Virtualbox and Oracle Enterprise Linux

I recently tried to get Oracle Enterprise Linux running in a virtualbox on my mac. The installation of Oracle Enterprise Linux is no problem, however, when you try to do a first boot the systems comes up and never passes beyond the point of:

Uncompressing Linux.... 0k, booting the kernel

The problem is that virtualbox is incapable of handling some of the SMP kernel options when you start the kernel. Currently a bug is reported at Sun to fix the problem. A workarround for this problem is to boot the Enterprise-up (2.6.9-78.0.0.0.1.EL) kernel instead of the Enterprise (2.6.9-78.0.0.0.1.ELsmp) kernel.

It is not the best workarround but you can get a OEL system running in a virtualbox. When you like to default the system to start with this kernel you have to edit the file /boot/grub/grub.conf and change the default=0 to default=1. In my case the 1 is the Enterprise-up (2.6.9-78.0.0.0.1.EL) kernel which can start with virtualbox.

Running Windows on a Mac.

Running windows on a Mac computer with a x86 processor is already quite common. However running Microsoft Windows in a Mac environment is something that is even nicer. You will still have the capabilities of all the Mac applications and have all the things you want from Windows.

Or what about running Solaris, FreeBSD and or Debian all together on the same Mac? Sounds like a promise to you to good to be true? Take a look at VMware Fusion.

VMware, already known for its server virtualization software is now turned to the Mac users to help. If you like to try it out you can download a 30 day trial version from their website.