[vbox-dev] issues with blackPanter OS as guest OS in VirtualBox and suggested solution

[Larry Finger]

On 03/05/2017 01:45 PM, Kalogrianitis Socratis wrote:
> I'm not a developer nor do I work for the VirtualBox team either, but I believe that the developers include the most common distributions. It has nothing to do with countries, origins, ethnicity, funding or anything other than popularity and variety. And sometimes not even that, it's more of an architectural differences that necessitate the inclusion of a distro or not.
>
> For example, one of the *most* common Linux distributions out there, Mint #1 in Distro Watch, is not listed *at all* as a VirtualBox option. Why? Because it's an Ubuntu fork. And you get the same exactly setup if you select Ubuntu as your template. And that's what you do. For BlackPanther, from what I read, you should select Mandriva, but you could easily educate your users about that.
>
> Given the fact that BlackPanther is now listed as #188 in the Distro Watch site (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=BlackPanther), I'd say the chances of it being included are not that high, but I'm not making that decision. Can you imagine what would happen if you had 200 or more options for selecting an operating system? I (as a user) would be really, really confused.
>
> @Stéphane
> The selection is definitely more than an icon. Just take a look at https://www.virtualbox.org/browser/vbox/trunk/src/VBox/NetworkServices/DHCP/Config.cpp to see what constitutes a template. Besides the changes in the original template setup, there are also run-time options that modify/change/alter the behavior of the VM. A lot... I'm talking booting vs. not booting if you select the wrong template/version.
>
> @Gabor
> If you submit a patch, make sure it also has its own icon, otherwise it's not a complete  patch. Although I wouldn't keep my hopes too high ;)

I downloaded the free Live CD for BlackPanther and installed it on my "junk" VM. 
I changed the type to "Other Linux (64 bits)" and it installed fine. The only 
hitch was that the VM originally had 1 GB RAM, and an install from the Live CD 
needed 1.5 GB. Frankly, I do not see what needs to be patched.

Larry