My new test-bed computer
Setting up
On Friday July 3, 2009, I took delivery of a new computer system that I will be using as a test-bed for trying out new operating systems, mainly Linux distributions. This is partly courtesy of a kind gift of a motherboard from an Internet friend who took pity on me, with my old computer with its legacy hardware [1.0 GHz CPU, older motherboard and 256 MB RAM bottle-neck.]
I used my latest download of ArtistX 0.7 as the first, main installation, and used its partitioning tool to set up the hard drive, ready for multiple-booting, according to a suggested layout by SilverBear in his forum [here] - his main web site is still down as I write.
I have run the hardinfo script and attach the output report. hardinfo_report-paul-testbed.html
Hard drive partitioning
Basically the hard drive, a 250 GB drive, has been set up so as to have partitions for three different operating systems installed, and to have a separate /home for each one, that plus a swap partition [RAM is only 1 GB at present, though I think I should double that], followed by a 50 Gb partition for installing virtual machines on and the balance, about 100 GB for saving ISO files and other data to.
Partition Type Purpose Size
Number MB
1 Primary Main OS / ArtistX 0.7
2 Primary Main OS /home
3 Swap Space
4 Extended
5 Logical Second OS / Ultimate Edition 2.2
6 Logical Second OS /home
7 Logical Third OS / Debian, Refracta, set up for VirtualBox host.
8 Logical Third OS /home
9 Logical Virtual Drives Space for a number of virtual machine guests
10 Logical Downloaded ISO's and data Space for downloaded ISO files and other installation files.
File System in ArtistX
paul@paul-testbed:/mnt$ cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
# /dev/sda1 / ext3 relatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# /dev/sda2 /home ext3 relatime 0 2
# /dev/sda9 /mnt/VirtualDrives ext3 relatime 0 2
# /dev/sda10 /mnt/WorkingArea ext3 relatime 0 2
# /dev/sda3 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec,utf8 0 0
paul@paul-testbed:/mnt$
I have now run the software updater, in ArtistX 0.7, to update to Ubuntu 9.04. Revised HardInfo report attached.
hardinfo_report-update.html
Installed Systems
I have now installed three operating systems on the hard drive : --
-
ArtistX 0.7 based on Ubuntu 8.10, but now dist-upgraded to Ubuntu 9.04
More information on ArtistX_0_7
-
Ultimate Edition 2.2 based on Ubuntu 9.04
More information on Ultimate Edition_2_2
paul@paul-testbed:~$ cat /etc/*-release | sort -mu
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=8.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=intrepid
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 8.10"
paul@paul-testbed:~$ uname -a
Linux paul-testbed 2.6.27-14-generic #1 SMP Tue Jun 30 19:57:39 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
-
Refracta, Debian Linux
Linux debiantestbed 2.6.26-2-686 #1 SMP Sun Jun 21 04:57:38 UTC 2009 i686 GNU/Linux
This is being set up as the host for VirtualBox 3.0.2 which I have downloaded from their web site direct.
Boot menu
I allowed Refracta, [Debian Installer], to install GRUB to the MBR as it had included both the other installed Linuxes, however I need to sort out the order and description of these in the menu.lst file. See attached.
Debian menu.lst
Now comes the icing on the cake!
Installed in VirtualBox
#! Crunchbang Linux 9.04
Yes, I have finally got VirtualBox working in my Debian installation. When I tried to install VBox 3.0.2 from the .deb file, the installer complained and said that it was already avaiable in the repositories, so I obediently went and installed it via Synaptic, sure enough. However it took a while and a bit of fiddling before it would work. VBox complained that, although it was installed as a host, I would not be able to install a guest OS until I had installed the kernel headers necessary. I installed quite a few! Eventually it reached a point where, somehow, it just worked, but I don't profess to know exactly what I did to make it do so!
Monday 13 July 2009 19:08:03
Well, now I am posting here from withing the #! Crunchbang Linux 9.04.01, running in VirtualBox on the Debian host, on my Test-bed computer. Wonderful, if a bit slow ...
Paul
Monday 13 July 2009 19:28 Hrs.
Booting from other media
Boot order
I have set the boot order in this sequence : --
- Boot from CD/DVD
This allows to boot from a LiveCD/DVD, and it also allows to boot a USB device with the right CD [which can be a credit-sized card] inserted along with the USB pendrive.
- Boot from USB device.
On this machine it is possible to boot from the USB pendrive directly. However on older machines the BIOS may not allow this directly. Hence the need for a bootable CD to be used to start the booting process from and hand it over to the USB pendrive in the final stage of loading the OS. See my how-to for further details : --
Create CD boot pendrive without BIOS-supported USB booting
-
Boot from the hard drive.
On this machine I have set up three installed Linuxes from which to choose on boot-up.
