Upgrading to 16.04

[Liam Proven]

On 24 August 2016 at 03:49, Peter <petergoggin at bigpond.com> wrote:
> The problem with the USB ports is becoming more odd. I can connect a usb
> mouse or a usb keyboard and both work in the virtual box. If I connect a usb
> storage device this cannot be seen A printer connected  to the same port
> that accepted the mouse or the keyboard does not work.


You are, *again*, being too vague in your descriptions. What is
working, and where, for which OSes? You don't specify.

But I am beginning to think that this is because you have not thought
through what it going on and what you want.

When you say that your USB mouse and keyboard work, I do not think
that is what you mean or what is happening.

You need to distinguish between USB devices on the host computer, and
USB devices "attached" directly in software to the VM.

If your PC has a USB mouse and a USB keyboard, and they work fine, and
you start a VM, the VM does NOT HAVE ITS OWN MOUSE AND KEYBOARD. The
hypervisor provides emulated mouse input and keyboard input to the VM,
if the VM is in the foreground. When the mouse isn't over the VM's
window, the VM gets no mouse input. When the VM window does not have
focus, it is not the current top window, the VM gets no keyboard
input.

Do you understand me so far? If not, this is an absolutely critical
point to get, before you proceed. Reread or Google for info.

The VM does not have its own mouse and keyboard. It has EMULATED ones.
The hypervisor feeds them input when the window has focus.

The VM does not know what keyboard or mouse the host has. It can't see
the host's USB bus, it can't see the devices, it has no access. It has
emulated ones. When you click on the VM's window, these are
temporarily "linked" to the VM, but it still can't see them. What
"linked" means here is that the VM's emulated devices are fed the
input to the host's real ones.

You _can_ attach a mouse and keyboard directly to the VM. I can't
imagine why you'd want to but in theory it's possible.

You'd  need TWO of each: 2 mice, 2 keyboards.

One of each operates the host.

The others, you would attach to the VM in Vbox settings.

Then the host could not see and could not use the VM's mouse and
keyboard. They would be dedicated to the VM and then the host would
not have access to them any more.

If you want to give a VM direct access to a USB *storage* device on
the host, it must not be mounted on the host. It needs to be
unmounted, and you give the VM exclusive access to the relevant node
in the /dev directory, e.g. /dev/sdc

If you don't understand the above sentence -- for instance if you
don't know what a device node is -- then honestly you're probably not
ready to try this. You need to learn more about how Unix and OSes work
until you do understand, because otherwise, you run the risk of
catastrophically destroying your Linux installation -- for instance,
if you mistakenly typed /dev/sda1 instead of /dev/sdc1 because you
didn't understand the meaning of the 3rd and 4th characters in the
node name, you'd wreck your install.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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