Ubuntu Hangs after loading screen..help!

[WebDevWannabe]

I am trying to install ubuntu 8.10 as a virtual machine using virtual pc 2007 sp1 and it hangs after the loading screen:


By biobrat76 at 2009-01-31

Any Ideas about what I do at this point?

[D-cat]

Looks like an inturrupt collision, does Virtual PC try to share your actual hardware?

I'd try a different virtualization engine, many of us (self included) have had good luck with VirtualBox, and as with most of the stuff around us here, it's free (for non-commercial use).

[WebDevWannabe]

It is my understanding that Virtual PC has a program that is supposed to resolve any sharing issues. Ubuntu should not even know it is sharing resources.

[D-cat]

I'm just following the clues from the crash data you posted, which is basically that it can't access hardware it has detected. I don't use VPC, so I don't really know how good a job it does with inturrupt steering, but I know from using it that VBox virtually emulates hardware, thus there is no chance of an inturrupt collision caused by software running inside it. It's just an idea, it doesn't mean I'm right; I was just trying to give a possible solution that's free and doesn't (yet) require us chasing wild geese.

[WebDevWannabe]

Thanks I am checking it out right now and I like that it is by Sun Systems too! I will do some more research and then get back to you.

[WebDevWannabe]

D-Cat, Thanks for the tip I downloaded the VBox and had no problems installing Ubuntu and actually am responding to you from my VM right now. Thanks again!

[buccaneere]

What is virtual-ization? 2 OS's simultaneously? Is it different from emulation?

[D-cat]

Virtualization is a method of running multiple operating systems on the same computer simultaneously. Each OS is kept in a separate sandbox called a Virtual Machine (VM). There's a couple of ways to go about this.

One is through hardware sharing, a kind of shell is loaded at boot that keeps the various OS processes separated (both in proc time and memory space) while still each having access to the native hardware. This is what Xen Hypervisor does, and its compatibility is limited without a certain processor architecture to help it manage the tasks. The big advantages of this method is since the OS's have access to the hardware, they run at native or near native speed.

The other method is as you suggested, by emulating a certain hardware set as any other emulator. This method is slower but more compatible, and is the method used by VMWare and VirtualBox. Another advantage here is the ability to share images (kind of like CD-ROM ISO's, but these are more like virtual hard drives) among different hosts; since the hardware is emulated, an image born in one VM can be copied to another VM and used transparently. This advantage has already been used to copy and test new operating systems. You can also back up your VM's by save points or simply copying the VM images to a safe place.

The arguments for using VM's are largely the ability to make the most use of your expensive hardware while safely running multiple servers so a crash or compromise in one doesn't bring down the whole system, or to test other operating systems safely, so you can check out its abilities and handling, and if it crashes or corrupts, the damage is limited to the VM, it doesn't take your computer and data with it.

However, as with anything that uses emulation, you'll want a plenty capable machine to start with, one with no less than 1.2 GHz and 1 GB RAM would be what I call entry level for this kind of use. It'll work with less (maybe half those specs), but you'll probably find it intolerably slow.

[Bemk]

I am using Sun Virtual Box OSE on my Celeron M with 512 MB RAM here. I can't run Win 7 on it, ut when dedicating just under half of my RAM to the virtual system I can run Ubuntu normally with near normal speed(gaming or video's will get me into trouble though, but I'll survive because of my abnormally large swap). The same is true for Gentoo and a couple of other distros.

My notebook can do this relatively fast and I like it. I don't use virtualisation every day though. I only use it for testing other distro's.