[How To Minimize Crackling Of Windows VM Audio Under VirtualBox
Luther Lazaro
6/2/2020 - This is a continuation of Ubuntu Stuff, now with Ubuntu 20.04 on a brand new ZaReason Limbo 9200a. Warning - editing system files and settings can break your computer (happens to me all the time!). Not responsible for anything that happens as a result of trying any of this stuff.
A few days ago my new ZaReason Limbo 9200a PC was delivered. The system has a 6 core/12 thread AMD processor and plenty of storage. The primary drive is a 1T M2 SSD, with 3 more conventional drives, 1T, 2T and 4T. It came with Ubuntu 20.04 pre-installed on the SSD. The other drives automount via fstab. The 4T drive is for backups so probably should disable it in fstab and mount only as needed.
How to minimize crackling of Windows VM audio under VirtualBox
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First tasks are to check out what I have and fix up a basic working environment. I'm an old-fashioned app menu panel and desktop icons guy, 25 years of expectations are not going to go away, just how I work. So first step is to find the terminal, sudo apt-get install synaptic to use that drag in everything else I need to be productive. Pretty much I followed what I did under VirtualBox to get a Gnome Panel "flashback" session and a MATE session, detailed in my 20.04 notes in Ubuntu Stuff. Give and take, things are different with real hardware. Afterwards had MATE and Flashback sessions set up the way I like in addition the stock Ubuntu session.
Everything was done without modifying any root system files, rather just installed packages and added a "mystartapps.sh" script to the startup applications to selectively add or replace components based on the $DESKTOP_SESSION variable. Even with the Flashback session I still need MATE components, in particular Caja since the Nautilus file manager no longer can handle the desktop. Gnome Shell and Gnome Flashback both supply (different) components that provide basic desktop functionality but I need my desktop to function like a file manager. Caja is a fork of the Gnome 2 Nautilus and handles the desktop nicely, even better than the old Gnome 2.
sudo apt-get install synaptic - installs a graphical package manager
dconf-editor - for making adjustments to some of the settings
gnome-system-tools - adds useful things like users and groups
gnome-flashback - adds the gnome-flashback session(s) and gnome-panel
gnome-tweak - Gnome-specific settings
mate-desktop-environment-core - pulls in caja and most of the stuff needed to set up MATE
caja-open-terminal - adds a open terminal option, pulls in mate-terminal
caja-admin - adds options to open folders and edit files as administrator, pulls in the pluma editor
mate-applets - panel widgets
mate-indicator-applet - volume control clock etc
mate-notification-daemon - popup bubbles?
mate-tweak - MATE-specific settings
compiz - eliminates video tearing, better effects
indicator-sensors - temperature indicator for gnome panel and mate panel
mate-sensors - temperature indicators for mate panel
mate-utils - optional extra utilities
Installing these and fully rebooting the system (logging out and in isn't enough) adds extra login sessions for MATE, Flashback (metacity) and Flashback (compiz). MATE compains about incompatible widgets when starting up, possibly from running gnome panel first (one of the first things I did was add gnome panel to gnome shell so I could get around, but don't know if that's got anything to do with it). Removed the incompatible widget and set up the panels the way I want. Ran into a minor bug when setting up the panels - sometimes selecting move on a widget made it go away instead. Once set up I locked the items to avoid click mistakes.
...made it executable and added it to Startup Applications. Note - for this to work have to tell Flashback to not draw the desktop. Use dconf Editor to navigate to org, gnome, gnome-flashback and change the desktop setting to false.
Originally I had Gnome Panel and Caja running (via mystartapps.sh) in the original Ubuntu session just to get around while setting up the other stuff, but with the other sessions working I returned it to stock and fixed it up a bit...
Turns out the stock Ubuntu 20.04 desktop is more useful than I thought. Originally I was under the impression that the new desktop-icon extension didn't support desktop launchers (they had generic icons and opened as text) but when a desktop file is right-clicked there's an option to allow launching, when selected the app icon appears and it works normally. Still have to open the desktop in a file manager to do anything fancy, there's a right-click option to do just that. A nice touch is almost everywhere there's a right-click open in terminal option. A cosmetic bug - the icons highlight when moused over but often the highlight gets "stuck". Everything still works, just distracting. Here's a commit that mostly fixes the issue.
