blog.onepixeloff - macosx

Moving a Linux (Debian) virtual machine from VMWare Fusion (on MacOSX) to VMWare Server (Linux)

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 14:14:00 -0400

I've tripped over this a couple of times, and only figured out what to do about it after googling around a while and mashing together a couple of the results. After having to re-research the same thing twice I decided to write it down. Hopefully someone else will find it useful. When I migrate I create a new virtual machine definition on the new machine, and link up the disk image. When you link up the disk image on VMWare server it probably won't work. So what you will need to do is edit the main "vmdk" file. You should see a line that reads:


ddb.virtualHWVersion = "7"

Just change the 7 to 4 so it reads like:


ddb.virtualHWVersion = "4"

Why the newest version of VMWare server doesn't support a disk defined with a virtualHWVersion of "7", and this can overcome by simply changing it to "4" without actually doing anything to the disk is beyond me :) Once this is done you should be able to use the disk image. The virtual machine should be able to boot, but networking probably won't work. When you created a new virtual machine definition a new virtual MAC address will have been created for the VM's NIC. Debian will have responded to this new MAC by assigning it a new ethernet device (just in case the old one comes back). For example if you had set up networking on eth0 for the VM on your mac you will find there is a new unconfigured eth1 device and eth0 is present but inactive. So how do you fix this? Edit the following file: /etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules There should be two entries at the end of the file that look something like this:


# PCI device 0x1022:0x2000 (pcnet32)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:0c:29:54:ac:4f", NAME="eth0"

# PCI device 0x1022:0x2000 (pcnet32)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:0c:29:54:ac:8d", NAME="eth1"

Comment out the first one, and change the name of the second to "eth0". It'll look something like this:


# PCI device 0x1022:0x2000 (pcnet32)
#SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:0c:29:54:ac:4f", NAME="eth0"

# PCI device 0x1022:0x2000 (pcnet32)
SUBSYSTEM=="net", DRIVERS=="?*", ATTRS{address}=="00:0c:29:54:ac:8d", NAME="eth0"

Restart your virtual machine and the networking configuration you had working in Fusion will be working on Server. Alternatively you could set the MAC address of the VM on VMWare Server to be the same the MAC it was using in VMWare Fusion, but you would run into trouble if you ever ran both the original and copy on the same network at the same time. So letting it keep the new MAC address is probably safer.

Change you default spell check dictionary in MacOSX

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:22:00 -0400

It's a silly little thing, but it's taken me years to figure it out. That is: How do you set the default dictionary for spell check in Mac OSX? Most people won't ever need to do this, but it's always sort of annoyed me that spell check in Mac OSX mail and every other program would try to force the American spelling of words on me. It was a very slight slight against my national pride, and being Canadian I just lived with it. The Canadian dictionary is somewhere between American and British dictionaries. Sometimes we use the Britsh spelling and sometimes the Americans use the Canadian spelling. I knew Mac OSX had a Canadian Dictionary but wasn't sure how to set it as the default? It turned out to incredibly simple. I had been rooting around in system preferences which turned out to be the wrong place. Instead just control click (or right click) in a text editor that uses the system spell check (like Mac OSX) mail. Select "Spelling and Grammar" from the contextual menu and then "Show Spelling and Grammar" in the sub menu. This will open a tool panel window in which there should be a select box that will let you change the dictionary. Once changed it continue to use the selected dictionary in any program that uses the system spell check. Now everything I write and every email I send will contain a subtle hint of understated ambiguous patriotism, that anyone not in the know will misidentify as a typo or poor spelling. A very Canadian way to wave a flag I think. Oh yeah, if you use Firefox (which doesn't use the system spell check) you can get the Canadian dictionary for it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:3

Some MacOSX Tiger Keyboard ShortCuts

Tue, 10 May 2005 12:50:00 -0400

There are a few neat little keyboard shortcuts in OSX that I've only found through word of mouth. They might be in the OSX's documentation, but to be honest I haven't read through it that closely.

First, in the finder you can get info on a file or folder by pressing command(the apple key) and "i". This will open a information window, you can also do this through the File menu in the finder. The info window was around in OS 9, so it isn't really anything new. But now in OSX if you hold down the option key as well (option-command-i) it will show the "Inspector". The Inspector is basically the Information window, but it updates every-time you select a new object to show the information of that object. This has been around in OSX for a while, and isn't really new for tiger.

Second, while typing in any text input field or area of a Cocoa application you can type a partial word and then press option-ESC, and you will be provided with a select list of possible words that will complete what you have already typed. This has also been around for a while.

Lastly one that is new to tiger. If you select a word in any program and press control-command-d a window will appear and provide you with the dictionary or thesaurus definition of the word you selected.