Patrick – Page 20 – Patrick's WebLog

VMware –> VirtualBox

Because of ongoing problems with VMware Workstation 5.5.x’s kernel module that can’t be used with Linux 2.6.22, because of the fact that VMware is asking me to pay $99 to upgrade to VMware Workstation 6.0 (after I paid quite a sum for VMware Workstation 5.0 some time ago) and because of some other reasons (problems with GTK, only supporting OSS for sound output, …) that accumulated over time, I decided to give VirtualBox a try. And so far it looks really great. The fact that it has been completely open sourced, and it has been created by a company just some kilometres away from my home town are also a bonus 😉 The only thing I’m missing so far, is the “Team” stuff of VMware Workstation – which is great for building a small – completely virtual – test network, without having to fiddle with tun/tap on the host machine.

Great job, innotek! Thanks a lot!

Problems (freezes) with libata

I wrote about having switched to libata – but now I’m back to the old IDE driver. You can read about the reason in this mail I sent to the linux-ide-mailinglist.

Update (2007-07-17): Had two freezes again, _without_ libata. So I sent this mail to the linux-ide-mailinglist. I guess I’ll run a memtest session tonight…

Got my chinese driving license

or: part two of How to apply for a driving license in Shanghai (for foreigners with a foreign driving license)

I went in there with my pamphlet containing the 100 questions, of which 90 must be answered correctly to get the license. Being 20 minutes early, I had to take a seat in the waiting hall of room 200, building 8. A few minutes after the the test should have begun, I heard a woman calling my chinese name, so I walked in there. They asked me to take a seat on one of six computer terminals. The screen asked me to press the enter key when ready, after which the test began. The questions were exactly those from the pamphlet, but in another order. If I remember correctly, the choices to each answer were in the same order as in the pamphlet though 😉
After about 15 minutes I had completed 97 questions after which the screen suddenly told me that I passed with a score of 97. A clerk at the right counter called me, and printed my result. With the result I had to go to the left counter, where the guy compiled some other papers and put everything into a small bag. On the bag I found instructions on what to do next: Go to the first floor, pay 55 Yuan, then go back to the second floor, counter 16 and draw a number.
After waiting for some minutes, I got my driving license freshly printed from counter 16 and could go home 🙂 That’s it! Wasn’t that hard 😉

Now I may officially drive in China! 🙂