Some User Manual bugs/shortcomings

[Risto]

Note. Page numbers in this bug list refer to PDF page numbers, not the numbers at PDF-footnote. *

Page 40. "For NAT, the guest needs to share the port number space of the guest."

->

"For NAT, the guest needs to share the port number space of the host."

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Page 41. "Use the VBoxManage tool to create new host interfaces on your Windows system"

There are buttons for that in GUI (at least in 1.3.8) under Settings -> Networking.

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Page 42. "If your host is running Windows XP or newer, you can also use the built-in bridging feature to connect your host interfaces to your physical network card."

There are no references to older Windows versions - what steps to take with Windows 2000 for example.

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Page 42. "You can also have VirtualBox create TAP interfaces dynamically each time a VM starts, and destroyed when the VM stops."

->

"You can also have VirtualBox create TAP interfaces dynamically each time a VM starts, and destroy when the VM stops."

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Page 47. "VBoxSDL is an alternative, simply graphical..."

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"VBoxSDL is an alternative, simple graphical..."

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Page 47. "enable VRDP support for a VM" Implemented in (1.3.8) GUI. Can be removed from the list.

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Page 48. Line with "Settings file: '/home/username/.VirtualBox/Machines/SUSE Linux 10.2/SUSE Linux 10.2.xml'" runs over the right border of the page.

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Page 48. Line "This is the default configuration after a VM has been created, as shown above." is out of place here.

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Page 48. Sentence "To pause or save a VM that is currently running, use VBoxManage controlvm; see Section 7.7, "VBoxManage controlvm” for details." runs into footnotes.

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Page 49. "With VirtualBox, the graphical user interface, the VRDP server is disabled by default, but can easily be enabled on a per-VM basis with VBoxManage:" This can now also be achieved in (1.3.8) GUI.

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Page 49. "If you use VBoxVRDP (described below), VRDP support will automatically be enabled."

->

"If you use VBoxVRDP (described below), VRDP support will be automatically enabled."

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Page 50. "Additional settings for modifyvm are -vrdpport and -vrdpauthtype; see Section 7.5, “VBoxManage modifyvm” for details."

In GUI, there is also a field for authentication timeout. As VBoxManage should be superset of VirtualBox, there should be a command line option for that also.

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Page 54. "When in doubt, check the output of the VBoxManage command to for the commands..."

->

"When in doubt, check the output of the VBoxManage for the commands..."

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Page 58. "-biosbootmenu <disabled|menuonly|messageandmenu:"

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"-biosbootmenu <disabled>|<menuonly>|<messageandmenu>"

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Page 58. "-boot<1-4> none|floppy|dvd|disk|net>:"

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"-boot<1-4> none|<floppy>|<dvd>|<disk>|<net>:"

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Page 59. "-floppy disabled|empty|<uuid>|<filename>|host:<drive>: This is the floppy equivalent to the -dvd option described above."

An explanation over the meaning of "empty" option would be nice.

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Page 59. "-nictype<1-N> Am79C970A|Am79C973: This allows you, for each of the VM's virtual network cards, to specify whether the host will see the network adaptors as 10 Mbps AMD PCnet 79C970A cards or as 100Mbps 79C973 cards. This is in fact purely cosmetic, as both virtual cards run at full speed."

Why are in this case two different cards implemented. What's the benefit of choosing one over another?

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Page 60/61. Explanation for "VBoxManage controlvm <vm> poweroff" has same actions as "VBoxManage controlvm <vm> savestate". Both include: "(This is equivalent to selecting the "Close" item in the "VM" menu of the GUI or pressing the window's close button, and then selecting "Power off the VM" in the dialog.)"

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Page 64. "The target parameter selects the virtual machine that the filter should be attached to or "global"."

->

"The target parameter selects the virtual machine that the filter should be attached to or use "global" to apply it all virtual machines."

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Page 65. "On Windows, this is %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\.VirtualBox; typically something like C:\Documents and Settings\Username."

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"On Windows, this is %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\.VirtualBox; typically something like C:\Documents and Settings\Username\.VirtualBox"

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Page 68. "Addition video modes can be configured for each VM using the extra data facility."

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"Additional video modes can be configured for each VM using the extra data facility."

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Page 70. "When starting a VM, the configuration file of the last run will be renamed to .1, up to .3. Sometimes when there is a problem, it is useful to have a look at the configuration."

->

"When starting a VM, the log file of the last run will be renamed to .1, up to .3. Sometimes when there is a problem, it is useful to have a look at the logs."

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Page 71. "If desired, the virtual disk images (VDI) can be flushed when the guest issues the IDE FLUSH CACHE command."

An explanation how can a guest trigger that (issue this command)?

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Page 73. "Depending whether the setting should be changed for an individual user or or for the system, either"

Double word "or".

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Page 75. "Since that distribution has no group usb, it is also the easiest solution to allow all members of the group vboxusers."

->

"Since that distribution has no group usb, it is also the easiest solution to allow all members of the group vboxusers to access the usb subsystem."

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Page 68. "kill -usr1 <pid>"

PID of which process?

[Klaus Espenlaub]

Thank you very much for this large list of improvements. Most have been incorporated into the manual (will appear on the next release), however I chose to leave the very technical stuff unchanged (why two network cards and the FLUSH CACHE command). This would go into too much detail for the VirtualBox manual. The two network cards are supported to make it less likely that our model is not supported (and also to reduce the "you only support a 10 MBit card" noise). The FLUSH CACHE is an IDE command that tells the drive to flush its write buffers, and in VirtualBox you can control to what degree we violate the specification. Flushing needs time (but on the other hand improves behavior in case of a crash), so it's tunable to improve performance.

And I didn't understand the very last one, because which pid to use is described in the paragraph before that.