Fedora Archives

Repurpose your old Netbook or Laptop in to the perfect VMware Horizon View VDI Client

Fedora, Linux, VMware, VMware Horizon View No Responses »

Aug 262018

One of the coolest things I love about running VMware Horizon View and VDI is that you can repurpose old computers, laptops, or even netbooks in to perfect VDI clients running Linux! This is extremely easy to do and gives life to old hardware you may have lying around (and we all know there’s nothing wrong with that).

I generally use Fedora and the VMware Horizon View Linux client to accomplish this. See below to see how I do it!

Quick Guide

Download the Fedora Workstation install or netboot ISO from here.
Burn it to a DVD/CD if you have DVD/CD drive, or you can write it to a USB stick using this method here.
Install Fedora on to your laptop/notebook/netbook using the workstation install.
Update your Fedora Linux install using the following command
```
dnf -y upgrade
```

Install the prerequisites for the VMware Horizon View Linux client using these commands

dnf -y install https://download1.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm https://download1.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm
dnf -y install gstreamer-plugins-ugly gstreamer-plugins-bad gstreamer-ffmpeg xine-lib-extras-freeworld xine-lib-extras-freeworld libssl* libcrypto* openssl-devel libpng12 systemd-devel libffi-devel

To fix an issue with package versions and dependancies, run the following commands

ln -s /usr/lib64/libudev.so.1 /usr/lib64/libudev.so.0
ln -s /usr/lib64/libffi.so.6 /usr/lib64/libffi.so.5

Download the VMware Horizon View Linux client from here
Make the VMware bundle executable and then run the installer using these commands (your file name may be different depending on build version number)
```
chmod 777 VMware-Horizon-Client-4.8.0-8518891.x64.bundle
sudo ./VMware-Horizon-Client-4.8.0-8518891.x64.bundle
```
Complete the installation wizard
You’re done!

To run the client, you can find it in the GUI applications list as “VMware Horizon Client”, or you can launch it by running “vmware-view”.

VMware Horizon View on Linux in action

Here is a VMware Horizon View Linux client running on HP Mini 220 Netbook

Additional Notes:

-If you’re comfortable, instead of the workstation install, you can install the Fedora LXQt Desktop spin, which is a lightweight desktop environment perfect for low performance hardware or netbooks. More information and the download link for Fedora LXQt Desktop Spin can be found here: https://spins.fedoraproject.org/en/lxqt/

-If you installed Fedora Workstation and would like to install the LXQt window manager afterwards, you can do so by running the following command (after installing, at login prompt, click on the gear to change window managers):

dnf install @lxqt-desktop-environment

-Some of the prerequisites above in the guide may not be required, however I have installed them anyways for compatibility.

Fedora Core – Black screen with cursor after install or upgrade

Fedora 24 Responses »

Aug 252018

After doing a fresh install or upgrade of Fedora Core Linux (FC28 in my case, but this applies to any version), you may notice that when the system boots it gets stuck on a black screen with a white cursor. The cursor will not move and there will be no drive activity.

This issue occurs with GNOME on my old HP Mini 210 Netbook every time I do a fresh install of Fedora on it (or upgrade it).

Follow the process below to temporarily boot and then permanently fix it.

Temporary fix

To get the system to boot:

Power on the computer, and carefully wait for the GRUB bootloader to appear (the boot selection screen).
When the GRUB bootloader appears, press the “e” key to edit the highlighted (default) boot entry.
Scroll down until you get to the line starting with “linux16”, then use your right arrow key and scroll right until you get to the end of the kernel options (while scrolling right, you may scroll multiple lines down which is fine and expected). The line should finally end with “rhgb” and “quiet”.
Remove “rhgb” and “quiet”, and then add “nomodeset=0”
Press “CTRL+x” to boot the system.
The system should now boot.

FYI: “rhgb” is the kernel switch/option for redhat graphical boot, and “quiet” makes the system messages more quiet (who would have guessed).

