SOLVED Mouse issue installing FreeNAS in Virtualbox (for test/practice)

[Acidtest]

This might be more of a question for a Virtualbox forum but maybe someone here can help.

I'm building a FreeNAS server, and decided to do a test install in a Virtualbox VM on my Windows 10 PC to learn a bit. However, I can't get past the initial install screen as the prompt for what disk to install on requires a mouse click and I can't seem to get VB to recognize the mouse. I normally have a mouse running through a KVM switch, but also connected directly to a USB port on the PC and neither is recognized. I haven't tried using a PS/2 port.

The keyboard is connected directly via USB, because Win 10 so far doesn't seem to work with my KVM for the kb. (The mouse works fine - the KVM is an IOGear GCS1204.)

Hopefully this will be a moot issue soon - I'm waiting on a couple of things to complete the hardware build so next week may have the real install going.

 

[depasseg]

It's likely a virtualbox issue. But you should be able to use a series of "tab" to move around, and "spacebar" to select/de-select. Just use the spacebar to check all the boxes, and then tab to the next and hit enter (or spacebar).

 

[jgreco]

I didn't even realize it'd let you use a mouse. People usually don't connect mice to UNIX servers.

In the old days, Windows would *also* let you keyboard around the UI, and to a lesser extent, still does. Us old UNIX guys are often tabbing around Windows too. ;-)

 

[Acidtest]

It's likely a virtualbox issue. But you should be able to use a series of "tab" to move around, and "spacebar" to select/de-select. Just use the spacebar to check all the boxes, and then tab to the next and hit enter (or spacebar).

Thanks, I did try using kb to get around, but will have to try using the spacebar tonight. As I recall Tab took me between the 2 choices (whatever they are, continue/cancel) but I'm not sure I tried selecting the disk with spacebar.

And yeah I've used kb to get around in older Windows versions at a few points. I'm old enough to pre-date mice too, I remember the Apple Lisa as my first mouse experience!

 

[danb35]

as the prompt for what disk to install on requires a mouse click

No it doesn't. Up/down arrows move the selection up and down, spacebar selects and deselects.

 

[mattbbpl]

I didn't even realize it'd let you use a mouse. People usually don't connect mice to UNIX servers.

In the old days, Windows would *also* let you keyboard around the UI, and to a lesser extent, still does. Us old UNIX guys are often tabbing around Windows too. ;-)

You absolutely can still do that in Windows. Our software QA lab actually has several testers who don't have mice hooked up to their machine because we have 2 large customers who do not provision mice to their employees' Windows-based workstations.

These customers actually test each release they receive with "keypress counters" and ensure that a new release doesn't require new keypresses in a previously existing workflow.

 

[pirateghost]

You can use a mouse in the installer? I had no idea.

 

[Acidtest]

Yeah, it looks like I missed that the spacebar is used to select a choice. I'll confirm tonight but I assume that will clear this up for me.

 

[jgreco]

You absolutely can still do that in Windows

No, trust me, after several dozen installs of Win 10 Technical Preview, I can tell you that the attention to such detail at Microsoft has slowly eroded over time. Windows 7 was probably the last platform on which it was fairly consistently possible to reliably keyboard around the UI. Now, it is rather more hit-or-miss.

 

[mattbbpl]

No, trust me, after several dozen installs of Win 10 Technical Preview, I can tell you that the attention to such detail at Microsoft has slowly eroded over time. Windows 7 was probably the last platform on which it was fairly consistently possible to reliably keyboard around the UI. Now, it is rather more hit-or-miss.

Wow, there are going to be some people who are apoplectic when they're forced to make that switch. I'm glad I won't have to deal with them.

 

[jgreco]

I can't even remember which thing it was that I was in where tab worked, but essentially jumped around the screen in a pseudorandom pattern because somebody had obviously changed the layout of the GUI without understanding the finer points of what the code meant.

 

[rsquared]

No, trust me, after several dozen installs of Win 10 Technical Preview, I can tell you that the attention to such detail at Microsoft has slowly eroded over time. Windows 7 was probably the last platform on which it was fairly consistently possible to reliably keyboard around the UI. Now, it is rather more hit-or-miss.

Windows 7 was already a big step backwards for keyboard usability... One more reason to delay switching to 10 as long as possible.

 

[Acidtest]

Confirmed spacebar works, thanks! I use unix kb only stuff all the time at work and just didn't even think like that on my home box.

 

[jgreco]

Confirmed spacebar works, thanks! I use unix kb only stuff all the time at work and just didn't even think like that on my home box.

Enjoy the UNIX goodness! ;);):D