successfully "destroyed" a test livepc I created by experimenting with permissions and the like, to the point that it would not boot and no rescue menu was available. Not a disaster because I was using a test system, but could have been. Other than regularly backing up the livePc, is there a way to access the livepc file system from the outside so that one can undo the damage? (much as you would do in a real Linux by using a live CD with say Knoppix to access the damaged system files and fix them).
Many thanks
Victor

Hi Victor,

1. You can delete the cow-io.log, it doesn't affect functionality. Shutting down and restarting the LivePC will also clear out the cow-io.log file.
2. You can avoid the really long name by publishing a version of your LivePC and subscribing to it.
3. You can edit a LivePC to attach a CDROM iso to it, or just put in a CDROM in the drive. Press ESC at the moka5 as the LivePC is booting to get a boot menu, where you can select the CD as a boot device. You can also copy the LivePC directory to make an easy snapshot in case you need to go back to an earlier version.

-John

Thank you John for all the above.
I successfully booted from a CDROM, a live Knoppix5 CD, and accessed my Ubuntu livePC filesystem (once I discovered the BIOS window and configured it to boot from CDROM first)!).
Absolutely magic!
The only glitch is that I was not able to write to the Ubuntu system, I received the error message that the file system is read-only. What did i do wrong?
Victor

Knoppix mounts the partitions read-only for safety; see this link for more details.
To mount it read-write, you need to do something like this:
mount -t ext3 -o rw /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1
Be sure to unmount after you are done:
umount /mnt/hda1
The link above has much more information.

-John

Many thanks John, I should have guessed. All works wonderfully now.
Victor