Mac OSX on PC with VMware a Success

I was able to get Mac OS X 10.4.8 running on my laptop using VMware Workstation 6. I followed an online guide to get it initially loaded. Once loaded I needed network access and I have to change one thing. In VMware Workstation I went to the Network Type dialog box and set it to Use bridged network. I did this with the VM shutdown. When I powered the VM up I was immediately able to connect to the Internet. I went into the Network section of the the Finder and just followed the available items from left to right. OS X found my network and Finder and was easily able to connect to a share on my file server. Once I did that it put an icon on the desktop to that share. Perfect!

I have heard that with the Mac things are either very easy or impossible. The networking in the Mac was the easiest I of anything I have worked with outside of the Windows world. Cool!

I am planning another screen capture to show the important things working. I only wish I could get it to run at a better resolution that 1024 x 768.

Mac OSX Part II

As you may know I was trying to get Mac OSX running on my laptop. After trying 4 different ISO images, none of which worked, I gave up and installed Linux and Windows XP in a dual boot configuration.

Well, curiosity got the best of me and I thought maybe I should try again. I came across an excellent step-by-step guide to install Mac OS X 10.4.8 on VMware Workstation 6. Well, it worked. One of the ISO images I had was named something like Mac OS X 10.4.8 – JaS AMD Intel SSE2 SSE3. I think it also included PPF1 and maybe PPF2, but I can’t remember for sure. I downloaded VMware Workstation and signed up for the 30 day trial. Here is my laptop running Mac OS X in a virtual machine.

 

I will next try to get networking working in the virtual machine and running it from the free VMware Player. I’ll keep you posted.

Kubuntu with WinXP Virtual Machine

In my quest to see if Linux is a viable operating system (for me) I installed Kubuntu on my laptop in a dual boot with Windows XP Pro. I decided to try Kubuntu (Ubuntu with KDE instead of GNome for the GUI). I like the overall look of KDE to GNome, at least using Ubuntu.

It took some doing but I finally got Windows XP running in a VMWare Player virtual machine inside of Kubuntu. I was going to write a step-by-step guide, but it was getting too much. My notes were going all over the place.

Here is the gist…

1. Install Kubuntu as normal.
2. Run all the regular updates.
3. I could not install VMWare Player using the Adept Installer. So I followed these steps from a Linux guy I know:
   A) Open a terminal console and run the following:
   B) sudo apt-get install build-essential
   C) uname -r
   D) Take note of the kernel version from the uname command.
   E) sudo apt-get install linux-headers-kernel version
   where kernel-version is from the uname command.
   F) sudo apt-get install gcc-3.4
   G) sudo apt-get install g++-3.4
4. I download VMWare Player, and installed it using its install script.
5. I downloaded an empty virtual machine from easyVMX.
6. I modified the VMX file like this, to boot from my Win XP ISO image.
7. I also had to modify the VMX file and comment out the line:
   # ethernet0.virtualDev = “e1000″
8. This line prevented Windows from seeing a valid Ethernet card.

With all that done I was able to get Windows XP running in a virtual machine under Kubuntu. This is not a strict step-by-step guide, but I hope it is enough to get anyone going in the right direction if they try do to something similar.

I am a Linux newbie, but I am getting there. I am just wondering if it is all worthwhile. We’ll see.

New Camaro Wish List (Predictions)

Checking the stats for this blog, I see a lot of you come here searching for information on the New Camaro. Well, I have written a two part series on my predictions for the New Camaro on my web site. Last month on my web site I wrote an article looking back at the predictions I made for the then new 2005 Mustang. I wrote the Mustang predictions about a year and a half before the Mustang arrived.

