Installing Ubuntu Server 10.10 is very fast and straightforward – maybe 10 minutes tops. There’s no shortage of coverage of the install procedure so I won’t bother with it again.

But in case you’re not familiar, I’ll mention that the Ubuntu installer will offer to configure the server with a selection of packages right off the bat. Like many others, I prefer to do those configurations myself in order to tailor the instance exactly to my needs. I make an exception with Open SSH so I that can reach the server from the comfort of my desk by the time it’s booted itself for the first time.

So let’s assume you’ve just finished the IPL, popped the install media, booted for the first time and logged in. The very first thing to do is catch up on any pending updates.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

For the sake of completeness, if anything is shown as kept back you should probably do a distribution upgrade followed by a reboot. If not, skip ahead.

$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
$ sudo shutdown -r now

Next I install Lugaru’s epsilon editor, a very capable emacs-like editor that I run on all my boxes. Believe me: there’s great value in having one editor that behaves in exactly the same way no matter what keyboard’s under your fingers! I’ve been a Lugaru customer since the 80s and I’m pleased to recommend their rock-solid product. Go test fly their unrestricted trial-ware. Anyway, the epsilon installation needs to build a few things and installing this bit first allows that (as well as other routine software builds that might be needed in the future) to simply happen.

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

To The Business At Hand: Installing VirtualBox

Download the key and register the repository for VirtualBox. The key has changed recently, so what you see here might be different from other articles.

$ wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/oracle_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

The key fingerprint is

7B0F AB3A 13B9 0743 5925 D9C9 5442 2A4B 98AB 5139
Oracle Corporation (VirtualBox archive signing key) info@virtualbox.org

Edit the file /etc/apt/sources.list to add the following lines, which simply adds the appropriate repository.

# VirtualBox 3.2.10 VirtualBox for Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian maverick non-free

Make your system aware of the newly added repository.

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

Now you’re ready for the actual VirtualBox install.

$ sudo apt-get install virtualbox-3.2

Finally, add any users that will need to run VirtualBox to the vboxusers group.

Don’t forget the -a flag in the command! This is especially important if you’re manipulating your administrator account. (The flag indicates that the group should be added to the the account, rather than replacing any/all existing groups.)

$ sudo usermod -a -G vboxusers <username>

And that’s all there is to it!

[ed. Appended later...]

There have been a couple of comments in email about networking setup. “You must not be making your VMs visible to your LAN. There’s nothing mentioned about bridge adapters…”

In fact I am using bridged adapters in my VMs! Last time I looked at VirtualBox it was quite the pain to set up that way. When I came to that part I just gave it a WTF and tried to simply bridge eth0. It works just fine!

Thanks for asking.

You see, TECO was the editor for which Richard Stallman created a macro package called Emacs (for Editor MACroS). A flavor of Emacs is usually the first program I launch and the last to quit. It’s been that way since the mid eighties, which is around when it became very useful to me to be able to edit text on a variety of different platforms. For Emacs has been ported to just about every computing platform there is. As a matter of fact, I’m writing this piece in an Emacs buffer right now! (Before you ask, the implementation I use these days is from Lugaru Software, LTD. Theirs is a commercial product, but go visit them for a fully capable free trial.)

But I digress – go read The Beginnings of TECO for a fascinating glimpse into the past, when things were more… well, interesting… in some ways than they are today.

[...] TECO was nothing if not terse. Fairly complex loops and other command sequences could be written in TECO, and mostly looked like line noise. TECO was one of the first languages to spawn the practice of handing someone a one-line string of near gibberish and asking with a grin, “tell me what it does.”

Added 27-April-2010:

Here’s a TECO program that calculates pi.

+0UN QN"E 20UN ' BUH BUV HK
QN< J BUQ QN*10/3UI
QI< \+2*10+(QQ*QI)UA B L K QI*2-1UJ QA/QJUQ
QA-(QQ*QJ)-2\ 10@I// -1%I >
QQ/10UT QH+QT+48UW QW-58"E 48UW %V ' QV"N QV^T ' QWUV QQ-(QT*10)UH >
QV^T @^A/
/

Now, that’s some terse stuff right there! Thanks to the folks who run the Panda TOPS-20 Home Page.

I’ll leave out the gory details. Either you know what I mean or I need to write way too long in order to explain. I discovered emacs when I was regularly working on multiple computing platforms and tired of having to reprogram my fingers each time I set out to do some editing on one or another. Installing an emacs on each allowed me to type the same way no matter where I sat. It didn’t take long for me to realize that if there’s anything at all to do with text, either emacs could already do it or one could teach it how. To this day, while it’s not true emacs, Lugaru‘s epsilon product runs on each machine I touch regularly. In fact, I’ll use it to turn these words, typed in Microsoft word, into words that WordPress will digest and present to your eyes nicely. It’s one of the precious few products for which I’ll buy the latest revision without thinking.

Anyway, when I hear emacs mentioned my ears perk up. This was definitely one of the odder ones.

Before the day before yesterday I never heard of “Emacs.Net”. Apparently, this is something going on inside Microsoft. What, I don’t know. I found a few spots of coverage in the press and, other than that, not much except for this blog entry.

Can anyone point me to more information? I’m curious, really curious. I mean, two things I don’t associate naturally are Microsoft and emacs. Go figure. But then, when you’re done,  please come back and tell me what you figure.