<html><head></head><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:lucida console, sans-serif;font-size:13px"><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_58045" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57963">The project also lagged because I had a variety of other projects competing for my attention. And the time delays of </span>even well-intended email exchanges pushed this down on my priorities. <br><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57963"></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_58022" dir="ltr"><br><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57963"></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_58142" dir="ltr"><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57963">Hopefully with the "wide bandwidth" of several people being in the same place and looking at the screen we can figure it out. Or at least we will all have a better understanding of the problems.<br></span></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_58197" dir="ltr"><br></div><div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57841" class="qtdSeparateBR"><br><br></div><div style="display: block;" id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57831" class="yahoo_quoted"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57830" style="font-family: lucida console, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57829" style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57828" dir="ltr"> <font id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57833" size="2" face="Arial"> <hr size="1"> <b><span style="font-weight:bold;">From:</span></b> Rick Moen <rick@linuxmafia.com><br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> conspire@linuxmafia.com <br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Saturday, October 29, 2016 9:02 AM<br> <b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> Re: [conspire] CABAL, water-table replenishment edition<br> </font> </div> <div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1477703775885_57837" class="y_msg_container"><br>Quoting Paul Zander (<a shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:paulz@ieee.org" href="mailto:paulz@ieee.org">paulz@ieee.org</a>):<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> I expect to come, and hopefully finally get virtualization to work on<br clear="none">> the laptop. <br clear="none">> <br clear="none">> As previously discussed, <br clear="none"> <br clear="none">I look forward to attempting to assist, though I'm unclear on the 'I<br clear="none">made some attempts to run VirtualBox, but have not successful' bit.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Just a brief bit of meta-commentary:<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Public mailing list forums have many virtues, but suffer a<br clear="none">(metaphorical) attention deficit, alongside some social dysfunctions.<br clear="none">What I'm suggesting is that your problem _should_ have been solvable in<br clear="none">this forum many weeks if not months ago, but foundered on a small lack<br clear="none">of clarity, lack of focus, deficiency of collective memory, and the<br clear="none">tendency of forums like this one to barrage people with random<br clear="none">suggestions from well-intentioned people not necessarily cognizant of<br clear="none">the full context.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">I kept observing people barging into the ongoing conversation and<br clear="none">attempting to help you without a clear grasp of what you were doing and<br clear="none">why, so it's not even a tiny bit surprising that these interactions<br clear="none">didn't bear fruitful results.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Michael Paoli is certainly correct in his 'Hey, if you can't make it<br clear="none">work with VirtualBox, you might be able to do it with KVM' (paraphrased)<br clear="none">observation, and I mean absolutely no criticism in saying this, but that <br clear="none">distracts from the question of why on God's green earth VirtualBox<br clear="none">doesn't run just fine. <br clear="none"><br clear="none">> - I ran the VMware program to make the vmdk file and copied it to a<br clear="none">> big USB SSD <br clear="none">> <br clear="none">> - Next I installed a new hard drive in the laptop.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">...and set aside the preload's hard drive. This was exceptionally wise,<br clear="none">as it guarantees that you will not be burning your bridges, no matter<br clear="none">what else occurs.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> - And installed Debian Testing onto the laptop.<br clear="none">> - There is a big partition with a copy of the vmdk file.<br clear="none">> - I made some attempts to run VirtualBox, but have not successful.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">And this is where we are. If I understand correctly, we've actually<br clear="none">been here for quite some time, but nobody's addressed whatever the<br clear="none">problem is.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> - Others have suggested KVM and possibly others. <br clear="none">> <br clear="none">> <br clear="none">> Details: <br clear="none">> - The boot ROM, under Legacy boot has from network before hard<br clear="none">> drive. I have not found a way to change this and have been needing<br clear="none">> to push F12 and select hard drive every time I start the computer.