Permanent Fix

To permanently resolve the issue:

Once the system has booted, log in.
Open a terminal window (Applications -> Terminal, or press the “Start” button and type terminal).
Use your favorite text editor and edit the file “/etc/default/grub” (I use nano which can be install by running “dnf install nano”):
```
nano /etc/default/grub
```
Locate the line with the variable “GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX”, and add “nomodeset=0” to the variables. Feel free to remove “rhgb” and “quiet” if you’d like text boot. Here’s an example of my line after editing (yours will look different):
```
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="resume=/dev/mapper/fedora_da--netbook01-swap rd.lvm.lv=fedora_da-netbook01/root rd.lvm.lv=fedora_da-netbook01/swap nomodeset=0"
```
Save the file and exit the text editor (CTRL+x to quit, the press “y” and enter to save)
At the bash prompt, execute the following command to regenerate the grub.conf file on the /boot partition from your new default file:
```
grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg
```
Restart your system, it should now boot!

Please Note: Always make sure you have a full system backup before modifying any system files!

Create Fedora or CentOS USB boot media with an ISO image file and dd on Linux

CentOS, Fedora, Linux 2 Responses »

Aug 252018

A fun fact that a lot of users still aren’t aware of, is that you can create Fedora and CentOS bootable media (a bootable USB stick) using the DVD/CD ISO image, and using the linux dd command.

So if you have an existing and running Linux install, you can use this method to quickly write an ISO file to a USB stick!

Here’s How!

Get your USB stick handy, make sure it’s big enough to store the ISO file you want to download.
Download your preferred ISO DVD or CD Image for Installation from CentOS or Fedora.
Connect your USB stick, open a terminal session and run the following command to identify the device name of the USB stick (mine was sdb for /dev/sdb):
```
[root@StephenW-X1 ~]# dmesg | grep removable
[  171.890670] sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
```

Issue the following command to write the ISO image to the USB stick. Change the input filename, and output device name to reflect your own.

[root@StephenW-X1 Downloads]# dd if=Fedora-Workstation-netinst-x86_64-28-1.1.iso of=/dev/sdb
1193984+0 records in
1193984+0 records out
611319808 bytes (611 MB, 583 MiB) copied, 13.6777 s, 44.7 MB/s

Your done!

Please Note:

Choosing the wrong /dev/sd[x] device can case you to write the ISO file to your hard drive, or another hard drive in your system. Make sure you select the right device name. If you’re unsure, don’t run the command.
You can also use the “Fedora Media Writer for Windows” available here: https://getfedora.org/fmw/FedoraMediaWriter-win32-4.1.1.exe to write an ISO image to USB if you’re running Windows.

Fedora upgrade from 27 to 28 (FC27 to FC28) fails on nss-pem

Fedora, Linux 10 Responses »

May 012018

When attempting to upgrade from Fedora Core 27 to Fedora Core 28, it may fail on the nss-pem package.

I spent some time trying to find the solution for this, and came across numerous posts on the “Red Hat Bugzilla”, particularly this post.

Unfortunately no fix was found.

See below for an example on the failed upgrade output:

[root@SYSTEMZ01 ~]# dnf system-upgrade download --releasever=28
Before you continue ensure that your system is fully upgraded by running "dnf --refresh upgrade". Do you want to continue [y/N]: y
Fedora 28 - x86_64 - Updates
$
Fedora 28 - x86_64
$
google-chrome
$
RPM Fusion for Fedora 28 - Free - Updates
$
RPM Fusion for Fedora 28 - Free
$
RPM Fusion for Fedora 28 - Nonfree - Updates
$
RPM Fusion for Fedora 28 - Nonfree
$
skype (stable)
$
Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:00 ago on Tue 01 May 2018 04:28:04 PM MDT.
Error:
 Problem: nss-pem-1.0.3-6.fc27.i686 has inferior architecture
  - nss-pem-1.0.3-6.fc27.x86_64 does not belong to a distupgrade repository
  - problem with installed package nss-pem-1.0.3-6.fc27.i686

To resolve this, manually install the nss-pem packages from FC28 prior to the upgrade using the following command.

dnf install nss-pem-1.0.3-9.fc28 --releasever=28

After doing so, re-attempt to upgrade and the upgrade should now proceed.