Can't 'start' a VM in Virtualbox

[techno kang]

Hi,

I had previously run Android-x86 kit-kat on a Pentium 4 machine with Debian. The machine has been scrapped.

I am trying to install 8.1-r1 on my laptop which has a i7-processor with 8GB Ram and running Debian 9.0 Stretch with kernel 4.9.

I install Virtualbox-6.0 from the Oracle site. I download the 8.1-r1 .iso from the Android-x86 site.

In Virtualbox, I can create a VM  without any error.

Then when I click 'start' to boot the VM, I have this pop-up window with msg "Failed to open session...", clicking on 'Detail' gives more msg about exit code 1. Through surfing, I learn to try lower version of Android-x86. I try the nougat and marshmallow .iso, but with the same result.

One thing I notice is that creating the VM is almost instant. Is that proper, eventhough I have a powerful processor?

Would like to discuss my experience with someone who has successfully installed 8.1-r1 on a i7-8550 machine running Debian Stretch.

Thks.

[Chih-Wei Huang]

techno kang <technol...@gmail.com> 於 2019年3月10日 週日 下午3:18寫道：

> I had previously run Android-x86 kit-kat on a Pentium 4 machine with Debian. The machine has been scrapped.
>
> I am trying to install 8.1-r1 on my laptop which has a i7-processor with 8GB Ram and running Debian 9.0 Stretch with kernel 4.9.
> I install Virtualbox-6.0 from the Oracle site. I download the 8.1-r1 .iso from the Android-x86 site.
> In Virtualbox, I can create a VM without any error.
> Then when I click 'start' to boot the VM, I have this pop-up window with msg "Failed to open session...", clicking on 'Detail' gives more msg about exit code 1. Through surfing, I learn to try lower version of Android-x86. I try the nougat and marshmallow .iso, but with the same result.

All the versions support VirtualBox.

I don't think your problem is related to android-x86.
It's probably you didn't configure your VM correctly
so that the OS is not even booted.
Could it boot any other Linux iso?

> One thing I notice is that creating the VM is almost instant. Is that proper, eventhough I have a powerful processor?
>
> Would like to discuss my experience with someone who has successfully installed 8.1-r1 on a i7-8550 machine running Debian Stretch.

Since you're using Debian, besides using VM on it,
you can consider to install android-x86 rpm to Debian directly.
Please see the release note for the details.

http://www.android-x86.org/releases/releasenote-8-1-r1

[techno kang]

Thks for the reply.

I will try the .rpm approach. It seems more straightforward. Someone  has posted that he has has got it working, using the right alien command. 

Being curious, why not have a .deb instead of .rpm for download? .deb is more popularly used than .rpm.

[Chih-Wei Huang]

techno kang <technol...@gmail.com> 於 2019年3月11日 週一 下午2:25寫道：

>
> Thks for the reply.
>
> I will try the .rpm approach. It seems more straightforward. Someone has posted that he has has got it working, using the right alien command.
>
> Being curious, why not have a .deb instead of .rpm for download? .deb is more popularly used than .rpm.

Is it? I doubt so.

I'm not familiar with (and dislike) deb.
Anyway, if anyone can contribute a deb build makefile,
that's fine.

[techno kang]

OK lah, just one line of 'alien' command to change from .rpm to .deb. More important is that it works. I was able to install android-8.1-r1 starting with the android-x86-8.1-r1.i686.rpm package.

The command "alien -ci --target=amd64 android-x86-8.1-r1.i686.rpm" produced error about missing rpmdb file. That's because my system does not have the rpm database yet.

Run the command "rpm --rebuilddb" to create the database.

After that, the alien command worked, converting the .rom to .deb and installed it. A custom.cfg file was created in the /boot/grub dir, a /android-8.1-r1 dir with sub-dir 'data' was created together with files 'kernel', 'initrd.img' plus others.

On booting, a menu for additional selection of 'android-81.-r1' and its debug mode were presented. But when 'android-8.1-r1' was selected for booting, a black screen with a blinking cursor appeared. After about a couple of minutes, the screen turned all black and the system could not respond to any input device.

Add "nomodeset " to end of boot command in custom.cfg as follows:

linux /android-8.1-r1/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.selinux=permissive set gfxpayload=1920x1080 nomodeset

Now, my machine can boot into android oreo .

[techno kang]

Problem.