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Wow, that's... lame.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">I'm guessing you're using Legacy Boot rather that (I guess) UEFI Mode boot <br clear="none">because that seemed the easiest way to do Debian? Understandable. For<br clear="none">now, tuck into your bag of tricks for the future that that is _not_ the<br clear="none">only way. You can do UEFI Boot with Debian 9 'Testing', _provided_ that<br clear="none">UEFI Secure Boot isn't required. <a shape="rect" href="https://wiki.debian.org/UEFI" target="_blank">https://wiki.debian.org/UEFI</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">There _is_ (via a couple of separate methods) support for doing UEFI<br clear="none">Secure Boot in Linux, and packaging one of the methods (the Microsoft<br clear="none">shim) in Debian is in process: <a shape="rect" href="https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot" target="_blank">https://wiki.debian.org/SecureBoot</a><br clear="none">(I love the 'Sacrifice goats' step listed.)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">> - Linux is missing some file related to wireless, maybe Bluetooth.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Firmware BLOB. This is extremely, extremely common. And inevitably the<br clear="none">root cause of the problem is that some yoyo at Broadcom or Marvell has<br clear="none">his/her head so far up his/her ass as to be unwilling to write a small<br clear="none">memo permitting free distribution of the firmware BLOB file. Welcome to<br clear="none">Linux in the 2010s. Your wireless and/or Bluetooth will work just as<br clear="none">soon as you've fetched and retrofitted the BLOB file.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">1. Use lspci to find the chipset in question.<br clear="none">2. Web-search that chipset ID plus 'Debian' (or failing that, 'Linux').<br clear="none">3. Do what you find. If you find multiple sets of conflicting<br clear="none"> instructions (because, Internet), then use basic moron-detection<br clear="none"> to weed out the bad advise.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">There are a number of firmware* (etc.) packages in the nonfree collection.<br clear="none">For policy reasons, the default Debian installer image doesn't include<br clear="none">nonfree packages. Ergo, unless you anticipate this problem (which you<br clear="none">didn't) and fetch in advance the correct firmware package and feed it to<br clear="none">the running installer separately (say, off a USB key), you end up with a<br clear="none">wireless and/or Bluetooth driver that is not yet functional for lack of<br clear="none">the required firmware BLOB file under /lib/firmware. (To be clear, you <br clear="none">will not be painfully flailing around manually under /lib/firmware. You<br clear="none">will end up installing a .deb that takes care of all the details for<br clear="none">you.)<br clear="none"><br clear="none">One omnibus (but not exhaustive) collection of firmware BLOBs is package<br clear="none">firmware-linux-nonfree. (The Debian default installer image gets you<br clear="none">package firmware-linux, but not firmware-linux-non-free.) There are<br clear="none">also a number of other packages.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware" target="_blank">https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none">At this point, I cannot give you more precise information, because I<br clear="none">don't have the answer to step 1 (above), 'Use lspci to find the chipset<br clear="none">in question.' <br clear="none"><br clear="none">Hey, Paul! Use lspci to find the chipset in question. ;-><br clear="none"><br clear="none">The <a shape="rect" href="https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware" target="_blank">https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware </a>page told me something I didn't<br clear="none">know until now: 'there are now versions of the "netinst" CD images that<br clear="none">also include all the non-free firmware packages directly - see<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/'" target="_blank">http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/unofficial/non-free/cd-including-firmware/'</a><br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Your larger problem is the "¡VirtualBox no funciona!' one -- but, again,<br clear="none">I cannot currently help you because you haven't described the symptom.<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">-- <br clear="none">Cheers, A woman's place is in the House,<br clear="none">Rick Moen the Senate, and the White House.<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com" href="mailto:rick@linuxmafia.com">rick@linuxmafia.com</a> <br clear="none">McQ! (4x80)<div class="yqt7948766440" id="yqtfd75830"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">_______________________________________________<br clear="none">conspire mailing list<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" ymailto="mailto:conspire@linuxmafia.com" href="mailto:conspire@linuxmafia.com">conspire@linuxmafia.com</a><br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire" target="_blank">http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/conspire</a><br clear="none"></div><br><br></div> </div> </div> </div></div></body></html>