Colours...

Not an interesting post by any means. However, as an aide memoir, it is probably a good idea to write down the colours we've used so far in painting the house, so we can repaint them when the kids get creative with their crayons:

Living Room: Almost Oyster and Muddy Puddle

Smaller Bedroom: Natural Hessian

Front Bedroom: Amber Spirit (Light and Space)

Rebuilding Windows

I need to rebuild Windows again (it has been a few years now). So I will need to install:

• Windows
• Windows Updates
• MS Security Essentials
• Printer Drivers
• Webcam Drivers
• Mouse Drivers
• Bamboo One Drivers
• MS Office
• Skype
• Adobe Photoshop
• Canon Camera Software
• Digiguide
• VirtualBox
• Tweetdeck
• iTunes
• Chrome + apps: Amazon, tasks, Chrome too Phone and AdBlock
• HTC Sync
• Picasa
• FoxIt Reader
• CutePDF
• MS SyncToy
• Roxio CD Creator
• Auslogics Disk Defrag?
• Programmer's Notepad
• Vuescan

Could take a while. And see here for the historical XP version...

Linux post-install...

Once it has been installed, there are a couple of things needed to make it a better experience.

These are (package names that can be used with yum):

• google-chrome
• vim-enhanced
• kdebase (konsole)
• kdesdk (kompare)
• eclipse-platform

Also need to:

• add "paul ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL" using visudo
• usermod -g vboxsf paul
• ln -sf /media/sf_Documents ~/Documents
• ln -sf /media/sf_Pictures ~/Pictures

VirtualBox Guest Additions...

It seems that sometimes they just stop working. So... to get them running on Fedora, the following instructions apply:

• Install Guest Additions Virtual Drive: Devices-> Install Guest Additions (may have to Remove Disk from Virtual Drive then repeat to get Linux to auto mount).
• su -
• yum update
• yum install dkms gcc
• cd /media/VBOXADDITIONS*
• sh ./VBoxLinuxAdditions.run

You may need to reinstall the appropriate kernel devel packge (it will tell you it can't find the correct files). And then restart the Guest machine...

Oh, and note that if you want GNOME3 to work, you need to select 3D acceleration in Virtual Box settings...

Backup Strategy...

I have noticed that Windows Backup only appears to back up files that have programs associated with their file extensions.

Which means that all my Perl files which were only run through Linux, weren't backed up.

I just think it's a little too clever for its own good...

Edit: on installing ActivePerl for Windows, Backup still doesn't backup these files. It appears maybe it is just not clever enough...

Liberty Valance...

There seems to be a quite ridiculous and unjustified amount of hand-wringing over the events surrounding the death of Osama Bin Laden and demands for justification of why he was not captured and put on trial.

But this is a pretty good response...

Virtually...

So, my old 750MHz box which found a new lease of life with Linux may have just lost it again after installing VirtualBox on my main PC.

This allows the installation and execution of a Guest OS simultaneously with the Host OS.

Installation of a Linux Guest is easy. However, this only gives a screen resolution of 1024x800 for the Guest. To increase it, you need to update the Linux kernel and install VirtualBox Guest additions. Full instructions can be found here.

Also worth noting is that if you want to ssh into the Guest from the host, using NAT it is necessary to set up port forwarding (see VirtualBox User Manual section 6.3.1). Once this is done, it is necessary to ensure ssh is running on the Guest, and ssh in with the correct port, e.g. using Xming:

plink.exe -l user -p 2222 localhost

Finally, it is good to set up folder sharing so you can access all the files on the Host. This is explained in section 4.3 of the User Manual, and you just have to make sure that the user is in the vboxfs group using:

usermod -a -G vboxfs user

And that should give a full screen Guest OS with access to the Host directories wherever necessary without the overhead of maintaining either separate hardware, or a dual boot system. Brilliant!