Updated to virtualbox-iphone-r7.sh on 11/11/2008, 3:25 CST.

• Removed check for ubuntu, since this will work on far more systems.
• Improved the check for /etc/fstab with a grep instead of a question.
• Started package cleanup; it’s not the best yet.
  
• Still no exit points
• Still only accepts simple responses (y).
• Planning to add support for Suse & Fedora soon.

This is a script that will modify the Ubuntu (or other Debian) environment to allow you to sync your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPod in a Windows XP Virtual machine. This fix solves two problems:

1. USB doesn’t work at all because there’s no mount point; edit /etc/fstab to fix it.
2. For the iPhone to sync, MAX_USBFS_BUFFER_SIZE needs to be modified in drivers/usb/core/devio.c

If the script works for you, please comment with your OS and details. If the script fails for you, PLEASE be very specific about what OS you are running and what did or didn’t happen. Comments without details don’t help anyone.

UPDATE: I’m not sure if i pointed out that you will need to re-run this script each time the Kernel is updated. The script now knows what to update and what to leave alone.

These instructions are based on my test environment. You do not have to follow them to the letter! Go ahead and try the script if you know what you’re doing!!!

This fix works on Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex running VirtualBox-2.0 installed through apt-get. It also works on older versions of Ubuntu, and possibly many other distros. Be creative, but be careful.

Install virtualbox-2.0 through through apt-get:

1. edit your /etc/apt/sources.list file and add the following source:
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid non-free
(intrepid is not listed on the wiki, but the source is working!)

2. Run “wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -”

3. Run “sudo apt-get update”

4. Run “sudo apt-get install virtualbox-2.0″

Restart your computer to make sure the vboxusers group initializes properly.

Run the script:
(be sure to chmod +x and run as root!)

Change the permissions to allow execution (chmod +x virtualbox-iphone.sh) and run it as root.
The script downloads the kernel source, and will take approximately 400 mb and several minutes of processing to run properly.

Restart again to initialize the modified kernel. (not sure if these restarts are necessary, but i’m trying to be safe!)

In the settings tab for the virtual machine, check to be sure that USB is enabled.

When you run windows as a virtual machine, you will have to connect the device, then go to the “Devices” tab in VirtualBox and enable the device in “USB Devices>”

These steps should set the stage for everything to work correctly on Ubuntu 8.10. If you have difficulties, please be VERY specific!

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Some people are having trouble with the USB settings.. make yours look like this. Your iphone may already be here, and it may not – i deleted mine to keep people from panicking if they didn’t see theirs.

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11/16/2008: I am aware of an issue where version 2.6.27-7 of the kernel goes through “make” while version 2.6.27-8 goes through update-initramfs. I am working on the script to address this. The result is that running the script works fine, but USB doesn’t connect. I think this only happens to people that have updated to 2.6.27-8, which appears to have been pulled back. A possible solution is to run “sudo grub-update” and boot into the 2.6.27-8 kernel, OR (i would do try this) “sudo apt-get remove linux-image-2.6.27-8-generic && sudo apt-get remove linux-headers-2.6.27-8-generic “. I have only confirmed this once (thanks Brandon) and cannot reproduce it because 2.6.27-8 is not available. Please confirm a solution if you have one. This is the relevant output from the virtuabox script…

(i need a good code highligher!)
Building modules, stage 2.
MODPOST 1 modules
CC /home/user/linux-source-2.6.27/drivers/usb/core/usbcore.mod.o
LD [M] /home/user/linux-source-2.6.27/drivers/usb/core/usbcore.ko
make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.27-7-generic'
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.27-8-generic
Do you want to get rid of the source and installed files?
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I’m working on virtualbox-iphone-v8.sh ; this release is intended to run on both Ubuntu and Fedora 10. I’d like to release it on November 25, 2008 – the same day Fedora 10 (Final) is released.

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