Recently I’ve been working on a project for Seapine that involves creating some Virtual PC images. The images will run both Linux and Windows and hopefully will turn into something like a pre-built demo that we can redistribute. For the sake of consistency it was decided to build the Linux images on Virtual PC since the Windows images already had to be on VPC (due to licensing constraints).

Usually I would run Linux on VMWare, as most people would since Microsoft and Linux have a history of not mixing well. This is not just a rumor as Linux and VPC do not mix very well together either.

My first experience of trying to run Fedora 7 on Virtual PC 2007 was very bad. The installer will not work in Graphic mode so it is necessary to run in Text mode which is fine. Due to an apparent driver problem with the VPC when Fedora boots up the first time the video is corrupt and the interface impossible to use. There are apparently other issues with the mouse and PC clock that if you get past the video problem will plague your install.

Two days and lots of coffee later I’ve become an expert at doing Fedora 7 installs on VPC. Doing eight or nine Google searches finally brought me to an excellent article on what needs to be done to get the install to work.

http://theidealcopy.blogspot.com/2007/09/running-fedora-7-on-virtual-pc-2007.html

I’ve developed my own slightly different approach that I found was just a little quicker when doing the VPC install. Here are Pat’s steps to installing RedHat Fedora Core 7 on Microsoft’s Virtual PC with super excellent results.

1.) Install Fedora using Text mode.

2.) Once the install completes and the VPC reboots for the first time press any key to enter additional boot options.

3.) When the Grub menu comes up select the Fedora install image and use the ‘a’ key to insert additional kernel arguments.

4.) After the work ‘quiet’ in the kernel arguments line enter the text ‘vga=791′. This will solve the resolution problem at boot time and allow us to fix the other items. This also means that it is not necessary to boot up into Recovery mode to make changes to the system.

5.) Press enter and the system will boot up with a visible, non corrupted screen.

6.) Log into the system as root and then modify the xorg.conf file. The command will look something like this.

#] vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf

Pree the letter ‘i’ to get your editor into “insert mode” and follow change both 24 values to 16 under the “Screen” section. Also comment out the s3 driver line and replace it with the fbdev. It should look like this in the “Device” section.

 

Use the following commands to save the file in vi.

Esc
shift + ;
wq
Enter

(The wq are the write and quit commands).

7.) Time to modify the boot arguments. Use vi again with these commands. 

#] vi /boot/grub/grub.conf 

Rewrite the kernel line to add the “vga=791 i8042.noloop psmouse.proto=imps clock=pit”. The best way to do this is copy it from Internet Explorer on Windows (if you host OS is Windows) and use the Edit -> Paste menu in your Virtual PC toolbar which will type the text into your vi window. Make sure you setup your vi so that it is in insert mode and th keyboard prompt is right after the word quiet. 

 

 After you save the changes then you are done fixing the mouse, PC clock and VGA screen problems with your Virtual PC. If you also want to boot up into the Graphical Display instead of the command line then perform the last step.

8.) Edit the inittab file using this command:

#] vi /etc/inittab

Modify the line that reads “id:3:initdefault:” by changing the 3 to a 5.

Now you’re done and ready to use your new Linux Virtual PC. I recommend at this time stopping the Virtual PC machine making a copy of the .vhd and .vmc files. This way you have a reusable template in case you need to start over or want to create a new VPC running Fedora.

I am not sure if this problem persists on other Linux distros, I have only seen it described for Fedora.

 

Posted by pat on Sunday, November 4th, 2007 at 2:51 pm.