The side dock icons were a bit largish, using dconf Editor navigated to org / gnome / shell / extensions / dash-to-dock and changed dash-max-icon-size from 48 to 36. The dock isn't like Gnome Panel where each window gets an icon, rather all instances of an app are represented by a single icon with extra dots for muliple instances. If no instances are open then clicking the icon restores the most recently minimized window. If an instance is already open then it displays thumbnails for each instance. More clicks than a conventional panel but less clutter and distraction. Another way to switch between apps is the Activities button on the top panel which displays thumbnails for all windows.
The Gnome Shell extensions are Applications Menu by fmuellner, system-monitor by Cerin, and Sensory Perception by HarlemSquirrel, the Tdie reading is from indicator-sensors. With these extensions and after getting used to the dock and other features I no longer need Gnome Panel and Caja for this session. However sometimes I need the extra features of the Caja desktop and file manager so I made a script to flip between Caja and stock...
...and made a desktop launcher for it (with Caja). Defaults so that OK is to flip. Make sure all Caja windows are closed or not doing anything before flipping back to Ubuntu. Even though I don't require a panel with the dock, it's still nice to have. One way would be add it to mystartapps.sh...
It actually launches both the top and bottom panels, the top panel hides behind Gnome Shell's top panel so have to make sure it's set to be the same size or smaller or bits of the panel will peak through. Anything done to Gnome Panel also affects the Flashback session. Instead of adding to the startup apps it would be easy to make a GnomePanelOnOff script similar to the above.. Yes I think I'll do that...
Added/installed my scripts I use frequently - in particular AddToApplications and AddToFileTypes to make up for the lack of user-adjustable associations. MATE/Caja already has an option for making app launchers so don't really need CreateShortcut but added anyway, sometimes I like to make launchers that are not on the desktop. Compiled and installed Blassic and my crude but useful work scripts (conv_mm and closestR). Installed the FreeBasic binary package along with a bunch of dev packages it needs to work. Compiled and installed Atari800, had to install the sdl1.2 dev packages to get a graphical version. There's also a fairly recent version in the repositories, no longer needs ROM files thanks to Alterra. The Vice C64 emulator works well, much better than it did under VirtualBox.
Tried to install IrfanView in wine but it needs mfc42.dll. Copied the file to the system32 folder, no joy. Googled.. oh run regsvr32 mfc42.dll, no joy. Moved it to the windows folder then regsvr32 worked. My script doesn't... oh nice got a 64-bit wine now, install location is different, edited the script, now it works. There are plenty of native Linux image editors but I like IrfanView for simple/common stuff, been using it since before Windows 95.
No DosEmu/FreeDos in the repos. One of the things I like about DosEmu is it's scriptable - rigged it up so I could right-click a .bas file and run it in QBasic, very handy for "one offs". DosBox kind of works but totally not the same. I suppose I don't really "need" dos anymore, FreeBasic and my fbcscript script works for quick programs, but I just want my old stuff. Tried compiling DosEmu from source but that ended up looking futile - configure was bugging out trying to figure out what glibc version I have (was kind of comical.. puked the environment variables and a bunch of other junk then declared I had version 0 and I needed a newer version... nice. Even if I patched over that chances of successfully compiling and installing are too low to put in the work. Thought about transplanting what I'm running under 12.04 but it's a lot of files and I'm trying to avoid messing with anything above /usr/local as much as possible.
Found a DosEmu/FreeDos deb for Ubuntu 19.10 and installed that with gdebi, appeared to work but after copying over my dos configuration and environment found that it won't run anything that uses DMPI (XMS), or most games. This bug has cropped up before, there was a fix but it no longer works and likely won't ever work (it works on my 12.04 system but only because it no longer updates.. kernel updates often broke it). Disabled XMS in the config file, still very useful for running QBasic and other normal dos apps. My old qbasic_pause script for right-clicking bas files still works. For games, installed DosBox and rigged it so it booted into the same environment with the same path, works and can make the screen bigger. Got Dos.
MATE - probably my favorite environment, certainly has my favorite components. Very configurable and expands on the traditional desktop concept. On my system the Marco window manager flickers when watching video, installing and selecting Compiz fixes that. The panel is easier to set up and adjust, widgets can be placed anywhere on the panel and it has a better temperature widget than Gnome. Sometimes things bugs out when moving, once set up and locked it's fine. The main bug/feature that makes me not use it as much is the screen blanks after inactivity and I can't find a setting that controls that.