[FORUM] Introductions for forum supporters

[TerryE]

The VirtualBox team is exploring ways by which it can improve these forums and the service they provide to the VirtualBox community. A small informal working team has been set up to help explore options for doing this, initially comprising:

• Frank Mehnert and sandervl from the VirtualBox team,
• Sasquatch and TerryE who are independent forum supporters.

So you will see a few Topics with the [FORUM] title tag being posted over the next weeks to allow the wider community to contribute to these discussions. What I want to use this topic to give those that would like to support the forum a change to introduce themselves and briefly summarise their interests / expertise and what they might be interested in offering. So:

• This topic is about members of this forum that are willing to wish to support it. So no specific criticisms or suggestions about VirtualBox or the forum; we can discuss these on other topics.
• At a minimum try to provide some honest information on your relevant expertise.
• If you feel that you want to contribute in some specific area then add this information.
• Clearly this is publicly accessible information, so this might influence the level of detail that you personally wish to post.
• I've added my response as an example.
• Can we please limit this to those who feel that they contribute to the forum. So if you haven't already posted at least a dozen or so answers on the forum then you probably should be posting on this topic.

[TerryE]

I am in my mid-50s lining in the UK with over 3 decades of IT experience initially in software development, but for the last ten years or so in technical management of IT operations. I know and have used professionally a few dozen languages, assembler and SQL variants. I have worked with Connectix/MSVS, VMware and VBox. I am reasonably familiar with the internals and administration of the NT OSs (except Vista), Linux (Ubuntu and SuSE), Solaris. I use VBox mainly for hosting Linux test-beds under WinXP, and am about to migrate on of my PCs from XP to Ubuntu Hardy with a VBox XP guest VM. I currently administer another phpBB forum (OpenOffice.org).

I believe strongly about creating FLOSS products alternatives to the non-free commercial product market leaders, and supporting the user communities of the same. As a bed-bound CFS sufferer, I currently have the time to support the OOo and VBox forums, though I occasionally post on others.
I would like to use my knowledge of the phpBB application and its administration with this forum. I have enough technical knowledge to answer perhaps 30-50% of Qs posted. I can also provide technical material / roll-up topics to help new users.

[dewittdale]

I am a chemist by trade and have little programming experience. All my expertise comes from resolving individual problems as they arise. What I don't know about I will refrain from response. What I do understand I will share. Thus most my responses will be practical specific cookbook-type answers.

[ghr]

ghr is in his early fifties and living in the NL. MSEE by education, and even today not far away from that. Interests in a.o. computers, and having various pieces of hardware with DOS/WIN, Win95 and WinXP. That's where his interest in VirtualBox comes from: an earlier wish to combine all that on one hardware platform. Didn't quite work out yet.

He is a frequent VirtualBox and Qemu user, DOSBox to a lesser extent, a sniff of Bochs and VMWare as well. Never played with VirtualPC... In terms of OSes: he likes to know what he uses, which is roughly MS products on Intel hardware and Unix on a variety of other platforms. Of course, there's the memory of some VAXen that lingers on. This more or less illustrates the boundaries on his contributions. In spite of all that: he also learned something: networking a real and a virtual PC !

In general terms he sees two problems with this forum:
- especially for newcomers it is hard to search
- some people write good or even excellent posts and next they get lost in the day-to-day noise, which makes it even worse for starters.
Both problems lead to many repeats on a relatively small number of topics (networking, display, sometimes sound, 'real' and virtual machines, quirks of certain OSes, how to install them.....).

[dewittdale]

Would reliance on googling suffice as an alternative to implementing a search box on this forum?

[NEKGuy]

I am a retired computer programmer in my late 60's. I worked on systems software for a number of companies that manufactured and sold systems. Back in the old days we used to sit around the lunch table and talk about running a number of operating systems on one machine. Such a capability would have made our job easier and our offices much less cluttered. We typically, would have 2-3 machines in our office in order to build and test the software we were working on.

I am using VirtualBox with a linux/ubuntu host and dos XP guests. The dos guests are used to run software apps that are not really available on linux. One dos guest is used to run photography related s/w to support USB I/O from a camera, scanner and printer. Another dos guest runs other handy apps, like TurboTax, and another guest is a playpen for the grandkids.

I am very impressed by VirtualBox. I have found it easy to use and reliable. My current VirtualBox interest is in the interface between the host and the guest. It would be nice have "mousier" techniques to move between the host and quest in a "seamless" manner.

I have been looking at the forums and will post replies if I feel I can add something to the discussion.

[MadNav]

Hi all,

I am an active information technology specialist of at least two decades living Alaska, the land of the midnight Sun ;D

I'm in need of a little support for avoiding a wikipedia awaiting deletion of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBoxHeadless

The watchers move to fast for my tired old blood, not to mention what do they know about VirtualBox:

This is just a copy of the command line usage info. It adds no value to Wikipedia or to the VirtualBox article as the same information can be obtained from the product's help pages. TimTay (talk) 10:04, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia: ... oxHeadless"

If I only had another dozen hours in my day I'd be able to do everything too ;D

That's my intro, I'm a modern day, IT, Don Kiote (sp), slaying dragons (windmills), calling out for support to beef up or fortify this much needed addition to the ongoing wikipedia for VirtualBox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirtualBox.

Pleas Go to->http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VBoxHeadless support the cause and fight the good fight !!!!
.. I bet this topic could be swamped within a short period of time with extended info that does meet their scrutiny.

Thanks,
DaveZnotHere!

[TerryE]

Dave see the post Virtualbox and Wikis.

[martinatycova]

Presently, VirtualBox runs on Windows, Linux, Macintosh and OpenSolaris hosts and supports a large number of guest operating systems including but not limited to Windows (NT 4.0, 2000, XP, Server 2003, Vista, Windows 7), DOS/Windows 3.x, Linux (2.4 and 2.6), Solaris and OpenSolaris, and OpenBSD. I find it comfortable to use it on Windows XP. I am not comfortable with other Operating Systems.