Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Installation of Oracle Big Data Lite Virtual Machine on My New Desktop PC


I bought a new desktop PC - Lenovo ThinkCentre M83 with 32 GB RAM and 64-bit Windows 7. The intention is to use it as a learning environment for something like Oracle database 12c as I know it requires 64-bit OS, which I did not have at home previously. While trying to find an Oracle 12c virtual machine to install, I came across the Oracle Big Data Lite Virtual Machine page. I am excited to see that this virtual machine really contains lots of good stuff I am interested in, including the Oracle 12c database. It could be a great learning tool. So I downloaded and installed the Oracle Virtual Box, and I downloaded the virtual machine files and imported it to the Virtual Box. However when powering on the machine, I got:
 
Failed to open a session for the virtual machine xxx
          VT-X is disabled in the BIOS
          (VERR_VMX_MSR_VMXON_DISABLED)

To fix this, I need to go to the vendor's website to download and install the latest BIOS driver and use a tool provided by the vendor called CFGWIN.exe to change Bios setting.
 
To flash the BIOS from operating system, I need to issue the following command:
 
c:\SWTOOLS\FLASH\FBJY74USA>flash.cmd

To capture the current BIOS settings into a file:


C:\SWTOOLS\FLASH\FBJW73USA>CFGWIN.exe /c /path:c:\settings.txt
File Path = "c:\settings.txt".
All items have been captured successfully!

To change a BIOS settings:


C:\SWTOOLS\FLASH\FBJW73USA>CFGWIN.exe /r /path:C:\Users\Denis\Documents\settings_vtx.txt
File Path = "C:\Users\Denis\Documents\settings_vtx.txt".
Restore all BIOS settings successfully!

The settings_vtx.txt contains one line:

Intel(R) Virtualization Technology,Enabled;[Optional:Disabled,Enabled]




Basically after change the bios parameter: Intel(R) Virtualization Technology to Enabled. I bypassed the first errror shown above. Now I got something different:

This kernal requires an x86-64 CPU, but only detected an i686 CPU.

To fix this, I change the OS version from 32 bit to 64 bit in the virtual machine General tab.

Finally, I have the environment. I call it a day, happy ending. I was a little worried that I might end up unable to run the virtual machine on this new PC. Nowdays, it is easy to set up learning environment with pre-built virtual machines, just  so little time and so much to learn!








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