OceanLog on Linux? VMWare?

[gismonkey]

I'm wondering if anyone has experience they could share in running OceanLog under linux, perhaps using VMWare Workstation/server or VirtualBox or the like. I'm using Ubuntu 8.04.1 on my Dell Inspiron 6000 and loving it, but would really like to be able to download the contents of my VT Pro. It sounds like VMWare Workstation will do about anything, but $189? Ouch!

Any leads would be helpful; if I can get this working myself I'll post a description of how I did it. Thanks!

 

[rmarrash]

It should work. Why not just download a free copy of VMware Server 2.0 and give it a shot. As long as your USB ports are getting properly virtualized it should be straight forward.

Russell

 

[gismonkey]

Well, that was fairly unpleasant and complicated. However, success was mine in the end, and here's how I did it:

I started with my system running Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron), with the 2.6.24-21 kernel. I installed VirtualBox 2.0.4 (the non-free PUEL version w/ USB support) and installed a copy of Windows XP Home on it using an ISO of WinXP CD mounted in VirtualBox (hereafter referred to as VB), plus the VB Guest Additions.

Then, I downloaded the Windows XP driver and Oceanlog 2.2.3 from Oceanic from inside Windows, then installed both. So far, so good.

I had to enable the USB ports in VB by making some changes to my configuration files as instructed in the HOWTO, then added myself to the vboxusers group. I was then able to enable the USB ports in VB and create a device filter for the "2002 Design,Inc USB" device (after figuring out that it was the computer cable USB/serial converter). However, it would not function in VB or Windows. At all. The state remained "unavailable" and I couldn't connect it to my virtual Windows machine.

After poking around here for a while, I found a thread here that indicated my problem: the ftdi_sio.ko module wasn't recognizing my cable/computer. So, I hex-edited the file and replaced the Suunto ProdID with the Oceanic cable one (F460), saved it, added it to my /etc/modules file, and everything worked after a reboot.

I'm leaving out about 4 evenings of frustration and poking around at it (including getting Windows happy by using an activation/WGA crack), with attendant swearing and annoyance. After all that, I'm sort of unimpressed by Oceanlog, but it's nice to have it working. I believe that the ProdID for the Oceanic cable has been submitted and accepted as a patch to the ftdi_sio module, so in the future folks shouldn't have to do the hex edit.

If I am feeling ambitious this weekend I may try again in VMWare Server, which should be easy now that I have the ftdi_sio thing worked out.

 

[rmarrash]

congrats. Looks like you had a lot of "fun" getting that to work. I would be interested to here how your VMWare experience goes. I would expect it to go much smoother since it is such a refined product.

 

[gismonkey]

After some playing around to get VMware Server installed and the console running (had to start Firefox with sudo to get it to install the console plugin, which in turn screwed up the permissions on my profile), it recognized the cable on the usb port right away and worked immediately. I'm not entirely sure if that has something to do with the tweaks I made for VirtualBox, but it was very quick and easy. I'll try all this again after I upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 this weekend.

On a side note, the cable is only recognized as a USB-serial cable under Windows using the driver I downloaded from Oceanic. Linux is only passing it through as a usbfs device, not using the ftdi_sio module to recognize it as a serial device. I'm not sure why that is, but I'll keep playing around with it.

So, the answer to my query is yes, it works fine under VMware and VirtualBox, with a little encouragement. Now, to see about having it recognized natively so those intrepid souls reverse engineering the download protocols can make it talk to Linux!