[SquidLord]

NOTE: All work is done in a virtual machine [Virtual Box].

I'm in a Linux Networking and Administration class, and while I'm familiar with Linux [with such distros as Ubuntu, Arch, Fedora] I haven't done any networking. Anyways, today we used our Fedora VM's in class and networked them together [made user accounts and pinged each other and SSH'd into each other computers under our user accounts].

After setting it up, the VM takes FOREVER to boot. I'm talking 30 minutes at least. The teacher just said, "did you disable CUPS and SENDMAIL on level 3 and 5?" I didn't at that point, but I did disable them and found that it made zero difference. The Gnome interface was completely unable to launch, but KDE was though still taking forever.

This isn't of HUGE importance to me since it's not an important system. I am, however, very confused by what could be causing such a slow boot?

 

[wmorri]

Hi,

First is this something to do with a school assignment, because if you have a look our rules you will see that we aren't able to help with school assignments? I will start there and wait for your response. Since this is running in a VM I would check and see how much ram is allocated for it, too.

Cheers!

 

[SquidLord]

I'm not asking for help with a school assignment if that's what you're implying. I'm asking for help because it can impact my ability to do my work. The teacher has already 'helped' by saying, "it's only slow because it's maximized" and "disable CUPS and SENDMAIL on run levels 3 and 5". Both things I have done with no avail.

As for the RAM, I gave it either 1GB or 2GB's. The computers there should have 4GB RAM, AMD's Athlon II x2 2-- [forgot the last two digits] and ATI's 3000 series GPU. 12GB VDD for the install drive and it has a lot of free space.

 

[SquidLord]

Bump? I don't think this thread is breaking the rules...?

 

[wmorri]

Hi,

Your not breaking the rules I just have been really busy lately.

 

[hal8000]

I'm not asking for help with a school assignment if that's what you're implying. I'm asking for help because it can impact my ability to do my work. The teacher has already 'helped' by saying, "it's only slow because it's maximized" and "disable CUPS and SENDMAIL on run levels 3 and 5". Both things I have done with no avail.

As for the RAM, I gave it either 1GB or 2GB's. The computers there should have 4GB RAM, AMD's Athlon II x2 2-- [forgot the last two digits] and ATI's 3000 series GPU. 12GB VDD for the install drive and it has a lot of free space.

Please also remember that on TechSupportForum no one gets paid. All mods, mentors give their time voluntarily.

Also remember that VirtualBox is not Linux but an emulator. Your problem is not a linux problem but an emulator problem and quite possibly the host system. Using any emulator never gives the same performance as the real system would. I've found this howto:
How to set up Fedora 12, to run in SUN's Virtual Box, when running Windows 7 as your OS.

If that doesnt help, I would be asking your teacher why you are using emulators and not a real linux system.

 

[SquidLord]

Hi,

Your not breaking the rules I just have been really busy lately.

Please also remember that on TechSupportForum no one gets paid. All mods, mentors give their time voluntarily.

Also remember that VirtualBox is not Linux but an emulator. Your problem is not a linux problem but an emulator problem and quite possibly the host system. Using any emulator never gives the same performance as the real system would. I've found this howto:
How to set up Fedora 12, to run in SUN's Virtual Box, when running Windows 7 as your OS.

If that doesnt help, I would be asking your teacher why you are using emulators and not a real linux system.

Sorry, I know you guys can be busy but I didn't expect the length.

I understand that I shouldn't expect the same performance, but should networking really bog it up that much? I appreciate the howto, but the teacher had us follow a guide to set it up, get our networking tools and such installed. The Virtual Box guest additions were a step I took outside the 'class' guide.

I've been pretty curious about why we're not using real systems. I guess it's because we're using a lab and computers that are used by other classes, so making a partition may not be an option.

 

[hal8000]

The only emulator I used was "qemu" a linux emulator to test a remastering of knoppix CD and that was slow also.

30 minutes does sound excessive, what you need to know is, does everyone else in your class have the same problem?
In addition using an Ubuntu CD in Live mode, a PCLinuxOS CD in live mode, and many other CD's all load in under 4 minutes and have networking capabilities.

As you're not using a real system, just an emulator, then a live CD may be a suitable alternative.
If more than one person in your class has this problem, then I would question the judgement of your teacher.

 

[SquidLord]

There was one person who sat in front of me who was having a similar problem. As for the rest of the class, I'm unsure, we were the only two who needed to reboot the machine [the two of us forgot to set the network adapter in the Virtual Box settings to bridged]. I will find out if everyone experiences this on Tuesday though; it's a once weekly course.

I do know, that all the while the machine is booting up, I can be pinged, and we can SSH into the machine and operate just fine.

If you're suggesting a live CD to boot the computer from, then I'd say a live USB would be better. I need access to some packages in the repos and settings to remain in tact for this to work.

 

[SquidLord]

Nope, I'm not the only person experiencing a slow boot time. One guy got by it by saving the machines state. KDE is the only DE that will let anyone log in. Gnome, well, it's just takes a dump and none of it's elements load.

 

[hal8000]

Ok, you need to make sure that your host system windows 7 isn't hogging all the system resources.
If you're only using command tools, ssh, ping, etc you don't really need a graphical environment.
As this problem is not unique to yourself now, I would be tempted now (if I was a student) to ask why your lecturer is using software that is impeding your work.
A full linux install would not have this problem, it is now either the emulator
(virtual machine) or insufficient resources from the host environment.

 

[SquidLord]

Everything seemed normal on the host side of things.
She wanted to teach us how to setup FTP, NFS and Apache and wants the Desktop Environment in use.

I'll blame the emulator on this one and luckily the class is over so I don't have to deal with any more slow downs or other odd issues [thank god I had a backup of the virtual harddrive, otherwise I wouldn't be able to complete the last project; another story].

In any case, thank you for the support; I guess it was just the emulator. I'll try and get something similar setup on my own time to see if it happens on a real machine.

 

[hal8000]

OK, thanks for letting us know, you have installed Ubuntu 11.04 in a later post so your networking skills can be put to good use with Ubuntu now.