VMware Player and Front-Row for Mac
The VMware Player/Fedora Experience
Last blog I reported that VMware Player was turning out to be a fun toy. The Browser Appliance that VMware makes freely available turned out to be a stripped-down Ubuntu Linux distro set to their own login, to be used exclusively for "safe" web-browsing. Turns out they left the Synaptic package manager in it, meaning you could install The GiMP, KDE, media-players, games, web-editors, and the thousands of other freely available Linux programs for completely free.
Last night I tinkered a little further, using a hack found at Hack-a-day.com to create my own operating system environment for VMware Player. Took the challenge, jumped in hacking the VMX file of the Browser Appliance virtual environment, and used FreeDOS to clear the virtual partition. Once the virtual partition was cleared I was able to load my favorite Linux Distro, Fedora Core, into the virtual hard-drive/partition. It takes a while because the VMware Player is emulating another complete computer under Windows, but it all pulled up just fine and installed. Right now I'm running the Yum updater to update all existing file packages, including the kernel, and also install KDE, my preferred linux graphical environment.
It's been kind of bizarre working in a full-fledged linux environment in a window in Windows. VERY nice, though, especially for web-development or network integration. The cool part is it doesn't have to make a separate hard-drive partition: VMware player makes a file that is interpreted as a partition. Here's a screenshot of a dual-monitor setup on my crappy Toshiba laptop running Fedora Core 4 in a VMware Player window on the right. It's using the Yum updater to update every installed program (one of the beauties of Fedora Core... imagine typing one command and having Windows update Photoshop, Microsoft Office, Windows, Roxio, Illustrator, and Windows Media Player all at once):
Front-Row Hack for Mac
One of my good friends in the lab I work in wanted some help installing a hack of Apples new Front-Row program on his several-month-old iMac G5 (old enough that it doesn't come with Front-Row by default). For the uninitiated, Front-Row is Apple's much more enjoyable response to Windows Media Center Edition. It doesn't yet require a TV card, although it does come with an infrared remote, and is a lot more pleasing to look at and use. It's not commercially available, either, and the only way to obtain it legitimately is buy purchasing a brand new iMac G5 (new as in released just a few weeks ago).
It's release is both a blessing and a curse. Front-Row is a great piece of software that functions nicely. The fact that Apple released it only on new iMac G5's (not even its high-end G5 towers), however, has come with a sharp sting to millions of dedicated Apple fans who bought their iMacs or other Apple products just a few months ago. Not releasing it commercially was another dunce move who's intentions can only be guessed.
To counter this, several sources have released patched versions online that don't require the infrared remote in order to function. After helping my buddy install it, all I can say is "WOW!" It really is amazing to watch. Mac's are full of "got-your-attention-now-don't-I!" features, like Expose, the Dock, and Genie effects, and the Dashboard Ripples. Front-Row is another one of those things that has to be seen to be appreciated.
Last blog I reported that VMware Player was turning out to be a fun toy. The Browser Appliance that VMware makes freely available turned out to be a stripped-down Ubuntu Linux distro set to their own login, to be used exclusively for "safe" web-browsing. Turns out they left the Synaptic package manager in it, meaning you could install The GiMP, KDE, media-players, games, web-editors, and the thousands of other freely available Linux programs for completely free.
Last night I tinkered a little further, using a hack found at Hack-a-day.com to create my own operating system environment for VMware Player. Took the challenge, jumped in hacking the VMX file of the Browser Appliance virtual environment, and used FreeDOS to clear the virtual partition. Once the virtual partition was cleared I was able to load my favorite Linux Distro, Fedora Core, into the virtual hard-drive/partition. It takes a while because the VMware Player is emulating another complete computer under Windows, but it all pulled up just fine and installed. Right now I'm running the Yum updater to update all existing file packages, including the kernel, and also install KDE, my preferred linux graphical environment.
It's been kind of bizarre working in a full-fledged linux environment in a window in Windows. VERY nice, though, especially for web-development or network integration. The cool part is it doesn't have to make a separate hard-drive partition: VMware player makes a file that is interpreted as a partition. Here's a screenshot of a dual-monitor setup on my crappy Toshiba laptop running Fedora Core 4 in a VMware Player window on the right. It's using the Yum updater to update every installed program (one of the beauties of Fedora Core... imagine typing one command and having Windows update Photoshop, Microsoft Office, Windows, Roxio, Illustrator, and Windows Media Player all at once):
Front-Row Hack for Mac
One of my good friends in the lab I work in wanted some help installing a hack of Apples new Front-Row program on his several-month-old iMac G5 (old enough that it doesn't come with Front-Row by default). For the uninitiated, Front-Row is Apple's much more enjoyable response to Windows Media Center Edition. It doesn't yet require a TV card, although it does come with an infrared remote, and is a lot more pleasing to look at and use. It's not commercially available, either, and the only way to obtain it legitimately is buy purchasing a brand new iMac G5 (new as in released just a few weeks ago).
It's release is both a blessing and a curse. Front-Row is a great piece of software that functions nicely. The fact that Apple released it only on new iMac G5's (not even its high-end G5 towers), however, has come with a sharp sting to millions of dedicated Apple fans who bought their iMacs or other Apple products just a few months ago. Not releasing it commercially was another dunce move who's intentions can only be guessed.
To counter this, several sources have released patched versions online that don't require the infrared remote in order to function. After helping my buddy install it, all I can say is "WOW!" It really is amazing to watch. Mac's are full of "got-your-attention-now-don't-I!" features, like Expose, the Dock, and Genie effects, and the Dashboard Ripples. Front-Row is another one of those things that has to be seen to be appreciated.
posted by mrbiotech at
8:32 PM
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