OSX Thing



Installing Parallels Tools into a Kubuntu 9.10 guest VM


Kubuntu had installed quite nicely into a VM but as is the way with Linux the user is inevitably drawn to the wonderful experience of the command line which is about as friendly as a lawyer shaking hands with a shark.

A lot of advice casually tells the user to mount the cd and type in a string of commands – good stuff, that is why Windows makes money and Apple make the GUI so good that the terminal is not really needed.

Anyway after having success in resizing my Windows VM I decided to revisit the Kubuntu VM and install the Tools.

At this point I had just upgraded the Parallels 5.0 to the latest build 9344 and the Kubuntu was still the 9.10 release.

With the VM working use the Virtual Machine>Install Parallels Tools option. This has the effect of inserting the Tools ISO into the CD device and then a message talking about terminals,command lines, etc.
At this point rather than go straight for the terminal I double-clicked the CD/USB device icon in the tray which proceeded to give a box showing ‘Devices recently plugged in’ (as it happened the CD was also mounted automatically).

The Tools ISO was showing so I clicked it and selected ‘Open with File Manager’ (it is called Dolphin in this distribution).

A window opened titled ‘cdrom0-dolphin and showing the root folder of the Tools ISO which happened to have an install.sh file in it.

I then went to Menu>Tools>Open Terminal and the terminal opened titled ‘cdrom0: bash’. The command line showed – blatman@blatkubuntu: /media/ cdrom0$

At this point I tried –

sudo –s sh install

and lo the Parallels Tools Installer opened. ( I felt I was winning at this stage!)

Hit the NEXT button and it went off and downloaded some missing components , did the install and gave a fine SUCCESS message. Just hit the REBOOT and the VM rebooted perfectly and the mouse worked fine between the host/guest.

Bloody marvellous!

Postscript:

The Kubuntu allows for an online update from 9.10 to 10.04 LTS release so I tried this – what a joke.

It all worked just fine and then the reboot – yup you guessed it I was left with the LOGIN prompt at the stupid command line.

The Answer:

Download the full ISO and load it into the VM CD and set the VM to boot from the CD.

Install 10.04 from the ISO – need to answer a few questions (Language, Partition, Time-Zone, Password, etc).

Interestingly the default option is to manually LOGIN but I selected AUTO-LOGIN (maybe this was the problem with the online install/update). Anyway, the new install worked fine but the Parallels Tools needed to be re-installed.

Things happened slightly differently this time.
When Parallel Tools Re-install was selected the CD was not automatically mounted so I opened Dolphin (the file manager) and selected Parallels Tools from the lefthand Places menu which gives the Parallels folder.
Again use Menu>Tools>Open Terminal and the command line read –

blatman@blatman-kubuntu: /media/ Parallels Tools$

At this point I did –

sudo –s sh install

and all was well again.

I must admit that the Linux distributions are getting better (fonts still a bit rough to my eye) and maybe in a decade or so will catch Apple …

Addendum:

Also tried installing Parallels Tools on a Mandriva One 2007 VM without success.

I think the problem may be down to the ONE being a tailored install of Mandriva and it doesn’t allow the install of required components. The procedure tried below may very well work with a standard install of Mandriva 2007.
Procedure:

Run Command – kwrite Options – Run As Different User Username – root PW - your root pw RUN

Browse to /etc/kde/kdm/ and edit kdmrc file (this allows root login from the KDE GUI)

allowrootlogin=true

The above may not be necessary since I didn’t use the GUI in the end but that is how you do it anyway.

Do Install Parallels Tools from the Virtual Machine menu – this will load the CD.

Run Command – konsole (as root)

mount /dev/cdrom /mnt/cdrom

cd /mnt/cdrom ( can do ls to list the files)

sh install (this opens up the installer as above)
NEXT is pressed in installer and a message about missing components appears.

Components missing - gcc, make, kernel services

This is where the Mandriva ONE fails since the components can’t be downloaded whereas with Kubuntu it just worked OK. Again, I suspect a standard install of Mandriva ONE 2007 would work OK.



Resizing a Parallels VM hosting Windows XP


VM Details:
  Parallels 5.0 Build 9308
  XP Pro SP3 (Guest OS)
  C: 33GB with 700 MB unused formatted NTFS

Decided to try and increase the ol’ XP VM (a bigger whale…).

Two basic steps are required –

  • Resize the Parallels VM
  • Resize the Windows XP partition within the VM


To accomplish this task I downloaded GParted ISO image from sourceforge which allows the resizing of the Windows partition within the VM.
I suppose the Acronis tools that are supplied with the Parallels could do this but I haven’t tried that yet.

