Installing LinuxMCE on Virtual Machine via VirtualBox

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THIS IS STILL WORK IN PROGRESS. WHAT YOU SEE HERE WILL GET YOU STARTED BUT WILL NOT COMPLETE IT JUST YET, PLEASE HELP FIX THIS PAGE WITH YOUR OWN INPUT

Advantages of running LMCE in a Virtual Machine

Virtualization is a good way to take LinuxMCE for a test drive before spending any money on new hardware, or running a virtual core to serve multiple media directors without dedicating a new machine. USB and serial devices are accessible to a virtual machine so USB-UIRT and other popular devices should be usable (note pci cards cannot be use in a virtual machine as of yet). Another advantage is the ability to save working LinuxMCE setups (snapshots) which you can revert to in case you break your LMCE install.

Virtualisation is also useful from the point of view of running the MDs themselves; for instance, you may have a "normal" desktop in a given room that you don't want to dedicate to LMCE (and you don't want to buy extra hardware). A VirtualBox MD allows you to run an MD in a window on the desktop machine.

Instructions for Core Installation

Different types of install

DVD Install

LinuxMCE 0810 DVD (2010/03/16) installs relatively hassle free in a virtualbox. Some erratic behavior with the wizard and media director in the virtual machine but all features seem to working to spec. Confirmed boot of virtual diskless MDs and real diskless MDs.

CD Install

LinuxMCE 0810 cd install seems to have some problems with AV Wizard.

Download and Install VirtualBox

(updated for Virtual Box 4.0.2)

  1. First grab the latest VirtualBox from here VirtualBox download page Right click and save as
  2. Install VirtualBox on your machine
  3. If you are a Linux user make sure that
    1. your username is added to vboxusers (installed should do that automatically)
    2. Log off and back in.

Create your new VBox

  1. Start VirtualBox.
  2. Click New
  3. Click Next
  4. Name it whatever you want and choose Linux 2.6
  5. Click Next
  6. Give your machine at least 1024
  7. Click Next
  8. Make sure Boot Hard Disk is checked, and choose Create new hard disk and Click Next
  9. Click Next
  10. Check Fixed-size and Click Next
  11. Allocate at least 50GB of space and Click Next
  12. Click Finish to Create your HD. This may take a while. Go grab a Beer! (20GB took 6 min)
  13. Click Next to use your new virtual drive
  14. Click Finish

Setup your Virtual Machine

  1. Select your VM and Click on General on the right or settings up above.
  2. Click System
    1. Check CD/DVD-ROM in the boot order.
  3. Click Display
    1. Give as much memory as you can for video. I did all 128MB.
      1. Note: Do NOT check Enable 3D Acceleration before you have installed the OS as it can cause the OS to not boot.
  4. Click Audio
    1. Check Enable Audio and choose ALSA Driver
  5. Click Network (still testing how these settings work on the network)
    1. Changed Adapter type to the Intel NIC
    2. Change NAT to Internal Network
    3. Under Network Name type, vboxnet0
  6. Click Ok

Development Network Settings

These allow the core to communicate with the outside world via one network card and have an internal 80.X network that it can manage that is cut of from the outside world, but is accessible from the host.

    1. Adapter 1
      1. Attached to : Bridged Adapter
      2. Intel PRO
      3. Name : eth0
      4. Promiscous Mode : Allow All
    2. Adapter 2
      1. Attached to : Host-only adapter
      2. Intel PRO
      3. Name : vboxnet0
      4. Promiscous Mode : Allow All

Once you have done this, go into the main VirtualBox gui,

File -> Preferences -> Network -> vboxnet0

Change the ipv4 address to 192 168 80 10 and disable the DHCP server.

Virtualised Core Network Settings

These allow the core to communicate with the outside world via one network card and have an internal 80.X network that linux mce can manage. Both network cards must be physical ones on the host.

    1. Adapter 1
      1. Attached to : Bridged Adapter
      2. Intel PRO
      3. Name : eth0
      4. Promiscous Mode : Allow All
    2. Adapter 2
      1. Attached to : Bridged adapter
      2. Intel PRO
      3. Name : eth1
      4. Promiscous Mode : Allow All

When LinuxMCE boots, it should start giving out DHCP leases as normal


Installing LinuxMCE

  1. Start your VBox and boot the DVD
  2. Follow the instructions. Sit back and have another beer :)

Configure LinuxMCE

  1. Step 1. Choose, vga and 800x600'. (as of this writing, they were the only modes i could get to work).
  2. Step 2. Static images (I only tested that since i wasn't having luck with other resolutions. Please report if you get others working).
  3. Step 3. Click Ok.
  4. Step 5. Analog Stereo.
  5. Step 6. Adjust the volume if you want. Click ok.
  6. Step 9. Click I Agree (Yes i can count but it skips steps 7 & 8 due to it not being available)
  7. Now we wait for Sara!
  8. Once she appears, click Next
  9. Tell her you don't want to use a remote
  10. Enter in your name and click next
  11. Click Okay
  12. Click Next
  13. Click Next (unless it didn't select the right country)
  14. Enter your zip and hit next. If it doesn't find it, just hit skip and hit next.
  15. Select your rooms and click next.
  16. It now detected itself as a file server. Click on it to use it and select where it is.
  17. Continue without setting up light,alarm and voip setup.
  18. Choose MythTV
  19. Click DOne
  20. Click on Media Player
  21. Select where you are and choose to not control my TV
  22. No receiver
  23. Click Next
  24. Click Done
  25. Click Done
  26. Click Next
  27. Start using the system. That was easy wasn't it?  :) :) You might have to wait until it's finished downloading all the crap it needs to download.

Instructions for MD Installation

There is a simple howto for a VirtualBox MD installation here.

Troubleshooting UI2

If you are getting "failed to initialize OpenGl" when choosing UI2 for the orbiter, try the following It seems that the libglx.so.195.36.15 somehow does not give OpenGl in virtualbox a quick work around: 

Replace /usr/lib/xorg/modules/extensions/libglx.so with the one you can download here [1]

At this point you will only have Software rendering which is very slow and laggy, to get better performance do the following 

rm /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
ln -s /usr/lib/nvidia/libGL.so.1.2.xlibmesa /usr/lib/libGL.so.1

After this reboot the machine and it should be fairly smooth

Special thanks to commsbyte for figuring this out

Example Scenario's

Various scenario's and example situations. I will work out this situation on the wiki, I will update the below situations with links.

  1. Host Linux/Windows -> Linuxmce Core in VM
  2. Host Linux/Windows -> Linuxmce Core and MD in VM
  3. Host Linux/Windows -> Linuxmce Core in VM, serving network
  4. Host Linux/Windows -> Linuxmce MD in VM connected to Core

Additional links

Forum - vbox + lmce 0810-alpha + ui2 = working
Installing kubuntu 1004 on virtualbox

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