NOTE: This blog series is obsolete.  Head on over to the Harmony/Melody Club where you'll find information on the new Linaro compiler and the new CDFJ coprocessor/bankswitch scheme that has many improvements over DPC+.

 

When using a VM(virtual machine), the operating system installed on your real hardware is known as the Host. For me that's Mac OS X.

 

The operating system that's installed in the VM is known as the Guest, for us that's Linux.

 

By default, the Guest doesn't interact with Host. To make the Guest more useful we're going to install Guest Additions, which will give us a number of helpful features such as:

• resizable VM window
• share one or more Host directories with the Guest
• share the clipboard between Host and Guest
• Seemless Windows

Start up your Virtual Machine and log in. If you try to resize the window you'll see that while the window changes size, the VM's screen stays at 640x480:

 

 

 

 

If you try to adjust the size, you'll find that it can't be changed from 640x480.

 

 

 

 

Install Guest Additions

 

Follow these steps to install the Guest Additions:

1. Select the Devices menu
2. Select the Insert Guest Additions CD image... menu option.
    
    
    
   

    

3. You'll be prompted to run the software. Click on the button that's partially off screen
    
    
    
   

    

4. You'll be prompted for your Linux account's password, enter it
    
    
    
   

    

5. the installation will begin
    
    
    
   

    

6. Hit Return when prompted
    
    
    
   

    

7. Shut Down your VM
    
    
    
    
   
   

    

Add Shared Folder

 

Guest additions are now in place. While we're shut down, lets add our shared folder. On my Mac, all of my Atari projects are located in /Users/darrellspice/Projects/Atari, so that's the folder I'll be sharing.

1. Click the Settings icon
    
    
    
   

    

2. Click the Shared Folders tab, then the Add Shared Folder icon
    
    
    
   

    

3. Drop down the Folder Path and select Other.
    
    
    
   

    

4. Select your Atari project folder.
5. Check Auto-mount then click OK.
    
    
    
   

    

6. Review your shared folder, then click OK.
    
    
    
   

    

Start up your VM. You should notice that the window and VM screen size is larger than before. You can also change the window size and the VM will adjust accordingly.

 

So where's that shared folder? It's located in /media/ and the name will have an sf_ prefix, so my shared folder of Atari is /media/sf_Atari. To find it, we'll use the File browser:

 

 

 

In the Devices group click on Computer, then click on media.

 

 

 

You'll find your shared folder there:

 

 

 

however, you'll get an error if you try to access it:

 

 

 

so you won't see what's in it:

 

 

 

To fix it, we'll need to run a command in the Terminal. To find it, click on the Search icon in the Launcher:

 

 

 

Type in terminal to find it.

 

 

 

Click on it to start the terminal:

 

 

 

Since we'll be using the terminal a lot, now would be a good time to lock it to the Launcher. Find the Terminal icon in the Launcher, it'll be towards the bottom, and right-click on it then select Lock to Launcher

 

 

 

The Launcher is pretty full, so now might be a good time to get rid of things like LibreOffice which we're not going to use. Right-click on LibreOffice Writer then select Unlock to Launcher

 

 

 

After all the unlocking, my Launcher looks like this. The "Guest Additions CD" is still in place, so we can eject it while we're here. Right-click on the CD icon and select Eject

 

 

 

To fix the permissions, we need to add our user account to the security group vboxsf (short for VirtualBox Shared Folders). The command we'll enter is:

sudo adduser username vboxsf

 

where username is your Linux username. Mine is darrell, so I entered sudo adduser darrell vboxsf. sudo is a way to run commands using a different account, typically root which is the administrator account. You'll be prompted for your password, enter it

 

 

 

 

In order for the change to take affect, you'll need to log out then log back in. Select the gear icon in the top-right corner then select Log Out...

 

 

 

 

Select the icon on the right to log out:

 

 

 

 

After logging back in, use the File browser and you'll now be able to see the contents of your shared folder

 

 

 

 

Share the Clipboard

 

Lastly, if you'd like to share your clipboard do the following while using your VM:

1. Select the Devices menu
2. Select the Shared Clipboard submenu
3. Select the Bidirectional submenu option