What I did (with a bit of messing around of course as is the way with Windows, etc) –

  • chkdsk /f done on the XP VM – all OK
  • Duplicated the VM in OSX (Finder>user>Library>Parallels>Blat XP.pvm). Also took the opportunity to copy the VM to an external USB drive which took c. 17mins for 33GB.
  • Used Parallels Image Tool to resize the VM image (Applications>Parallels>Parallels Image Tool)
    Browse to winxp.hdd
    Gets info for disk
    Increase size (I went for 40 GB)
    Get Operation Succeeded message

    At this point the Parallels VM has been resized to the 40 GB desired.
    If the XP VM is started at this point the XP size will still be 33GB.

  • Select XP VM in Parallels and use Configuration to set CD/DVD source and Boot order
    CD/DVD source set to gparted-live-0.5.2-9.iso
    CD/DVD set to 1st in Boot order
  • Just use the default settings of the GParted Live
    The GUI info showed –
    /dev/sda1 ntfs 40 GiB used: 30.75GiB unused: 9.26 GiB flag: boot

    With a bit of messing around I got a task to execute something like –
    shrink /dev/sda1 from 40.00 GiB to 39.99 GiB

    This seemed OK and it took c. 40 seconds.

    At this point the Windows XP partition within the VM has been resized to the 40 GB desired.
  • Closed the VM (tried to shutdown Linux but got all sorts of arcane messages)
  • Set the Boot Order in the VM to the HDD
  • On start the XP VM does a chkdsk and then restarts


Well, what do you know –
the XP VM booted up and the sweet dulcet tones of Win95 wafted across the room.
(Yes, I have set the startup tune to the venerable old tune – The Microsoft Sound.wav from Windows 95. This is the Number One hit after many years of Windows reboots and of course Number One on the video charts has to be the BSOD!)

Of course Windows being Windows the anal passages could not yet relax –
A message was displayed saying ‘Windows has finished installing new devices’ so a restart was required.

Fortunately the reboot proved good and the full 39.99 GB was now available to XP.

Original reading for this exercise was here -
http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=1481&highlight=disk+size+xp




Networking a USB printer on OSX


Details:
Samsung ML1210 Laser USB 2.0
MacBook 10.4 Tiger (printer host)
Windows XP SP3 (inside Parallels 5.0 VM on MacBook Pro 10.6 Snow Leopard)
802.11n wireless ethernet network

Samsung ML1210 printer was installed on MacBook that had the Foomatic drivers installed.

Using OSX 10.4 (Tiger) –

System Preferences>Internet & Network>Sharing
Check Windows Sharing (need to select an account) eg: \\macbook.home\macbook
Check Printer Sharing
Accessing from MBP (OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard)) –

System Preferences>Hardware>Print & Fax>Add Printer>Default printer showed as ML-1210 @ Mac Book’s Computer (Bonjour Shared)

Accessing from XP SP3 Parallels VM –

CP>Printers & Faxes>Add Printer(Wizard)>Network Printer>Browse

A list of available printers should appear …

Mine appeared under WORKGROUP as MAC-BOOKS-COMPU



Indistinct fonts on OSX


Using the browsers (Safari/FF/Camino) on Snow Leopard I found the font rendition to be poor but the font rendition in the XP VM was fine.
As it happens it’s easy to fix by using System Preferences>Appearance
I unchecked
Use LCD font smoothing when available
And set
Turn off text smoothing for font sizes to 12

Interestingly until I set the font size to 12 just unchecking the LCD font smoothing had no effect.



Unable to connect CD/DVD-ROM using Parallels VM on MB Pro


This occurred when starting up a Parallels 4.0 VM on a MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard (10.6). The CD icon at the status bar of the VM had a red cross and the following message –

Unable to connect CD/DVD-ROM 1.
A file or device required for the operation of CD/DVD-ROM 1 does not exist
or is used by another process, or you have no permission to access it.

On closer inspection the device option shown was HL-DT-ST DVDRW GWA 4080MB.

Checking the VM configuration for the optical drive the above device was checked but another device existed – MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-868.
Selecting this device in configuration worked fine and the other device disappeared from the list.
As it happens the HL device was the old device used with the MacBook which formerly hosted the VM and the MATSHITA device is the one equipped in the MB Pro. It seems that when the VM is copied to the new machine some of the device settings are retained.

Pretty well worked so a happy wee bunny.



