Pacman occasionally hangs in VirtualBox Installation

GourdCaptain · 2009-04-18 00:19:05

Hey, I'm a new Arch user (and very, very intimidated) trying it out in a Virtualbox installation on Windows Vista before my own laptop arrives (I'm a high school student, and have my own junker old desktop with Xubuntu installed) to see if I like it. I love the idea of rolling, up to date releases, and as somebody about to go to college later this year for computer engineering, knowing the guts of a Linux system couldn't hurt.

Unfortunatly, I've hit a bit of a snag with pacman on the NAT transversal networking from Virtualbox (emulating the PCnet-Fast III network card) where the downloads occasionally hang. Until I found the right mirror, I couldn't even complete an FTP install (and my CD image install mysteriously refused to boot.) I can CTRL-C out and resume the downloads by re-running the command, but its a bit of a pain. Any ideas on how to fix this? (Currently working on installing Xorg and XFCE.)

mcover · 2009-04-19 17:54:03

Welcome to Arch! You won't get around getting your hands dirty, and as I take it thats exactly what you want.

If Vista-VirtualBox allows it, try setting the network to be bridged (given your setup allows it and you are not connected via PPP of some kind) - that will give your VM its own IP in your subnet. It might help, but usually something like that shouldn't affect your connection-quality.

Are you connected via wireless lan? How are other machines in your network behaving?

I also don't understand why the other CD image refused to boot. Did you check the MD5 checksum - maybe corrupted download? If thats the case your connection seems to be causing you the problems.

Is pacman behaving similar if you try on an actual machine?

graysky · 2009-04-19 19:41:12

GourdCaptain wrote:

Hey, I'm a new Arch user (and very, very intimidated) trying it out in a Virtualbox installation on Windows Vista before my own laptop arrives (I'm a high school student, and have my own junker old desktop with Xubuntu installed) to see if I like it. I love the idea of rolling, up to date releases, and as somebody about to go to college later this year for computer engineering, knowing the guts of a Linux system couldn't hurt.
Unfortunatly, I've hit a bit of a snag with pacman on the NAT transversal networking from Virtualbox (emulating the PCnet-Fast III network card) where the downloads occasionally hang. Until I found the right mirror, I couldn't even complete an FTP install (and my CD image install mysteriously refused to boot.) I can CTRL-C out and resume the downloads by re-running the command, but its a bit of a pain. Any ideas on how to fix this? (Currently working on installing Xorg and XFCE.)

WOW, this is exactly the same problem I'm having. L'm running VB 2.2.0 on an Arch Linux host and attempting to install xorg in an Arch VM. It gets a few KB of data and then hard locks. I too am using a Bridge network and the PCnet-Fast III network adapter. I'll see if switching mirrors helps. Have you made any progress w/ yours? Link to my post over at the VB forums.

Mine not only locks up when I'm downloading a package, but it also locks when I'm updated pacman (i.e. pacman -Syy). I think it has to be a problem w/ the networking. I can't get the eth0 up in the VM wo/ using a Bridge though...

Last edited by graysky (2009-04-19 19:43:34)

creatorx · 2009-04-22 15:53:43

Did anyone find a solutions to this? I have the exact same problem in two vms. I installed arch on Sun Virtual Box and on Vmware. The Vmware box has a bridge connection.

graysky · 2009-04-22 19:00:53

@creatorx - I did... follow the link in my post above. In a nutshell: use the Intel Pro/1000 MT Desktop (82540EM) in bridged mode (you'll need to modprobe vboxnetflt on the host machine). That worked for me.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-18 00:19:05

Pacman occasionally hangs in VirtualBox Installation

#2 2009-04-19 17:54:03

Re: Pacman occasionally hangs in VirtualBox Installation

#3 2009-04-19 19:41:12

Re: Pacman occasionally hangs in VirtualBox Installation

#4 2009-04-22 15:53:43

Re: Pacman occasionally hangs in VirtualBox Installation

#5 2009-04-22 19:00:53

Re: Pacman occasionally hangs in VirtualBox Installation

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