Slow Linux console window in VirtualBox?

This is probably due to poor 2D acceleration. Per default Ubuntu uses the framebuffer for console and this is badly emulated on VirtualBox/MAC. To speed-up the console disable/blacklist the VGA frame buffer in /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-framebuffer.conf. To do this just add the following line: "blacklist vga16fb" and then reboot. Voila! the console should now be fine.

Cross compiling Linux on MAC OS X

This is a quick guide how to compile Linux kernels on Mac OSX.
First of all, get MacPorts (http://www.macports.org/) and install the following packages: git-core and libelf. These ports provide tools for download of Linux source code and libraries for handling of ELF files. (needed since Mac OSX uses Mach-O)

$ sudo port install libelf git-core

Then get Linux sources by cloning the linux source tree using git. Note: The volume used for Linux kernel compilation need to have a case sensitive file system. If this is not the case, create a new virtual volume with case sensitive fs on and mount it.

$ git clone git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git linux-2.6

Change to the new directory linux-2.6 and update.

$ git pull

Install a cross compiler. In this post I use the cross arm-eabi- compiler created in the post below. MacPorts has an arm-elf- cross compiler that can be used if you do not want to compile one by yourself. Search for "arm-elf".

With the build infrastructure is in place it is time to configure a kernel. Start with coping a well known kernel configuration for your target to ”.config”. I use an ARM9 based development board that is close to KwikByte's KB9202 development board and thus I do the following:

$ cp arch/arm/configs/kb9202_defconfig .config

Try to build kernel. Don't forget to specify architecture and path to cross compiler.

$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/opt/arm-none-eabi/bin/arm-none-eabi-

The build will fail due to missing "malloc.h" file. This header file is deprecated and not available on Mac. Replace all occurrences of this filename in all files in scripts/genksyms/ with "stdlib.h.".

$ sed -i .backup 's/malloc.h/stdlib.h/' *.c* 

If you try to build again it will still fail due to a missing elf.h file. A GNU alternative to this elf.h file can be found in /opt/local/include and is called "gelf.h". (installed by MacPorts libelf port.) Since the compiler has no search path set to the include directory of MacPorts per default it is required to alter ”HOSTCFLAGS” to include search path to MacPorts include dir. The missing file wasn't gelf.h but elf.h. Create a dummy ”elf.h” file that just includes ”gelf.h” + defines some missing ELF definitions. Like this:

/* ELF library in MAC ports is called gelf.h */
#include < gelf.h >

/* The following defines are needed to compensate for the following errors:
HOSTCC  scripts/mod/modpost.o
scripts/mod/modpost.c: In function ‘addend_386_rel’:
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1330: error: ‘R_386_32’ undeclared (first use in this function)
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1330: error: (Each undeclared identifier is reported only once
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1330: error: for each function it appears in.)
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1333: error: ‘R_386_PC32’ undeclared (first use in this function)
scripts/mod/modpost.c: In function ‘addend_arm_rel’:
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1348: error: ‘R_ARM_ABS32’ undeclared (first use in this function)
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1353: error: ‘R_ARM_PC24’ undeclared (first use in this function)
scripts/mod/modpost.c: In function ‘addend_mips_rel’:
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1371: error: ‘R_MIPS_HI16’ undeclared (first use in this function)
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1375: error: ‘R_MIPS_LO16’ undeclared (first use in this function)
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1378: error: ‘R_MIPS_26’ undeclared (first use in this function)
scripts/mod/modpost.c:1381: error: ‘R_MIPS_32’ undeclared (first use in this function)
make[2]: *** [scripts/mod/modpost.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [scripts/mod] Error 2
*/

#define R_386_NONE        0
#define R_386_32          1
#define R_386_PC32        2
#define R_ARM_NONE        0
#define R_ARM_PC24        1
#define R_ARM_ABS32       2
#define R_MIPS_NONE       0
#define R_MIPS_16         1
#define R_MIPS_32         2
#define R_MIPS_REL32      3
#define R_MIPS_26         4
#define R_MIPS_HI16       5
#define R_MIPS_LO16       6

Add the path of this file to list of include directories. For this guide I put elf.h in the Linux top directory. The final build command now look like this:

$ make ARCH=arm CROSS_COMPILE=/opt/arm-none-eabi/bin/arm-none-eabi- HOSTCFLAGS="-I/opt/local/include/ -I."

ARM-Cortex cross compiler on MAC

Use MacPorts and add:

• gmp (GNU multiple precision arithmetic library)
• mpfr (C library for multiple-precision floating-point computations)

Download latest versions of gcc, binutils, and newlib. Note that GCC has to be of version 4.3 or newer to include support for newer Cortex CPU's.

$ cd binutils-2.20
$ mkdir build
$ cd build/
$ ../configure --target=arm-none-eabi --prefix=/opt/arm-none-eabi --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --disable-nls --disable-werror
…
$ make -j2
…
$ sudo make install
…
$ cd ../..
$ PATH=/opt/arm-none-eabi/bin/:$PATH
$ cd gcc-4.4.3
$ mkdir build
$ cd build/
$ ../configure --with-libiconv-prefix=/opt/local --target=arm-none-eabi --prefix=/opt/arm-none-eabi --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --enable-languages="c" --with-newlib --without-headers --disable-shared --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-gmp=/opt/local --with-mpfr=/opt/local --disable-werror
…
$ make -j2 all-gcc
…
$ sudo make install-gcc
…
$ cd ../..
$ cd newlib-1.18.0
$ mkdir build
$ cd build/
$ ../configure --target=arm-none-eabi --prefix=/opt/arm-none-eabi --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --disable-nls
…
$ make -j2
…
$ sudo make install
…
$ cd ../..
$ cd gcc-4.4.3
$ cd build
$ ../configure --with-libiconv-prefix=/opt/local --target=arm-none-eabi --prefix=/opt/arm-none-eabi --enable-interwork --enable-multilib --enable-languages="c" --with-newlib --disable-shared --with-gnu-as --with-gnu-ld --with-gmp=/opt/local --with-mpfr=/opt/local --disable-werror
…
$ make
 -j2
…
$ sudo make install

…

No valid VPN secrets

The VPN connection 'xxxxx' failed because there were no valid VPN secrets

You get this message if you have installed openvpn or vpnc in Ubuntu and haven't restarted the network manager. The error is due to GNOME keyring manager cannot find your password in the keyring due to an incomplete configuration. Just restart network manager and you are all set.

hl@braoha:~$ sudo aptitude install network-manager-vpnc
hl@braoha:~$ sudo /etc/init.d/network-manager restart