Win XP printing from OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard)


Basically the Win XP computer detail is the same as discussed before but with the shift from OSX Tiger to Snow Leopard there are a few wee differences.

Printer setup::

  • Set a workgroup (same as printer PC – say homelan for example) System Preferences>Network>Advanced>WINS (under Tiger this was set using Directory Access)
  • Install Ghostscript
  • Install Foomatic RIP
  • Install Samsung GDI drivers
  • Look for printer - System Preferences>Print & Fax>Add Printer>Windows>Workgroup will display so browse for printer and select. My printer appeared as SamsungM ( named as such on the XP machine) Under the Print using I selected – Samsung ML-1210 Foomatic/gdi (recommended)

Pretty well worked so a happy wee bunny.




MacBook shuts down without warning


Basis:
Lately I have noticed a problem which I assumed to be a battery failing but no - a sordid little tale from the forums helped solve this.

Basically loads of folk have been experiencing random shutdowns with MacBooks and MacBook Pros and the 'fixes' seem to encompass battery replacement, logic board replacement, heatsink replacement, SMC firmware problems, etc.

My problem :

Working in Parallels 4.0 (XP Pro SP3) the VM would suddenly close along with the MacBook without any low power warning from XP or OSX. In actual fact the MacBook went into sleep mode and if a restart was attempted it would crash out again before completing the boot up. Parallels was absolved because it would happen when just OSX was in use and usually occurred when the battery indicator showed c. 1:00 hr left or 39%. Since the low battery alarms are set to c. 20% they never got triggered.

Answer:
I read a forum thread which mentioned an issue with the BatteryUpdater.bundle file in the OSX so I had a go at this.

Someone suggested that the version 1.3 BatteryUpdater.bundle is for MB Pros only and indeed an Apple kb article (HT1403) confirms this. Interestingly Apple suggests that 1.3 will be shown if the 10.4.11 update has been done (as it had for my machine). So I decided to downgrade to 1.2 just to see - using the Apple kb HT1359 article I downloaded and installed BatteryUpdater.bundle 1.2 (just move the old 1.3 bundle to trash).

This appeared to do the trick since the battery indicator showed the red warning at 20% and the machine went into sleep at c. 9% rather than 39%. The low battery warnings also worked in XP as well. So much for Apple's ability to detect the difference between a MacBook and MacBook Pro when applying the 1.3 update.

I suspect this issue probably started when the 10.4.11 update was done with Parallels 4.0 so I have a reasonable fix at the moment however the whole area around the SMC (System Management Controller) in the MacBooks seems to be a bit dodgy. There appears to be a heatsink expansion issue combined with faulty batteries which cause problems with the SMC calibration/operation and Apple have also done a 'dirty' fix which involves running the fan more to help with overheating issues and maybe this also upsets the SMC battery monitoring calibration.

A free utility (CoconutBattery) will show the relevant details of the battery state and really just repackages data provided by the SystemProfiler utility supplied by Apple.

I also discovered that there is now a 1.4 update to the BatteryUpdater.bundle which applies to the MacBook so I have applied that as well - so far so good.




Parallels Desktop for Mac Upgrade from 2.5 to 4.0


Basis:
P2.5 had been upgraded from Build 3188 on OSX 10.4.5 to Build 3214 (last build on Tiger) on OSX 10.4.5
OSX then upgraded to 10.4.11
P3.0 Build 5160 installed (last build).
P4.0 Build 3810 installed (latest hotfix build).

Amazingly things went rather well. Tried for quite a while to rename folders etc so I could run P2.5 with the old VM's if necessary but couldn't get it to go so just made copies of the Parallels folder containing the VM's and then started the install.

Was running P2.5 as parrotware and purchased a copy of P3.0 which never got installed (a moral correction for the parrotware). Since purchased an upgrade to P4.0 and decided to have a go (very scary if you read the Parallels forums regarding version 4.0).

Installed P3.0 with no problems (New serial number worked OK) and then installed P4.0 again with no problems (U/G serial number worked OK).

P4.0 listed all the old VM's plus my copied backups and when each one was started a conversion was done again with no issues. The first two were basic Linux VM's (Mandrive One and Kubuntu) of c. 2G size.

Now for the "real one" - XP of c. 31G size.
Prior to converting the XP VM from within XP I disabled all auto startups except Parallels and vital Windows stuff and in the Services also disabled startups for non-essential services (Firewalls, virus apps, etc).
With the XP VM I did the backup option before conversion and both processes worked fine albeit much longer (c. 1 hour or so). Remarkably the newly converted VM started OK with no hardware install issues and no input of the XP serial required.
P4.0 defaults to starting up in Coherence mode so I changed that to Windowed and also adjusted the mapping of Windows files to Windows and Mac to Mac so avoiding the MACOSXP soup at the moment - I like to keep each OS relatively separate but will play with the sharing of apps later maybe.

