Inspirated

Every once a while, I need to take the backup of my Nokia N72 using PC Suite. Since the task had to be performed on Windows, I expected my virtualized machine to be able to do so. Unfortunately, Virtual Machine Manager does not provide any option in its interface which would allow me to use my USB devices in virtualized machines. Going through the documentation though, here’s the method through which I was able to solve my issue.

First of all, you should have the vendor and product ID’s of the USB device you want to use. Sounds alien? Use the command:

[user@host ~]$ lsusb

Which will show you something like:

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub
Bus 005 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 004 Device 002: ID 0a12:0001 Cambridge Silicon Radio, Ltd Bluetooth Dongle (HCI mode)
Bus 004 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 003 Device 003: ID 0421:04c4 Nokia Mobile Phones
Bus 003 Device 002: ID 09da:000a A4 Tech Co., Ltd Port Mouse
Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub
Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0001 Linux Foundation 1.1 root hub

The bold numbers in the line containing “Nokia Mobile Phones” are the vendor and product IDs respectively. Once you’ve noted them down for your required device (in my case: 0x421 and 0x4c4), list the virtual machines’ configuration files:

[user@host ~]$ sudo ls /etc/libvirt/qemu

networks windoze.xml

My virtual machine was named “windoze”, so windoze.xml is the file that I need to edit:

[user@host ~]$ sudo gedit /etc/libvirt/qemu/windoze.xml

In the editor, add the highlighted hostdev lines under the devices section (replacing the vendor and product IDs with the ones noted down from lsusb output):

<devices>
<emulator>/usr/bin/qemu-kvm</emulator>
<hostdev mode='subsystem' type='usb'>
<source>
<vendor id='0x0421' />
<product id='0x04c4' />
</source>
</hostdev>

Save and close the file. Restart the service:

[user@host ~]$ sudo service libvirtd restart

If everything went smoothly, the USB device should now be accessible from within the virtual machine:

(Click on the thumbnail for larger version.)

The idea of visualizing the history of Microsoft on four sides of a desktop cube does sound enthralling no matter how much you despise the company’s products. That’s precisely the reason why I spent a whole night trying to configure four different operating systems to run virtualized on QEMU/KVM with networking and multimedia capabilities. The results look good, especially when you have a compositing window manager to extrapolate their effects.

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Note: Windows 98 and 95 don’t like KVM at all, so I had to run their respective virtual machines with the -no-kvm switch.

While lurking in the IRC chatroom for KVM, I asked people about the problem that had been bothering me for weeks i.e. invisible mouse pointer in QEMU. Quite patiently, I waited for an answer and bingo! A user with the nickname ‘dignome’ found the solution in the first shot: run QEMU with SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE environment variable set to 0. The mouse pointer finally started appearing in the emulator by doing that, and after assigning another hundred megabytes of memory, my new virtual machine was shining and ready for some practical usage.

Inspirated on Internet Explorer 6

From now on, I won’t have to boot to Windows to check my IE rendering bug fixes. Sound problems have also been fixed by passing the -soundhw es1370 flag to QEMU.

Things are perfect for now. My next aim would be to install different operating systems, virtualize them simultaneously and show each instance running a different side of the desktop cube on Beryl. Something tells me that it would be one of the most kick-ass screenshots of my entire life.

The first stable release of the Linux kernel in 2007 was announced on 4th February. Many new features excite developers but the one that’s been most anticipated is the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM); which enables people to run virtual ‘machines’ on their desktop concurrently (e.g. a Linux distribution and Windows).

Until now, virtualization for Linux distributions was usually done through Xen. The competition scenario of KVM and Xen proves to be an intriguing one. Xen people’s efforts for inclusion in mainstream kernel sources will now abruptly subside, while mainstream distributions e.g. RHEL will keep supporting Xen for at least a couple of years because of the stability and inertia of the project.

As for myself, alas, I can’t test the 2.6.20 kernel right now. It’ll probably sound boring now but I’m away from my PC for another few days — I’ll post a review of KVM as soon as I get back to it (phew, another one on the list).