On 24/04/16 16:14, M. J. Everitt wrote:
On 24/04/16 14:55, Julian Hall wrote:
Hi All,
Some time ago you may remember I posted that the only reason Window 7
still exists on my system is because the TomTom Satnav app will not
work in WINE. Apologies to purists but I've found no native way of
getting it to work in Linux, so I'm going with the adage 'If it works,
use it'. I also heard of problems getting USB to work with VirtualBox.
IIRC I was not alone in my irritation at having to keep Windows 7
/just/ for the SatNav. Yesterday I took the plunge and setup a Windows
7 VM in VirtualBox. In short it was successful, but I thought I would
share how as it was not without much gnashing of teeth. I'll assume
you have installed VirtualBox and followed up by installing a Windows
7 VM as those bits are relatively straightforward; for reference I
gave it 4Gb memory and 256Mb video RAM.
1. To get USB working /at all/ you have to follow a set procedure.
a) Install VirtualBox Guest Additions CD Image following the
directions on this webpage:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-1955955/install-virtualbox-guest-additions-windows.html
- After this go to the Settings -> USB for the VM and you will be able
to enable USB 2.0 (or 3.0 if your motherboard supports it, mine doesn't).
IMPORTANT NOTE: The VirtualBox version MUST be IDENTICAL to the
Guest Additions version or it won't work.
b) Close down the VM and insert / turn on any USB devices you want
it to recognise. Except the SatNav.. it won't work yet, not without
the driver software.
c) Start the VM and you should see the familiar notifications that
Windows has found new hardware and is setting it up for use.
d) Go back to Settings -> USB and click the Add icon (second down)
under USB Filters. Add each device in turn.
e) In the bottom right the fourth icon from the left is USB
devices. Right click that and make sure all you want have ticks next
to them.
Subsequent boots of the VM you can plug and unplug USB devices as
normal. It's only to add them that they need to be plugged in before
the VM starts.
2. Now the NAS - I had to enable this as my TomTom software is on the
NAS box - oops. Anyway this is relatively simple, once you get past
the naive assumption - which I had - that a Windows VM will recognise
the NAS just because it can get Internet access, and because the host
OS does. Wrong. Just set Windows up on network up the same as you did
for the real install, network name etc.
Click on Devices - Shared Folders - Shared Folder Settings. Browse to
the Mount Point - not the drive itself as I did - which in my case is
/home/julian/HERA. Make sure to check Auto-mount and Make Permanent.
It should then be a Network Location within the Windows 7 VM, so if
you have been a berk like me and all your Windows Installation media
are on your NAS, now you can get at them. if not go ahead and try
mapping it like a normal drive, but you shouldn't need to. Programs
won't run from the NAS - not sure why but a bad idea anyway - so just
copy and paste them to the VM's desktop and run from there.
3. Now, the biggie, the SatNav.
a) Close down the VM and plug the SatNav in.
b) Restart the VM and it will try to detect the SatNav, and
possibly fail. Mine did but this turned out not to be an issue - it
probably needed the driver installed first.
c) TomTom provide two programs, TomTom HOME 2 and MyDrive. The
former didn't detect the SatNav even when it was plugged in and had
been told to connect to the computer. However, when I installed
MyDrive, for the first time it did. Log into your account as normal
and you should then be told what updates are available for your
SatNav. Update as per normal.
Subsequently MyDrive has been a little pernickety at detecting the
SatNav, but to be honest in my experience this is normal for a
standard Windows installation as well so it doesn't bother me. Plug it
in and unplug it once or twice and MyDrive will load - assuming you
told it in the settings to run when the SatNav was plugged in of
course. Detection does take a bit longer than normal so be patient
with the plug/unplug frequency.
I hope this helps, and if your SaNav is a different make hopefully
this will have given you some pointers on getting it to work.
Kind regards,
Julian
Sounds like a totally normal day with VirtualBox - only without the
complexities of Snapshot'ing too (yeah, don't go there!).
[Aside, you may wish to take a snapshot of your working VM anyway, so
that in the event it has a paddy, you've got something to go back to!]
Good write-up though :) +1
Thanks :)
I back up the whole system every Sunday, which includes the whole
VirtualBox setup in /home so in the case of a disaster I could just
extract it out of there. As you can tell I'm not intending to make
heavy use of it, just regular checks to see if any SatNav updates
are available.
Julian
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