The Network Adapter in XP had been changed to DHCP and when I tried to change it back to Static with the old IP I got a warning message that the IP was already allocated to another Parallel's adapter. I used the old IP anyway since I think the 'other' network adapter is now unused and hidden in the registry.
In the XP Device Manager viewing hidden devices showed two entries -
Direct Parallel
Parallels Ethernet Adapter #2

In the XP Network Connections the ethernet adaptor was shown as - Local Area Connection #4 using Parallels Ethernet Adapter #2.
The registry did indeed show an entry for Local Area Connection (which was not in Network Connections) used by Parallels so I suspect Parallels simply did not use this but created a new entry.

Things to note:

  1. The P4.0 VM shell now has the control bar horizontally across the top (rather than down the side) and is 2 to 3 times wider than P2.5 which is a big hassle on a MacBook which is vertically challenged in the screen aspect ratio department. However it is adjustable with a small icons option but the thinnest option is Text Only for the toolbar buttons. It would be nice to be able to relocate it to the side though!
  2. Multi-core CPU: The converted XP VM was still using only one CPU/core according to the Task Manager but fortunately this can be adjusted without a complete re-install of XP. It will be remembered that when installing XP Professional (Dual core capable) the HAL is set up for the particular machine. If the machine changes the HAL will need reconfiguring by the installer. With P4.0 (the VM must be stopped) the number of CPUs can be altered. The VM is then started and the Task Manager will still show one CPU but after a wee while a restart message will appear and then after the restart the Task Manager will show multi-core CPU. The restart was obviously needed to enable the HAL change done from within XP by Parallels.
  3. A new Network Adapter seemed to be setup by Parallels leaving the old one in the XP registry and so causing IP conflict possibilities. It is possible that un-installing the network adaptor and cleaning the registry entries would solve this but it should only be a problem if both connections were in use anyway.
  4. When opening a .rtf file with Office 2000 a message asking if I wanted to register happened - I just said no and it appears to be OK.
  5. The Command/E key combo which I use frequently still appears to work OK in XP (opens Explorer) - I had fears that this had been altered in P4.0, although I do use a key mapping app to adjust for the MacBook keyboard so BAU!


Summary:

So far so good - I must say P2.5 was rock solid and perfectly OK (I wasn't doing games at all).

Speed, well hard to tell, P4.0 seems about the same as P2.5 but then I am using quite an old install of XP and as folk know newer installs are far more snappy with Windows. I wanted to try P4.0 for the multi-core ability and also the graphics (I might try and finish off Syberia that I left in limbo in 2003!)

OS usage ratio is probably c. OSX - 2% and XP - 98% so P4.0 will get a good test. For games it might be an idea to have a dedicated VM to avoid performance hits from the dross that Windows collects over time.




MacBook - setup network printer hosted on XP PC

Macbook should be placed into the required workgroup ( let's say it is HOMELAN)
Mac HD>Applications>Utilities>Directory Access>select SMB/CIFS then configure> alter workgroup

Install the Samsung GDI drivers for OSX.

Mac HD>Apps>Utils>Printer Setup Utility>Printer List(add)>Default Browser(more printers)>
then Windows Printing>Browse to workgroup - specify name eg: SamsungM

Using the same printer from an XP VM on OSX:
Ensure the workgroup is set correctly - Control Panel>System Properties>Computer Name>Change>

Then

CP>Printers and Faxes>Add Printer Wizard>Network>Browse for printer> . Printer share should show in wizard.

XP usually has a driver available for most common printers but in some cases may need one installing.





Migrating XP SP2 from ThinkPad to MacBook VM
using Parallels Transporter

Tried creating an image on ThinkPad R51 and although Transporter Agent ran OK the Transporter app itself (on the ThinkPad) produced an error -

"An error occurred while Parallels Transporter was collecting the information about this computer. Make sure Parallels Transporter Agent runs on this computer and not involved in other migration process."

The selections were Express(recommended) and From this Computer.

Fix: ZoneAlarm re-enabled on PC and worked fine so even though firewall was disabled it wasn't 100% off.

Tried again to make image on PC using an external USB drive but the migration failed at c. the 7% mark.

