Installing Ubuntu 7.10

A quick update. I had forgotten about Update Manager. I am running it now, it's updating the kernel to 2.6.22-14-10 (from 2.6.22-14-generic). Hopefully, after this update, maybe UM will fetch 2.6.23* ?
Charly

 

It's not a right way for now. There is no ready-to-use kernel 2.6.23 for Ubuntu. You need to build it manually. It is not a simple task, then be ready for troubles. Another way may be waiting for Ubuntu's Team to build it.

For instructions about Linux kernel building check, for example, this. Also you can ask any Internet search engine for "linux kernel howto" keywords.

 

The 2.6.23 version is not yet in the Ubuntu repositories so you need to compile and build the deb packages yourself. I'm compiling it right now but it takes an hour or two on my Core2Duo 2.4GHz (it is still compiling).

To find a nice guide just search google for "Master Kernel Thread" +ubuntuforums and you will get a very nice thread explaining all the steps in detail. When you get to the make oldconfig step - I think it should be safe to just press Enter (and accept default choice) for all questions.

Cheers
Flemming

 

Ubuntu/Debian users compiles it a bit differently because we like deb packages - use this guide instead:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=311158

 

Thanks for the prompt feedback. I am still downloading the file, and I'm sure I'll have enough time for multiple cups of java/Java. Charly

 

I can now confirm that kernel 2.6.23.* resolves the 512MB limit issue. :-D

I used the Master Kernel Thread guide. When I booted with the new kernel I had the display problems - X restarted x times within the last 90 second.

The fix:
1. Boot - hit Alt+F1 and log in - then run: sudo killall gdm
2. Install Parallels tools from the terminal.
3. Reboot

For some reason I still had problems with GDM and the display kept flashing upon boot. I repeated step 1 and then ran sudo gdm from the terminal and X started up nicely - I guess something was not quite ready to let GDM show the login screen when it wanted to - and when I ran the command manually whatever it was that prevented it from showing had finished.

4. Shutdown the VM and raise memory to 1GB e.g.
5. Boot - and everything is fine - woohoo :-D

 

Thanks for all the information, feedback and instructions about updating the kernel. I am following the thread.

 

After upgrading to MacOSX 10.5 Leopard

Upgraded by 'Erase and Install'. After restoring my stuff from a backup copy on a FW disk, launched Ubuntu, got a warning (I'll send a screen shot to the Ubuntu team), and could access all my Ubuntu files. Stopped, and rebooted in recovery mode: there were various kernel options available, the first of which was 2.6.23.1 (not available previously).
Now I am running Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.23.1 (confirmed by 'System Monitor'), under Parallels 3.0 Build 5160, MacOS 10.5 Leopard. If the Parallels team monitor these forums, I hope this information is useful.

 

I'm also having the graphical setup failure under 7.10 but couldn't get through (no significant previous Linux experience doesn't help). Using latest Tiger on alu iMac.

 

You have to stop the virtual machine. Stop, not suspend or any other situation. Then you click the Start icon (the green triangle), and immediately afterwards, you press the ESC key, and hold it until you get the prompt. Choose (using the arrow down key) Kernel 2.6.23.1 Recovery mode, watch the prompt for any other possible query, and let the booting process complete. Hope this will help. I am a two weeks Ubuntu 7.10 newbie.

 

Issues w/ Ubuntu

(Hope this is an appropriate thread; I didn't want to start a new one for no reason). Just bought Parallels last week and messed with it this weekend. I found a couple of issues with it. I hope they will be fixed in the next release but I want to know if other people are having problems.

1. I installed Ubuntu 7.04 from a CD I have. I haven't upgraded to 7.10 yet (though it looks like I should hold off, based on this thread). It stinks that there isn't a shared folder option for operating systems other than Windows. Unless there's another way to do it, I had to copy my necessary files from OS X into Ubuntu to use them, which means I have duplicate files for no real reason.

I tried to set up a Samba connection but the "shared" folder kept disappearing in Ubuntu even though I never touched it in OS X.

2. This leads to my second issue: moving files. Because I had over 1GB of files to move it wasn't very easy to move them. Since I couldn't get Samba to work well I tried to FTP into the "shared folder". That worked, sort of, but it was slow and dropped the connection after a while.

