virtualbox queston

[Chris Brannon]

Jennifer wrote:
> I use virtual box at work. I created my virtual machine using Debian lenny, 
> then upgraded to Debian Unstable. I use windows with Virtual box, and find 
> NVDA reads better than jaws, but it doesn't read everything. Apparently you 
> can also access and control virtual box from the command line.
> If you want to simply open virtual box and start a virtual machine that is 
> already set up could you or someone else not write a script to do that?

This topic was batted around on the Speakup list last spring.
Here's a link to the final message in the thread:
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/pipermail/speakup/2009-April/048793.html

I don't believe that anyone really presented a solid method for
interacting with a guest OS via the command line.
Here are the options for communicating with a guest running under
vbox-headless.

* RDP.  This one is probably not workable from the console.  AFAIK,
there are no command-line RDP clients.
* ssh.  Requires that sshd is running and properly configured in the guest.
* Serial console.  You might be able to use a modem program like c-kermit
or minicom to communicate with the emulated serial port.
I've done this in bochs.  You have to tell the emulator to redirect
the emulated serial port to a pseudo-terminal device.  Then, connect
to the pseudo-terminal with your comm program.

These days, I've been using qemu with the -curses option.  It works well
from the console.  Older versions (prior to 0.10?) didn't support the curses
interface.

-- Chris