VMWare – FreeBSD 6 Guest Error “calcru: runtime went backwards from…”

When you install the VMware tools in a FreeBSD 6.0 guest OS in VMware Server Beta, you get the following error message in the console every few seconds:

calcru: runtime went backwards from 10542602 usec to 10542600 usec for pid 13924

FIX 1:

sysctl kern.timecounter.hardware=TSC

FIX 2: Add the following line to /boot/loader.conf

kern.hz=200

OS X – How to Change the MAC Address

Changing the MAC address of your network interface card can be useful for a number of things. Here is how you change it in both Tiger and Leopard:

For Tiger (10.4.x) open up the Terminal application and run the command:

sudo ifconfig en0 ether 00:00:00:00:00:00

where en0 is the network interface you wish to change the MAC address of, and 00:00:00:00:00:00 is the new MAC address you want the interface to use.

For Leopard (10.5.x) open up the Terminal application and run the command:

sudo ifconfig en0 lladdr 00:00:00:00:00:00

OS X – How to Hide a Partition from the Finder

Go to the Terminal and issue the command:

sudo setfile -a V /Volumes/paritionName

where “partitionName” is the name of the partition or drive that you want to hide. This hides the partition from being seen in the Finder but you can still access it from the terminal such as with scripts.

VMware – Increase Virtual Disk Size

Sometimes you create a VMware image and later realize that you should have made the drive size larger. Fortunately in VMWare Workstation you can change the size of a disk with a simple command line program. But the command only makes your drive bigger not the actual partition the operating system resides on. It is possible to get around this problem without purchasing a product like Partition Magic. There is a free program from the OpenSource and Linux world called “QTParted”. So the first thing you need to do is resize the drive by issuing the VMware command line to resize the disk (in this case to 10Gb):

vmware-vdiskmanager -x 10GB myDisk.vmdk

Then you set the VMware session to boot off a Knoppix ISO CD image. Then run QTParted. Select the Windows Drive partition with the right mouse button and chose reseize, set the new size, and then commit the change. Your disk’s OS partition has now been increased with all data intact.