So I tried using a 2GB USB thumbdrive. Parallels would see it and ask to automount it but when I said "yes" it wouldn't do anything. The icon would disappear from the OS X desktop but it wouldn't show up in Ubuntu; I couldn't even find it under Ubuntu's "media" folder. The USB icon in the Parallels window listed it w/ a checkmark but I couldn't access it in Linux. When I removed the checkmark, it would show up in OS X with no problems.

I finally burned my files to CDs and had to copy them over that way. This is obviously not an ideal solution for a virtual environment.

3. I tried using GQview to view some pictures in Ubuntu but it didn't work correctly. When trying to advance in a slideshow by pressing the spacebar, several pictures would be skipped. I wasn't multi-tapping the spacebar so it must be software issue; I also don't have this problem when using Ubuntu on a standalone system so I would say it's an issue w/ Parallels.

4. I beta tested VMWare Fusion for a week or so before I bought Parallels and had no issues w/ it. I bought Parallels because it's so highly recommended among Mac literature though now I'm starting to regret it. It seems like Parallels has placed more emphasis on making Windows work beautifully to the detriment of other OSes. I understand that but the reason I bought it was to run Linux as a VM so I don't have to mess w/ Fink or DarwinPorts. I only use Windows for playing some of my old PC games (which is hit or miss on which ones will work correctly).

Is there anything I can do to fix my issues right now or do I have to wait for the next release and see what it fixes?

 

We do not have support for SharedFolders/Coherence/SmartSelect for Linux guest OS'es, we never promised it for non-Windows OSes, but have these feature requests in our nearest development plans.

Anyway you can share your files with Ubuntu guest without duplicating by CIFS/SMB or NFS.

You didnt write how you try to share files with Samba or FTP, so I cannot explain a reason of the problem right now, there can be a lot of.

Anyway, you could do the next:
a) Make sure that your Ubuntu is connected to network: left-click on 2 black monitors at top panel and select "Wired network"
b) Try to connect from guest Ubuntu to network shared folder with "Places->Connect to Server..."
c) Use Bridged network instead of Shared if you have a DHCP server in your network. This gives you a full-features IP address and repeat a) or b)

If you will have the problem, explain in detail what are you doing for me to help you.

This is a bug. It will be fixed.

This likes a very strange issue. Are you sure that Ubuntu's installation was OK?

 

MaximS, thanks for the response. I'm not too concerned about Coherence with other OSes; I'd just like to be able to share folders across the different OSes I have installed. VMWare Fusion had this capability when I tested it so I assumed Parallels would have it to.

Using Samba/FTP to share files, I would setup sharing on the Mac then, having connected to the network in Linux, choose "Connect to Server..." and see the SMB/FTP shares in the Nautilus window. However, I only saw the SMB folder once; when I tried to connect to it, it disappeared and I couldn't find it again, even if I "rebooted" the VM. I didn't change any settings on the Mac's side so I don't know why Linux couldn't see the SMB share.

I could get it working under FTP (though it did lose the connection partway through the transfer). But FTP isn't really for sharing a folder; it's for file transfers so I can only really use it to copy a file/folder from OS X. Plus it seems like a kludge when everything is residing on the exact same computer system.

If the thumbdrive issue is a bug, then that's fine. I'll wait for the next version.

I tried GQview again last night and didn't have any problems that I noticed. I think it might have something to do with heat issues. I have a new Macbook Pro and it gets hot if I use it a lot. Since I had been working on my problem all day, it was pretty hot by the time I tried setting up the slideshow. If it happens again, I'll try and recreate the issue and let you know what causes it.

Again, thanks for the info and I'll see if the next Parallels update fixes some of my problems.

 

Thanks for the help. I have yet to succeed, but I'll try again this weekend.

 

Are you using "Shared Networking"? This is default and I assume this. Then try the next:
1) In Mac. Open "System Preferences->Network", you will see "Parallels NAT" among others, it must be enabled (green point). There will be a label "Parallels NAT is currently active and has the IP address <some IP address>". The <some IP address> is IP you need to connect to.
2) In Ubuntu. Click "Places->Connect to Server..." at "Service type" select "Windows share", enter the <some IP address> in "Server" field, the share name in "Share" (just name of your Mac's user if you share home folder in Mac by default), your Mac's user name in "User Name", and finally press "Connect" button.
3) This actions will create a link to SMB's shared folder on Ubuntu's desktop. Just click on it and enter Mac's user password.

 

Oh ho, I wasn't aware of the Parallels NAT. I'll take a look later and see if that works for me. Thanks.

