CouchDB on VMware

I use a Windows box as my main machine. Since CouchDB currently only runs on Linux I figured I’d just set it up on another machine. I have another box laying around that I use rarely at best. I wanted to be able to VNC into the box which I was able to do with TightVNC on the Windows box. I have no complaints with TightVNC, but since the box running CouchDB was working off of a wireless connection the VNC connection was sub-par.

I figured I’d be a bit more intelligent about this and set up an Ubuntu instance on VMware on my Windows box and run couchdb off of that (at least for my initial development work). There’s a free book called the Ubuntu Pocket Guide which has a great chapter (pg. 15) on setting up Ubuntu on a virtual machine. It even gives you the files you need to set it up. Pretty sweet.

However, if you’re going to use it, here are a couple tips:

1. The default behavior of VMware is to display a small bar at the top of the screen that allows you to minimize or close the window. That’s cool, but it gets in the way any time you’re trying to do something at the top of the screen. Which is all the time since Ubuntu has it’s own bar at the top of the screen. If you want to disable VMware’s bar, find the preferences.ini file (it should be at C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\VMware\), open it with a text editor, and add the following line at the end:
pref.vmplayer.fullscreen.nobar = "TRUE"

To break out of full screen, you simply press Ctrl + Alt.

2. Ubuntu periodically feels the need to do a system beep. And by periodically I mean every startup. You might not think that’s such an annoyance unless you happen to wear headphones. In which case your eardrums will shatter every time to start up Ubuntu. If you’d like to avoid that scenario (highly advised), find your .vmx file (e.g. ubuntupocketguide.vmx), open it with a text editor, and add the following line at the end:
mks.noBeep = "TRUE"

Your eardrums will thank you.