I want to mod my android-x86-8.1-r1 to communicate via usb modem. But I cannot write to /system. Its read-only. In fact, the whole device which it is mounted to, /dev/loop1', is read-only. I have tried remounting to no avail.

Unlike installation with VirtualBox, this method of installation with .rpm does not allow me to set /system to rw. Nothing can be done about this?

The only option is to install via VirtualBox?

[techno kang]

unsquashfs system.sfs does the trick. it produces a system.img. replace systemfs with system.img and reboot.

Now /dev/loop1 is mounted rw.

Can write to /system. Confirmed with Terminal Emulator. It has the old and cumbersome vi editor. No simpler editor?

Now working on the USB Modem. Not even usb_modeswitch is available. Some work ahead.

[techno kang]

I have copied a file from external source for usbmodem connection named  'chat' over to /system/bin and chmod it to 777. When the file is run,  error msg is that  the file is "not executable."

Is there some kind of security protection in oreo to prevent executables from external source? If yes, how to remove the protection?

[techno kang]

Sorry, not any Google protection. Probably the wrong file type. The file 'chat' was copied from my Debian Stretch. More info on the file from Debian Stretch.

file /usr/sbin/chat

/usr/sbin/chat: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=ab14fadfb56a2e096b4d107717de2027e9e3854a, stripped

ldd /usr/sbin/chat
        linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffd701e7000)
        libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fe5d234e000)
        /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fe5d28f4000)

Now, where to get 'chat' which is executable in Android Oreo?

[Chih-Wei Huang]

techno kang <technol...@gmail.com> 於 2019年3月23日 週六 上午11:17寫道：

>
> Sorry, not any Google protection. Probably the wrong file type. The file 'chat' was copied from my Debian Stretch. More info on the file from Debian Stretch.
>
> file /usr/sbin/chat
> /usr/sbin/chat: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=ab14fadfb56a2e096b4d107717de2027e9e3854a, stripped
>
> ldd /usr/sbin/chat
> linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffd701e7000)
> libc.so.6 => /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libc.so.6 (0x00007fe5d234e000)
> /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fe5d28f4000)
>
> Now, where to get 'chat' which is executable in Android Oreo?

In the ancient version of Android-x86 (probably < 4.0?)
we have added the chat utility (for modem configuration).
But it's dropped for years since nobody use or test it.
You may find it in our old branches.
I guess it's not too difficult to build it in 8.1.

[Chih-Wei Huang]

Chih-Wei Huang <cwh...@android-x86.org> 於 2019年3月25日 週一 上午10:31寫道：

> techno kang <technol...@gmail.com> 於 2019年3月23日 週六 上午11:17寫道：
> >

> > Now, where to get 'chat' which is executable in Android Oreo?
>
> In the ancient version of Android-x86 (probably < 4.0?)
> we have added the chat utility (for modem configuration).
> But it's dropped for years since nobody use or test it.
> You may find it in our old branches.
> I guess it's not too difficult to build it in 8.1.

https://osdn.net/projects/android-x86/scm/git/external-ppp/tree/honeycomb-x86/chat/

--
Chih-Wei
Android-x86 project
http://www.android-x86.org

[techno kang]

Thks for the code. I'll have to set up the environment to build the executable. Seems like an overkill just for one small program.

Am surprised to hear from you that no one used 'chat'. When I searched the web, 'chat' and 'pppd' are frequently mentioned together. 'chat' is used to managed the communication with the serial device with AT-type commands from a file.

[Chih-Wei Huang]

techno kang <technol...@gmail.com> 於 2019年3月26日 週二 上午8:48寫道：

>
> Thks for the code. I'll have to set up the environment to build the executable. Seems like an overkill just for one small program.
>
> Am surprised to hear from you that no one used 'chat'. When I searched the web, 'chat' and 'pppd' are frequently mentioned together. 'chat' is used to managed the communication with the serial device with AT-type commands from a file.

I meant nobody uses it in Android-x86 in the recent years.
At least I'm not aware that anyone wants to use it, except you.

No developer has appropriate device to add or test 3G/4G support.
I have a tablet with 3G modem, but it's too old to run the current version.
The latest version which supports it is probably 4.0
(I don't remember exactly...)

Anyway, you're welcome to add back 3G/4G support to Android-x86.

[techno kang]

When I search for "3g modem", I find quite a number of posts looking for solutions.

I will have a go at it. For a start, can someone help to compile a position-independent  binary of the 'chat.c' program and have it zipped  for download? Those development environment are big. My download speed is low.

Thks.