 

Graphics Issues?

I found help earlier in the thread about installing via the text-based interface and thus got past the first time I encountered this issue. The install went fine, and I rebooted into the Ubuntu desktop and got as far as the screen where it verifies battery life, etc. Then it constantly resized itself, erring each time, and eventually timing out to a screen that says, and I quote, "The display server has been shut down about 6 times in the last 90 seconds. It is likely that something bad is going on. Waiting for 2 minutes before trying again on display :0." I received this error when I tried to install earlier, but then switched to the alternate, as stated before. I cannot get past this screen. I am a neophyte regarding Linux, but have successfully installed Windows XP SP2 on this same Parallels.
Do I need to install a driver for my graphics card?
Also, I tried setting the resolution in the boot menu to 640x480x16 with no change.
I would thank you for any helpful advice.

System information:
MacPro Intel Xeon quad-core
MacOS X 10.5.1
ATI Radeon X1900 XT graphics card
Dell (unfortunately) 30" monitor
Parallels v. 3.0 build 5160

 

Here is an article How to install Ubuntu Desktop 7.10 in Parallels

 

Fixed

Just in case anyone else has the same problem, here's the fix:

I had the problem with 'The display server has been shut down about 6 times in the last 90 seconds' and managed to find a workaround that let me install from the CD without having to do an online upgrade from Feisty. It isn't fun, but here are the steps. Maybe these details will help someone figure out how to fix it for real.

The steps I followed were:

1. Boot the install CD. When the menu screen comes up press F6 for boot options before it starts the install

2. Delete the 'splash' option and press the Return key to start up the installation. This will prevent the terminal window from being hidden by a splash screen so you can do the next steps.

3. The install system will begin to boot and the display server will die as before. However now it will go back and forth between the graphic display window and the terminal window. During the moments that it is in the terminal window you can type to the command shell. If it comes up with the window that says 'The display server has been shut down about 6 times in the last 90 seconds' go ahead and type Return to select the OK and you will again get the terminal window and in a few minutes get the dying display server again. Persevere and you can keep typing thing in the terminal window.

4. First type ctrl-c to kill the script and get you a shell prompt. Then using vi or pico as you prefer, edit xorg.conf as root:

sudo pico /etc/X11/xorg.conf

5. Scroll down to the Device section (not Input Device), and insert inside it the line

Option "LVDSBiosNativeMode" "false"
then save the file and exit the editor.

6. Start up the display server again by typing the command

startx

This will bring up a window filled with a grey pattern. Have patience and wait, and in a minute or two you will get a real Ubuntu desktop with an Install icon on it. Double-click the Install icon to start up the install process.

7. The display server error will keep happening, but the install continues anyway. Whenever you get the 'The display server has been shut down about 6 times in the last 90 seconds' window you have to type Return again to get back to the install window. It is really annoying having to do that every few minutes, but eventually the install is completed.

8. However you are not yet done. If you reboot after the installation (remember to disconnect the install CD) you will still get that display server death problem. The next steps are to get rid of that:

9. Reboot the virtual machine and when it says to press ESC to get the boot menu, quickly press ESC to get the boot menu, scroll down, and boot in recovery mode. That gives you a root shell prompt in a terminal window.

10. Type the appropriate keys to get your mouse back and in Parallels' Actions menu select Install Parallels Tools. That will show you instructions on how to install the tools, and will connect the tools CDROM image.

11. At the root shell prompt, type the commands that you were shown to install the tools

mount /media/cdrom
cd /media/cdrom
sh parallels-tools.run
shutdown -r now

12. That last command reboots the virtual machine. When it comes back you should have a working Ubuntu 7.10

 

Ubuntu Linux 7.10 Image for Parallels

I had trouble installing Ubuntu Linux 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) through Parallels running on the latest version of Leopard (10.5.1). About 35% into the installation, I kept getting an I/O error for the CD-ROM. Although I found some tips online regarding possible solutions, I was unable to get it to work. So I decided to try installing 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) first and then upgrading to 7.10 -- and it worked!

I figured it would be helpful to post the Parallels Virtual OS config file (.PVS) and the .HDD image online for those attempting to use the same setup.

This installation also addresses an issue regarding the X11 server crashing in Parallels.

The torrent is available on MacNBits (registration required): http://www.macnbits.com/tracker_details.php?hash=bd77b5dc1e9645580ff6fe031347f31faaca7b62