NX gives you “session test failed” and “Failure negotiating the session in stage ‘7’”?

… then check your iptables settings on the server. Perhaps you made the same mistake as I did: Restricting local traffic (on the ‘lo’ interface).

Add the following rules to your iptables ruleset, and make sure it’s at the beginning (before the restrictions):

iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT

Dependency on closed source software

A good example for why using closed source software (and thus depend on it) is a bad thing, can be seen in the newest development around X.org:
There is a new version of the X server, which contains ABI changes, and now all users of the closed source ATI and NVIDIA graphics drivers can’t upgrade to the newest X.org version, because those closed source software providers didn’t provide a new version of their drivers yet.

–> Avoid closed source software whenever you can.

VirtualBox 1.5.0 – seamless Windows windows

I installed the new version of innotek‘s VirtualBox yesterday. It worked perfectly, just had to bump the ebuild version from virtualbox-bin-1.4.0-r1 to virtualbox-bin-1.5.0, as well as virtualbox-modules-1.4.0 to virtualbox-modules-1.5.0 and emerge did all the other work.

The ‘biggest’ new feature is the ‘Seamless Mode’. This is a feature which works if you’re using VirtualBox to run MS Windows in a virtual machine on top of your GNU/Linux X desktop. I tested it with Windows XP home as guest. To be able to use it, make sure you install the ‘Guest Additions’ into the virtual MS Windows. You can do so by going to Menu / Devices / Install Guest Additions in the window of the running virtual machine. If you upgraded from an earlier VirtualBox version, repeat the ‘Guest Additions’ installation, so you have the newest version of all the drivers in your VM. After the mandatory reboot of MS Windows, press <Host>-L or go to Menu / Machine / Seamless Mode and see how the ‘classical’ virtual machine window disappears, and the open windows on your MS Windows desktop are being merged into your X desktop. This works best if you set MS Windows’ taskbar to disappear automatically.

Screenshot of VirtualBox 1.5.0 in Seamless Mode

Nicely done, innotek! Thanks 🙂