Virtual DICE – new version
We’re pleased to announce a new version of Virtual DICE for the 2017-18 session. Here’s how to download it. If you don’t know what Virtual DICE is, read on.
The managed Linux machines here in the School of Informatics run an environment which we call DICE. It’s based on Linux. We use DICE on desktop computers and on servers, but we also make a VirtualBox virtual machine version of it, intended for personal machines. This virtual version is called Virtual DICE.
Twice a year we release a new version of Virtual DICE. The latest version, released on 4 October 2017, has the hostname rezzonico and this login screen:
If you have an earlier version of Virtual DICE, please export whatever files you want to keep (for example, copy them to your AFS home directory) then delete it and install the new rezzonico version instead.
Because Virtual DICE is a virtual machine designed to be run on personal laptops and the like, it does not by default have a large amount of memory, file space or CPU cores, so it’s not useful for big, demanding computing applications. However, since it’s a virtual machine, you can change its hardware specification as you like, up to the limits imposed by your host machine.
You also get root access, so you can reconfigure Virtual DICE as you like.
To find out more read the Virtual DICE help pages.
I am facing system clock issues in the new Virtual Dice. The current date and time on the virtual machine shows 5th October 22:14 when it clearly it isnt. My system date and time is correct. I am not sure if it is a bug with the Virtual Dice or Virtual Box.
It is a Virtual Box Error. When I freeze the state of the VM, it restarts from the last clock time it was frozen in. Restarting doesnt work either. It has to be completely shut down and started again.
Thanks. My copy behaves the same way. I’ll add your suggestion to the documentation, and I’ll see what I can do to improve things in a future release of Virtual DICE.
Edit: now documented at Clocks and time in Virtual DICE.