Howto run Quantian via the VMWare Player from a Windows,
including an optional installation to a bootable virtual disk
This HOWTO has been contributed by Simon Blomberg, and Dirk Eddelbuettel
provided some additional editing as well as the wml/html markup. Comments and
corrections welcome.
The following instructions describe the way that Simon used to installed Quantian on his Windows
XP professional box, attached to a high-speed network. While these notes
should hopefully be generalisable, some local modification may be needed. As
the saying goes: Your mileage may vary. If you find errors or
omissions, or have suggestions for an improved presentation, please let us
know.
- Download and install the `free as in beer' VMWare Player for Windows. This
player is available in Windows and Linux versions. So while the following is
written primarily with Windows as the host ("outer") operating system and Quantian as the client
("inner"), it is of course also possible to run Quantian inside another
Linux system.
- Download and install the Windows
version of the qemu emulator.
- Get a copy of the Quantian
.iso file, using the links from the
main Quantian page. Be warned!!! The .iso is 2.7 Gb. That's a
big file to download in anybody's language, and you are advised you to check
with your sysadmin before downloading, otherwise you may get into trouble
(Simon did!). BitTorrent is
recommended for download the file, as it is generally more stable than using
a web browser. It may also be easier to create an .iso from a Quantian DVD. The
download took over an hour with a 100 Mb/second connection, but that involved
downloading from the other side of the Pacific Ocean. :-)
- On the Windows host computer, spawn a DOS shell and cd to the qemu
directory. Execute the following command at the prompt:
qemu-img.exe create -f vmdk Quantian.vmdk 20G
This creates a virtual disk that is visible to VMWare Player. Make it as big
as you need, keeping in mind that Quantian expands to
over 7 Gb. Simon specified 20 Gb. This also works under Linux, but note that
you need a reasonably recent version of qemu to create vmdk images.
- Move the Quantian.vmdk file to the same directory as your
Quantian.vmx file (Simon keeps his on the desktop.)
- Edit your Quantian.vmx file to add the new virtual disk, as per the
instructions initially published here
and
here
on Dirk's blog. As that note needed an update to the current Quantian_0.7.9.2
(not 0.7.9.1 as in Dirk's blog), a new version is provided below.
# VM Machine Info
guestOS = "linux"
displayName = "Quantian"
config.version = "7"
memsize = "256"
# CDROM Info
ide0:0.present = "TRUE"
ide0:0.fileName = "Quantian_0.7.9.2.iso"
ide0:0.deviceType = "cdrom-image"
# uncomment this for a virtual hard disk
#ide1:0.present = "TRUE"
#ide1:0.filename = "QuantianIDE1.vmdk"
#ide1:0.deviceType = "ata-hardDisk"
# uncomment this for a second virtual hard disk
#ide1:1.present = "TRUE"
#ide1:1.filename = "QuantianIDE2.vmdk"
#ide1:1.deviceType = "ata-hardDisk"
#Floppy Info
floppy0.present = "FALSE"
#Ethernet Info
Ethernet0.present = "TRUE"
ethernet0.addressType = "generated"
# Audio Settings -- set to false/false on Dirk's Linux host
sound.present = "false"
sound.autodetect = "false"
# Host USB
usb.present = "TRUE"
# the following appears to be generated by the VMWare Player anyway
ethernet0.generatedAddress = "00:0c:29:91:50:aa"
sound.virtualDev = "sb16"
uuid.location = "56 4d 6d 4c d0 59 4a aa-6f 4a 23 f7 b9 91 50 aa"
uuid.bios = "56 4d 6d 4c d0 59 4a aa-6f 4a 23 f7 b9 91 50 aa"
#sound.deviceNr = "-1"
#sound.device = "/dev/dsp"
ethernet0.generatedAddressOffset = "0"
tools.remindInstall = "TRUE"
ethernet0.connectionType = "bridged"
ide0:1.redo = ""
uuid.action = "create"
#ide1:0.redo = ""
#ide1:1.redo = ""
- Start VMplayer and either choose the Quantian.vmx file, or supply
Quantian.vmx as argument to VMplayer. Quantian should now
boot off the .iso file. The virtual disk should appear on the Desktop as
hdc.
- Inside the Quantian session in the
VMWare Player, spawn a root shell (select `root shell' from the second icon
in the menu bar) and partition the disk using the Linux cfdisk command:
cfdisk /dev/hdc
Create at least one new primary partition (more if you want). Make it big
enough to hold Quantian (10 Gb should
be plenty). It will be called hdc1. Do not make it bootable. Remember to
write the partition table, then quit cfdisk. Do not reboot yet!
- From root, add a file system to hdc1 by running:
mke2fs -j /dev/hdc1
Do not reboot yet!
- The name of the virtual disk should now be hdc1. Mount it by clicking on
it. Do not reboot yet!
- From root, run
knx2hd. You have to configure the install,
then start the install. There are several options for the
configuration. Simon chose the (recommended) Debian install, and the ext3
filesystem. Start the install onto hdc1. This will tigh up your computer for
a very long time (over an hour). Go and do something else for a while.
- Logout of Quantian. Quit VMplayer. Move the files created by
VMplayer to the Recycle bin (ie nvram and Quantian.vmss NOT Quantian.vmx
or Quantian.vmdk).
- Restart VMplayer and choose Quantian.vmx from the menu (or edit the
Properties of the icon to make Quantian.vmx the default argument). If all has
gone well, Quantian
should boot from the disk image, using grub. You should see the grub messages
at startup. There is no need to run grub or lilo to make hdc1 bootable, as
knx2hd does that job for you.
- Simon had to re-configure the network card in Quantian in order to
restore his network connections. After that, everything worked fine.
- Enjoy your new Quantian installation.
This recipe should also be applicable to other bootable cdrom/dvd images with
an integrated installer. In other words, this should work just as well for a
test installation of many other Linux distributions. Feedback would be appreciated.