access real hard disk from virtual box
Hello,
I just installed haiku on virtual box, I am really amazed!
I have a slow laptop (800 MHz), and the whole installation toke less then 20 minutes - on virtual box!
The neurons in my brain starts feeling like steel wool just from thinking about the time I installed windows xp - on brand new real hardware! oh my!
And haiku achieves that without scarifying functionality, the other way around! One thing is certain, had haiku been a MS product, than it hasn't been considered alpha 2, but stable version 5.1.2600.
OK, now a small question, it seems that it's impossible to access real HD files from the virtual disk, so, how do I install files that are on my real HD (c:\...) into haiku.
I would like to knew if there will be support for RTL languages (like Arabic & Hebrew)in the foreseeable future.
Comments
Re: access real hard disk from virtual box
Virtual Box can load real USB drives, so if you put the files on a USB flash drive they should be mountable in Haiku.
Re: access real hard disk from virtual box
"OK, now a small question, it seems that it's impossible to access real HD files from the virtual disk, so, how do I install files that are on my real HD (c:\...) into haiku."
You really should use a USB key to transfer files to and mount that in Haiku. Mounting your host boot partition can cause data corruption and should be avoided. I give the link below but do this at your own risk! Example, if you boot your host OS as your guest OS by accident that would mess things up very badly on your c: drive. This is best for mounting non-host partitions. ie: d:,e:,etc. drives
http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch09.html#rawdisk
"I would like to knew if there will be support for RTL languages (like Arabic & Hebrew)in the foreseeable future.
Haiku translations are handled here:
http://hta.polytect.org/
You can help if you know the non-English language. Register and start doing the translations. Very easy & quick. Hebrew is found under Modern Hebrew. Then the translations will get added to Haiku.
Re: access real hard disk from virtual box
wow! thanks a million!
with RTL support I meant not translations (though I will contribute, off-course), but that I should be able to change the input language, say I open a text editor I should be able to write שלום instead of hello, and off-course, the keyboard layout should change too.
In other words, in windows there is a (crappy) language bar where I could switch between input languages I chose in the control panel, where is the haiku equivalent?
one more silly question, where do I shutdown/restart haiku? ("send the shutdown signal" in VB doesn't work.
cheers
EDIT: I found where to shutdown\restart by clicking on the leaf on top, that's sweet!
Re: access real hard disk from virtual box
Preferences -> Keymap (use leaf menu)
in terminal type in
installoptionalpackage -l
to list extra programs (and libraries) you can try out.
Of interest to you might be
installoptionalpackage keymapswitcher
but I have trouble getting it to work in VirtualBox. Switches between languages.
Re: access real hard disk from virtual box
Well, after selecting Hebrew in keymap I can type Hebrew in stylededit (but not into PE). But still, the computer assumes Hebrew to be a LTR language, so when I type אבג it becomes גבא, interestingly, the same goes for the file system, when I view files\folders on my external hard drive that are named אבג they too become גבא.
I'm just pointing out, I know there are more significant things to solve in haiku.
cheers.
Re: access real hard disk from virtual box
in terminal type in
installoptionalpackage -l
to list extra programs (and libraries) you can try out.
I have no internet connection on haiku by now, is there a way to install optional packages anyway (downloading through windows)?
Re: access real hard disk from virtual box
"Well, after selecting Hebrew in keymap I can type Hebrew in stylededit (but not into PE). But still, the computer assumes Hebrew to be a LTR language, so when I type אבג it becomes גבא, interestingly, the same goes for the file system, when I view files\folders on my external hard drive that are named אבג they too become גבא.
Ok, I understand. Not LTR (left-to-right) language.
Those are both bugs and tickets should be filed for each issue so developers can fix these at some point in time.
http://dev.haiku-os.org
You will have to register first on that site. If you (or someone else) do not create tickets for them then these language issues will never get fixed.
Re: access real hard disk from virtual box
Yes, you can still download and manually install them since you have no internet.
http://haiku-files.org/files/optional-packages/
You will see multiple versions of applications & libraries because they were compiled for different versions of Haiku. If you use recent nightly image, then you can get the latest ones. If you use older version try to match up the dates to your version.
If you use Alpha 2 (gcc2hybrid) image then some of these programs will already be installed for you.
You also have to watch out for gcc2 & gcc4 because these libraries go in different library folders. If you use gcc2 or gcc2hybrid then try to stick with gcc2 packages to avoid any issues.
I believe all the packages should extract to /boot/
Re: access real hard disk from virtual box
Thanks, I will do that soon.