-
A fourth virtual option is, once the host OS has been booted, to boot a virtual machine and run it under VirtualBox. There is no limit to the numbe of virtual machines that can be installed other than as restricted by space on the hard drive.
Problems with boot sequence after booting from USB device
I have experienced an annoying problems since I have been booting the test-bed system from a USB device. When the USB device has been removed, on next boot cycle it hangs with an error message : --
"Verifying DMI Pool Data ............
Boot from CD :
GRUB Loading stage1.5.
GRUB loading, please wait ...
Error 21
_ " [flashing cursor, frozen system]
Seems that the remedy is to reinstall GRUB to the Hard Drive!
During the Ubuntu USB hard drive installation process, Grub was accidently moved from the internal hard drive to their external hard drive, rendering the original Linux system unbootable without the external drive plugged in. When attempting to boot from the original Debian Linux system, they would encounter the Grub Error 21 shortly after the Grub 1.5 boot process.
The good news is that the fix to repair Grub on the original system was quite simple and is illustrated below:
Reinstalling or fixing Grub after error 21:
- Boot into the original Linux system with the external hard drive still installed (or you can boot from a Live Ubuntu CD).
- Open up a terminal and type sudo su
- Type fdisk -l and locate your Linux boot partition from the list Example: sda1 or hda1
- Type grub-install /dev/sdx or grub-install /dev/hdx to reinstall or repair Grub!
- Reboot and test!
Notes: x represents the drive letter a, b, c, d etc. Replace with your actual drive letter.
sdx= SATA, SCSI or USB devices hdx= IDE devices
Addendum : --
I still had the problem with the booting process after doing that.
I have now booted into the first distro in /dev/sda1 and done the full re-install of GRUB, viz : --
paul@paul-testbed:~/Desktop$ cd /
paul@paul-testbed:/$ ls -l /boot/grub/menu.lst
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 9226 2009-08-30 21:13 /boot/grub/menu.lst
paul@paul-testbed:/$ blkid
/dev/ramzswap0: TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda1: UUID="8d1709b8-37a4-431e-826b-f18b18621f95" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda5: UUID="694d2af1-7cdf-4953-838c-4e6753992ec1" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/loop0: TYPE="squashfs"
/dev/sda2: UUID="13728724-182f-4f2f-86e8-9a3150cc2070" TYPE="ext3" SEC_TYPE="ext2"
/dev/sda3: TYPE="swap"
/dev/sda6: UUID="e0489e7f-435f-44c6-8599-50511370c27a" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda7: UUID="a41627ba-5388-47d5-965f-eadbec86c788" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda8: UUID="736a0489-a9e7-4d5e-bf04-292f9005e0d7" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sda9: UUID="06c04455-e1f9-4495-b6bd-288368d41082" TYPE="ext3" SEC_TYPE="ext2"
/dev/sda10: UUID="5d49941d-c05e-47c4-bfb8-aa5f5e83181d" TYPE="ext3" SEC_TYPE="ext2"
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="RunDisk" UUID="7CF5-B2CF" TYPE="vfat"
/dev/sdb2: UUID="d7da303b-be05-4168-bd73-1ddb821645e1" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3"
/dev/sdb5: TYPE="swap" UUID="df4f6cdf-2469-46e7-8f74-ceef90d8b106"
paul@paul-testbed:/$ findfs UUID="8d1709b8-37a4-431e-826b-f18b18621f95"
/dev/sda1
paul@paul-testbed:/$ sudo su
[sudo] password for paul:
root@paul-testbed:/# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 250.0 GB, 250059350016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0007985d
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1824 14651248+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 1825 4256 19535040 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 4257 4560 2441880 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda4 4561 30401 207567832+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 4561 5776 9767488+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda6 5777 7600 14651248+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 7601 8816 9767488+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda8 8817 11248 19535008+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda9 11249 17327 48829536 83 Linux
/dev/sda10 17328 30401 105016873+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 4106 MB, 4106240000 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 499 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00027a90
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 124 995998+ b W95 FAT32
/dev/sdb2 125 428 2441880 83 Linux
/dev/sdb3 429 499 570307+ 5 Extended
/dev/sdb5 429 499 570276 82 Linux swap / Solaris
root@paul-testbed:/# grub-install /dev/sda
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Installing GRUB to /dev/sda as (hd0)...
Installation finished. No error reported.
This is the contents of the device map /boot/grub/device.map.
Check if this is correct or not. If any of the lines is incorrect,
fix it and re-run the script `grub-install'.
(hd0) /dev/sda
root@paul-testbed:/# grub
Probing devices to guess BIOS drives. This may take a long time.
root@paul-testbed:/#
I will now remove the flash-drive, reboot, and see what happens!
Sunday, August 30 2009, 10:30:35 PM
Well that booted correctly after I had removed the USB flash-drive and rebooted. So far so good.
Paul
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