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Setup USB support in Oracle VirtualBox

Ryan — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:35:53 +0000

Since VirtualBox version 4.0 USB support can be enabled in the Open Source Edition (OSE) by installing the optional Oracle Extension Pack. You can find out how to install the Extension Pack here. If you have an earlier 3.2 version, you must make sure you have the Oracle closed source version of VirtualBox which was entirely separate from the OSE version.

Once you have everything installed correctly you need to make sure you have the VirtualBox guest additions installed on your guest VM. To do this select Devices -> Install Guest Additions from the VM menu.

Now you should have a USB section in your VirtualBox manager for your guest VM. Power down your guest VM and make sure that the USB and USB 2.0 controller are activated.

When you start your VM you should now see a USB icon on the bottom right corner of the screen. Unfortunately when you click on this the USB devices connected to your host machine are visible but deactivated and therefore invisible to your VM. To fix this we have to add your user to the “vboxusers” group on your host machine.

If your host machine is running a Linux distribution that uses GNOME (Ubuntu/Fedora /etc.) simply go to System -> Administration -> Users and Groups -> Manage Groups and scroll down to the “vboxusers” group. Click on Properties and select the checkbox next to your username to add yourself to th group. Now you must completely logout of your Gnome session and log back in for these changes to take affect.

You should now be able to fire up your VM and have access all USB devices connected to our host machine. Click the USB icon to see what USB devices are available. You will know if the USB device is visible to your VM if there is a check mark next to it.

VirtualBox 4.0 upgrade and the Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack

Ryan — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 10:46:42 +0000

With the new version of VirtualBox (4.0.0) comes a new feature called Extension Packs. Before version 4.0, there were two editions of VirtualBox: a full binary containing all features and an “Open Source Edition” (OSE) with source code. With version 4.0, there is only one version any more, which is open source, and the closed-source components have been moved to a separate extension pack. These will contain various additions like high-speed USB 2.0, Remote Display Services and Network booting.

If you have the USB enabled when you update to version 4.0.0 and try to start the guest you will receive the following error until you turn off USB or install the Extension Pack.

Implementation of the USB 2.0 controller not found! The device will be disabled. You can ignore this warning but there will be no USB 2.0 support in your VM. To fix this issue, either install the 'Oracle VM VirtualBox Extension Pack' or disable USB 2.0 support in the VM settings

You can download the Extension pack here.

To install the Extension pack you download and save it to your hard drive and then open the VirtualBox main program. Click on preferences and on the left side click Extensions. On the right side, click the add package icon and then open the folder that has the extension and click to install it.

Setup the PS3 Bluetooth Controller on Ubuntu

Ryan — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 15:25:49 +0000

The PS3 Sixaxis and DualShock3 bluetooth controllers are a great for gaming on your PS3 but will work just as well under Linux. With this guide you will be able to configure them to work on your Ubuntu Linux 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) PC in USB as well as wireless bluetooth mode.

There are a variety of solutions out there but they are either overly complex, or because of the ever changing state of Linux bluetooth support, they are somewhat outdated. The advantage of this solution is that it is simple, and requires only slight modification to the default versions of the bluez-utils packages (bluez-4.12). This minimizes possible conflicts and eliminates unneeded configuration.

This guide specifically covers Ubuntu Linux 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex) but I’m sure similar steps can be taken for other distributions.

Download digital camera photos with gphoto2

Ryan — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:14:44 +0000

gphoto2 allows you to directly connect a digital camera over USB and transfer the saved images and videos to your computer. This is very helpful when you don’t have access to a media card reader.

Install the gphoto2 package on your system.

In Gentoo:

# emerge media-gfx/gphoto2

In Ubuntu:

# aptitude install gphoto2

Start off by connecting your digital camera to your computer with a USB cable and turning on any transfer/playback mode that might exist.

Run the following command to see if your camera is auto-detected by gphoto2. It will show you the camera model that detected and what port it is on.

$ gphoto2 --auto-detect

This will show you all the files that are currently stored on your camera including images and videos. You will get data such as type, size, and location on the camera device.

$ gphoto2 --list-files

Change your current working directory to the location that you want the images saved on your system.

$ cd ~/camera_images/

Now you can download all the images and videos from your camera to your current working directory on your system.

$ gphoto2 --get-all-files

Once all images are downloaded to your computer you can clear the camera. Make sure your images are stored on your system correctly because there is no going back.

$ gphoto2 --delete-all-files