Linked the Thinkpad PC to the MacBook via 1000BaseT ethernet (using a fully crossed gigabit cable) and continuity was fine both ways. I had tried this earlier but was unable to ping from the MB to the PC although the ping from an XP VM to the PC was OK. The issue would have been the ZA issue that I found earlier.

The PC volume migrated successfully and took c. 50 mins for 38GB.
Things to note:
ZoneAlarm needed to be enabled on the PC since if disabled for some reason there seemed to be a "fragment" still present that messed up the ol' layer 1 connectivity.
The IP address of the MB needed to be a trusted zone in the firewall.
Both the PC and MB should be in the same workgroup.
I used a fully crossed ethernet cable for the 1000BaseT connection.

1000BaseT cable require all 4 pairs to be crossed whereas 100BaseT does not require 4+5, 7+8 to be crossed so -

568A         568B
Pin             Pin
1                3
2                6
3                1
4                7
5                8
6                2
7                4
8                5



The VM booted OK and of course the activation message appeared. This works fine with a valid serial but what a hassle.

Of course normally I'd expect the hardware manager to get upset because the Thinkpad R51 Pentium M image was now running on a Core 2 Duo MB but overall the hassles were few.

Typical changes:

VM network adaptor set to Bridged - Default (ethernet)
It seems the MB can only use ethernet OR wireless at one time so after using the gigabit the MB network needed to be re-enabled for airport working.

Some IBM and Intel stuff was uninstalled from the VM image (such as 2200 wireless drivers, Trackpoint driver, IBM Software Installer, etc) because they would only be required on the Thinkpad. Some of the uninstalls caused BSOD's but surprisingly these were not as fatal as usual. The biggest hassle appeared with the attempted removal of the IBM Rescue & Restore app and Safe Mode was required. I used Safe Mode to remove some other IBM stuff and after a few restarts of the VM it seemed to come right so the Parallels OS seems to be quite robust. The big criticism is that when a BSOD occurs the VM flips out of the screen view and it can't be seen again so no chance of figuring out what the BSOD was other than "what did I do last?".

With hindsight if migrating from a Thinkpad or similar I would remove obvious devices that the new machine doesn't use but be a bit wary about low level stuff such as Rescue & Recover, Hard disk Active Protection, etc. The biggest hassle was the activation bit since without it you can't logon and of course at one point in the activation online the network connectivity was not there so a message to check the network settings was issued - great if you can't log on!!!

Overall Parallels Transporter is fairly impressive and it seems a bit unreal to have a Thinkpad XP install running OK in a VM on a MacBook.




MacBook - 1st impressions

These are pretty good machines with the bonus that Windows XP can be run within a Virtual Machine using Parallels Technology software.

Parallels also produce a free app called Parallels Transporter which allows the copying of an XP computer into a VM image which can then be run on the OSX Intel based machines.

GOOD:

LCD display is extremely sharp with good clarity.

Parallels virtualisation software runs very well (haven't tried it on a very cpu intensive app but ordinary stuff is very snappy).

XP boots faster and restarts/resets faster in a VM.

Relatively seamless working (drag & drop) between OSX and XP.

NOT SO GOOD:

The rectangular aspect ratio of the screen gives 1280 x 800 in OSX mode but when using XP within a Parallels windowed VM 1024 x 768 isn't possible - the height usually maxes out at 732. This is a problem when installing/using some graphics processing apps. eg: Adobe Photoshop CS2 requires 1024 x 768 minimum to install and Canon's Digital Photo Professional app will install but not run. Using Coherence Mode/Full Screen Mode will avoid the problem but can be tricky. If CS2 is installed and run in Coherence Mode should it be run in the windowed view the activation will fail as it picks up the display size as being insufficient.

Trackpad tedious to use (IBM Trackpoint was great) - using a Logitech bluetooth rodent with scrollwheel makes things a lot easier.

Used Parallels Desktop for Mac to create VM's to run XP and Linux in. Install straight forward although the boot device needs to be set for CD image first or VM install will fail.

No single Delete key ( can use fn + backspace )
No # key ( at least on a UK MacBook - again use a remapper )

The keyboard on the MB works fine as a UK region under OSX but with the XP VM the mapping wasn't right on a few keys. The ~, #, |, \, , `,£ chrs were in the wrong places.

The fix was to use a wee program called Keyboard Layout Manager Lite (www.klm32.com). The app installs into the CP and lets you create a new layout which then installs itself after a reset of the VM.
The new layout should then be visible under installed services -
CP>Regional and Languages Options>Languages>Details