After reading that it can't be done...not supported...bah bah.
Well so far I have:
Debian 2.6.18-6-486
- Noticed issues in VPC
-Network does not startup automatically; you have to connect to the wired network. Possible solution: config change or a startup script to connect the network.
-keystrokes seem to be real sensitive. Looks like the repeat rate maybe too high. Possible solution: adjust the repeat rate in the keyboard conf file?
-No sound. Possibly a new sound driver is needed? I've noticed that even with a windows OS loaded in VPC that the sounds seem a bit flaky. Could be a hardware/driver...that doesn't share or play well with VPC?
-An occasional hang occurs where this distro does not respond to either mouse clicks or the keyboard.
Recommend for VPC usage: No. Too many unstable like effects. It does seem to install and mostly work.
Fedora 8 2.6.24.3-50 Fc 8 (try earlier Fedora versions, but the installer does not like my AMD-64 processor as reported in the VPC)
- Noticed issues in VPC
-No sound...same issue as with the Debian distro.
-Screen resolutions seem to be ignored. Possible solution: Tweak with xorg.conf and the VPC display settings. Most distros seem to work with a pre-defined resolution higher that 1024x768. You could also use Full Screen.
Recommend for VPC usage: Maybe. Fedora can be heavy on resources as a distro goes. On the other hand, Fedora comes with everything you might possibly need. Having FireFox pre-installed in the version 8 distro was nice.
Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon)
- Noticed issues in VPC
-No sound...same issue as with the Debian distro.
-Network does not startup automatically...same issue seen in the Debian distro.
Recommend for VPC usage: Yes. Nice small footprint. Easy to get started UI. Lots of extras that seem to work well. The only two annoying things are the network connection and the sound. I'm sure I'll find a fix at some point for those issues.
There are some tricks you have to do to get any distro running. Mostly I've found that there are two tweaks you have to do in order to make the distro functional. One has to do with a parm that has to be added to the kernel boot statement to get virtual mouse to work. On your kernel boot you can edit the boot line with adding the following to the end of the kernel statement:
-- i8042.noloop
This added parm seems to work on all of the distros I tried. Of course once you get your distro installed on the virtual HD, you should make the kernel parm part of every boot without having to edit the boot line every time.
In a terminal window gedit the /boot/grub/menu.lst file and add the kernel parm on the kernel boot line(s).
The second regular tweak has to do the color depth and the video card that the virtual pc presents to the distro. Now an S3 video should be able to do 24 bit color depth...but you guessed it. The VPC doesn't. And of course most Linux Distros attempt to use the 24 bit...and yes that means that the display inside the VPC gets messed up. The fix is not hard:
Edit the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file.
Look for the Section Screen...add a parm DefaultDepth 16 (or change the existing parm from 24 to 16). Now you can control the screen resolution by looking in a SubSection of Depth 16.
Section "Screen"
Identifier "Default Screen"
Device "S3 Inc. 86c764/765 [Trio32/64/64V+]"
Monitor "Generic Monitor"
DefaultDepth 16
SubSection "Display"
Depth 16
Modes "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
EndSubSection
EndSection
Some good references for getting Linux distros up and running:
ubuntu:
http://arcanecode.wordpress.com/2007/10/18/installing-ubuntu-710-under-virtual-pc-2007/
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/freitasm/2184
Fedora:
http://blogs.technet.com/seanearp/archive/2007/11/13/fedora-8-werewolf-on-virtual-pc-2007.aspx
Good VPC Linux-ing.....
~cse
cse
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