INSTALLING VMWARE SERVER ON FEDORA CORE 5

If you only need to run VMware images (e.g. provided by your professor), you might want to try out the free VMware Player software. Works great (after applying the VMware any-any patch and compiling your own kernel modules [remember to have the kernel-devel package installed]).

If you decide to create your own virtual machine, e.g. to run a Windows OS inside a sandbox within your safe FC5 environment, VMware offers a VMware Server Beta free of charge. You just have to register and will get a serial number sent to your e-mail address.

Install as you like (you can install the provided RPM files using rpm -ivh ... or untar/un-gzip the tar.gz archives) and run the configuration scripts provided with the packages. A good installation guide can be found on VMware Support website.

After the installation and a reboot I had trouble connecting to the server. I found this hint on the VMware forum and -surprise- the error is caused by SELinux (I’m really thinking about simply disabling it!)

Run these commands (as root) to configure SELinux properly:

`# find /usr/lib/vmware -name ‘.so’ -exec chcon -t texrel_shlib_t {} ;

rm /var/run/vmware/vmware-serverd.PID`

Now you should be able to connect again to your VMware server.

FEDORA CORE 5 INSTALL NOTES

Preface: I found a very good Fedora Core 5 installation guide from Mauriat Miranda… The Unofficial Fedora FAQ is also worth having a look at.

As I managed to trash my /boot partition while playing with LVM I decided to do a fresh, clean install of Fedora Core 5. This time I am using Gnome as my preferred window manager as I saw it on a fellow student’s laptop and was just amazed…

So here are a few notes on how to setup some things I am really missing an a fresh FC5 installation:

Get some updates

I recommend using Livna’s yum repository for some additional software. To enable it, you just have to enter this line (as root)

# rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-5.rpm

Oh, and while we’re here, also install the FreshRPMs repo:

# rpm -ivh http://ftp.freshrpms.net/pub/freshrpms/fedora/linux/5/freshrpms-release/freshrpms-release-1.1-1.fc.noarch.rpm

Then do a yum update and grab a cup of coffee… or two… or three – I needed to download ~500 MB of updates which took some time even with my 2MBit line. And just in case… don’t mind the number of SELinux messages that appear during the update – everything is alright 😉

Sun Java 1.5.0 SDK

FC5 comes with a GNU Java VM that is… awfully slow. I decided to install Sun’s Java VM which is quite simple thanks to the sipX people.

Run the following commands as root to install the sipX repository and Sun Java SDK:

`# wget -P /etc/yum.repos.d http://www.sipfoundry.org/temp/sipX/3.2/sipx.repo

yum install java-1.5.0 java-devel`

Adobe Reader 7.0.5

Simply grab the RPM provided by Adobe and install it using

# rpm -ivh AdobeReader*.rpm

You might run into the following error

/usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Reader/intellinux/bin/acroread: error while loading shared libraries: /usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Reader/intellinux/lib/libJP2K.so: cannot restore segment prot after reloc: Permission denied

which is caused by SELinux, so you add a rule for Acrobat’s libraries:

# chcon -t texrel_shlib_t /usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Reader/intellinux/lib/*.so

To add PDF support for your Mozilla/Firefox browser, run

# ln -s /usr/local/Adobe/Acrobat7.0/Browser/intellinux/nppdf.so /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

Additional packages

I installed some more packages for multimedia features and so on:

# yum install bmp-mp3 bmp-aac k3b-extras-nonfree lame unrar libquicktime xvidcore xine xine-lib-devel vlc<br />

(I installed bmp-aac because I ripped my music CDs on my Powerbook using iTunes and converted the audio files to AAC. You might skip this package if you never used or intend to use iTunes/iPod stuff.)

Install Windows video codecs

Grab atrpms.repo and put it into /etc/yum.repos.d, the install w32codecs

`wget -P /etc/yum.repos.d https://jeanpierre.de/m30/fc5/atrpms.repo

yum –enablerepo=atrpms install w32codec`

To be continued…

ICH WEIß SCHON, WARUM ICH NICHT MEHR BAHN FAHRE...

Bahnkunde V. möchte von Stuttgart nach Berlin fahren. Der von ihm gebuchte ICE trifft verspätet in Stuttgart ein und wartet noch auf Anschlussreisende, so dass sich die Abfahrt nach Mannheim verzögert.

V. kommt aus diesem Grund erst um 18:38 Uhr in Mannheim an. Der Anschlusszug von V., der um 18:31 Uhr planmäßig Abfahrt hatte, wartet trotz Hinweis der Fahrgäste an den Zugbegleiter das Stuttgart-Mannheimer Zuges die knapp zehn Minuten Verspätung nicht ab und fährt ohne V. ab.

V. kann erst eine Stunde später mit dem nächsten Zug nach Berlin weiterfahren und trifft dort ebenfalls über eine Stunde verspätet ein. V. verlangt nun Schadenersatz von der Deutschen Bahn i.H.v. 20% des Fahrpreises.

Finden Sie eine geeignete Anspruchsgrundlage und subsumieren sie.

SHIFT-COMMAND-Q

Merke: Shift-Command-Q meldet Dich an Deinem eigenen Rechner ab, auch wenn Du gerade über Apple Remote Desktop woanders werkelst… Das aufspringende Fenster (“Wollen Sie sich wirklich abmelden?”) solltest Du auch nicht sofort mit der Enter-Taste wegdrücken…

THE EVOLUTION OF A PROGRAMMER

The Evolution of a Programmer, gefunden über Hildis privates Weblog.

Das erinnert mich doch ein bisschen an die Elefantenjagd.