Device is being exclusively used by the host computer

I say:

$ VBoxManage controlvm <vbox uuid> usbattach <device uuid>

VirtualBox says:

VBoxManage: error: USB device '<device>' with UUID <uuid> is being exclusively used by the host computer

I say:

$ gpasswd -a <vbox user> plugdev

and log out the vbox user completely (no vms running, no logged-in shell).

And now the device is available and add-able.

Ice Cream!

We found a great ice cream place last night! School House Ice Cream is in Burlington, about 10 minutes from here. They are in a little hole-in-the-wall store front in the middle of an ugly brick building, but inside the place is awesome! The massive wall of trivia was my favorite. The ice cream was very good (their peppermint is seriously peppermint, not some mickey-mosey swirl thing).

So, now we have our pizza place to replace Fred’s Brick Oven, and our ice cream place for We-Lik-It. Still working a bagel place and grocery store.

“device is busy…”

I’m working on a fun little project to set up a custom-made bootable usb key. But I ran into a little trouble after using a chroot, due to /dev and mount --rbind.

# mount -t proc none /mnt/gentoo/proc
# mount --rbind /sys /mnt/gentoo/sys
# mount --rbind /dev /mnt/gentoo/dev
# mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /mnt/gentoo/tmp
# mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /mnt/gentoo/var/tmp
# mount -t tmpfs tmpfs /mnt/gentoo/usr/src
# mount | grep gentoo
/dev/sde1 on /mnt/gentoo type ext2 (rw)
none on /mnt/gentoo/proc type proc (rw)
/sys on /mnt/gentoo/sys type none (rw,bind,rbind)
/dev on /mnt/gentoo/dev type none (rw,bind,rbind)
tmpfs on /mnt/gentoo/tmp type tmpfs (rw)
tmpfs on /mnt/gentoo/var/tmp type tmpfs (rw)
tmpfs on /mnt/gentoo/usr/src type tmpfs (rw)
# chroot /mnt/gentoo

All’s well, until it’s time to exit the chroot and unmount everything..

# umount /mnt/gentoo/usr/src /mnt/gentoo/var/tmp \
/mnt/gentoo/tmp /mnt/gentoo/sys /mnt/gentoo/proc \
/mnt/gentoo/dev /mnt/gentoo
umount: /mnt/gentoo/dev: device is busy.
       (In some cases useful info about processes that use
        the device is found by lsof(8) or fuser(1))

I don’t see anything mounted under there. Fuuuu…

# mount | grep gentoo
/dev/sde1 on /mnt/gentoo type ext2 (rw)
# lsof|grep gentoo
# fuser -m /mnt/gentoo
/mnt/gentoo:
#

Rebooting at this stage is inconvenient, but will certainly solve the problem. But what is left using /mnt/gentoo/dev?
Googling around, and seeing some people with similar problems, finally lit a light bulb above my head:

# cat /proc/mounts | awk '{print $2}' | grep gentoo
/mnt/gentoo
/mnt/gentoo/dev
/mnt/gentoo/dev/pts
/mnt/gentoo/dev/shm

So mount --rbind worked as advertised and recursively mounted /dev and everything sub-mounted. And I didn’t realize that udev mounted other things under /dev without updating /etc/mtab. Sigh.

# umount /mnt/gentoo/dev/shm /mnt/gentoo/dev/pts /mnt/gentoo/dev /mnt/gentoo
#

And now I can get on with my life.

And another birthday down

Alpha child vacillated on how to celebrate her birthday.  (Giving her a choice was mistake.)  Four days before, we finally settled on a simple party at the local, recently-opened mini-golf course.

It might be worth mentioning that Alpha has been officially diagnosed with Asperger’s (that’s worth a whole bunch of posts on it’s own), so a party with a “script” to follow is a very, very good idea.

So mini-golf has a implicit script – everyone knows what to do, there’s something to keep busy with at every turn, and it’s easy to avoid uncomfortable moments.  The party worked.  We met a couple of Alpha’s friends from school, everyone had a good time, and we ended the day on a high note.  Plus, it turns out that Alpha loves laser tag – also offered at the place.  Beta and her friend kept busy too.

And a shout out to our friends Sam and Joanne, who came in from out of state with their son and were most helpful.  I suck with unfamiliar kids, but Sam is actually quite effective with them.

Pics to come later.  Maybe M has a few, I never remember to take snapshots.