Now I am doing the same thing for the New Camaro. I wrote an article stating some of what I think will be in the new Camaro, but more importantly what Chevrolet should do when building the Camaro. Call it a wish list. The new Camaro is due out sometime late next year as a 2009 model. Chevrolet still has time to read my article and know what will make the Camaro great… and more importantly… make it a success.

iPod Touch vs. iPhone

Everyone has heard the news already. Apple is releasing an iPhone without the phone… called the iPod Touch. The iPhone was a video iPod with a phone and an Internet thingy. Now you get the video iPod and Internet thingy. They also lowered the price of the 8GB iPhone to $399 (down from $599). The 4GB iPhone at $499 will sell until it is no longer in stock. Bye, bye.

So, now we have the iPod Touch at $299 with 8GB. Which means the phone part of the iPhone is “valued” at $100. So, is the phone worth it? Now I think it is. I told my wife I would buy the iPhone myself if it were $300. If I was going to get a video capable iPod I would want a big screen, and the iPod Touch has that. I could easily see paying $300 for the iPod Touch, and if I was close to needed a new phone I would have no trouble plunking down an extra C-note for the iPhone.

The new iPod Nano looks cute. I would have to see it in action though. That is one small screen, and I have a hard time thinking I would be willing to sit though a hour long TV show… or worse a two hour movie… looking at the thing.

I still think the price of the iPod and Touch and iPhone is about $100 too high. But now we are close enough to start thinking about what I want for Christmas. BTW… they will have to get the phone part on Sprint or I will never buy and iPhone. Not that I like Sprint, but it is my carrier and my wife likes it well enough that we won’t switch and go through all the hassles to change over three phones.

What’s The Best Operating System

This is going to be a long post, so here are the topics covered:

nVidia GeForce Go 7900 GS with Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows XP
Linux (Xandros, SuSE, Mandriva, Linspire, Freespire, Ubuntu)
Mac OSX

I was playing around with trying to install Mac OSX on my Toshiba laptop. I was not successful. I tried 4 different versions. All failed. I eventually corrupted my MBR (master boot record). And yes… I backed up everything before I started. I took the opportunity to install Windows Vista. I thought I found recent nVidia drivers for my Toshiba with a GeForce Go 7900 GS chip set on Toshiba’s web site. Unfortunately the install did not see my chip set as one it could install for.

I suspect I should blame Toshiba. I wrote in the past that nVidia provides updated drivers for the mobile series of video chip sets to the manufacturers, so they can add there own features. Yet Toshiba has not put anthing new on its web site for my laptop since January. Oops! Those drivers give lousy gaming performance. I think Toshiba does care about its customers, or they would put those drivers out there for us to download and use.

Out of desperation I took more recent nVidia drivers on Toshiba’s web site that were listed for a different laptop, but they would not install. So I can not play games on my laptop if I install Vista. That is a shame.

Since I already reformatted my hard drive I took the opportunity to install some flavors of Linux. My goal was to get Linux up and running with my wireless adapter and have the resolution be correct. Once I got that far I would try installing VMware Player for Linux and get a Windows XP virtual machine working.

Well, I tried 6 distros of Linux. All failed. All of them failed on the wireless part, and a couple failed the screen resolution. I tried Xandros OC 3.02, Mandriva Spring 2007, Open SuSE 10.2, Linspire 5.0, Freespire 1.0, Ubuntu 7.04. SuSE wanted me to upgrade to a paid version to work with my wireless adapter. Most of the others just failed. Ubuntu would only go as high as 1280×800 on my 1440×900 screen.

Overall I was disappointed. But the wireless thing is actual understandable. My Windows XP and Windows Vista install disc don’t recognize my wireless adapter. But Toshiba provides drivers for them that I can easy download, burn to disc and install.

I may try this experiment again in the near future after researching what it would take to get wireless drivers for Linux and burning them to CD before I start.

In the mean time the best operating system is still Windows XP. Windows Vista is an eye-candy operating system. I have not seen anything in it that is necessary. I do like its photo handling much better than Windows XP, but other than that and the questionable sidebar gadgets what’s the point. Like I said… eye-candy.

Windows XP runs all the applications I have/need/want at this time. It runs them all well, and it is stable and performs well. What more do you need in an operating system.

However… my next laptop is going to be a Mac!