I’ve always been a “tool guy.” My passion is building things that make complex processes simpler. For the past few weeks, I’ve been collaborating with an AI on a project called pi-server-vm, a tool to automate the creation of virtual Raspberry Pi servers in VirtualBox. On my Windows development machine, we had finally gotten it to a perfect state. The scripts were robust, the master template was self-healing, and the cloning process was flawless.
Feeling confident, I decided it was time to prove the project was truly cross-platform. I installed a fresh Ubuntu Desktop on an old Lenovo Yoga laptop, ready for a final validation test.
And then, everything broke.
This is the story of that debugging journey. It’s a story about the frustrating, confusing, and ultimately rewarding process of crushing a series of bugs that only appear when you move a project into a completely new environment. It’s also a story about a new way of working, where decades of human experience can partner with the raw power of AI to solve problems that would have been infuriating to face alone.
Problem 1: The Brick Wall - "Cannot operate in VMX root mode"
The first failure was immediate and absolute. The master template, which worked perfectly on Windows, wouldn’t even start. The error was cryptic: Cannot operate in VMX root mode.
My first thought was that my old laptop was simply not capable. But the AI suggested a different path. It explained that this error meant hardware virtualization (VT-x) was required but not available. It then provided a command to check my CPU's capabilities directly from the Linux terminal: egrep -c '(vmx|svm)' /proc/cpuinfo.
The command returned a 4. The hardware was capable; the feature was just turned off. The AI, knowing the laptop was a Lenovo Yoga, even told me the most likely way to enter the BIOS was via the special "Novo Button" or by using Fn+F2. Fn+F2 did the trick, I enabled the setting, and the first wall was knocked down.
Problem 2: The Silent Partner - KVM
The VM started, but then immediately threw the same error again. This was a true "chickenpox moment"—a frustrating rash of problems. I was about to give up, but the AI suggested another possibility: what if another program was already using the virtualization hardware?
It told me to check for the Linux native hypervisor, KVM, by running lsmod | grep kvm. Sure enough, even on a fresh Ubuntu install, the KVM modules were loaded. On Linux, only one hypervisor can be active at a time. KVM had locked the hardware, leaving VirtualBox out in the cold. With the AI's guidance, I unloaded the modules and blacklisted them to make the fix permanent. The VM now booted without any errors.
Problem 3: The Double Reboot
Success! My clone script ran, the new VM started, and it began its automatic first-boot configuration. But I noticed something odd. It rebooted not once, but twice. It was a small thing, but a "tool guy" knows that small, incorrect behaviors are often symptoms of a larger logic flaw.
I described the symptom to the AI. It immediately re-analyzed the first-boot-config.sh script it had helped me write. It found the bug instantly: the reboot command was placed outside the main conditional block, meaning the script would trigger a reboot every single time it ran, even on the second boot when it did no work. It was a simple logic error, but one that’s easy to miss when you’re deep in the code. We moved the reboot command inside the if block, and the problem was solved.
The Final Lesson
This experience was a powerful reminder of how complex software can be. A project that is "finished" in one environment is often just getting started in another. But it was also a profound demonstration of a new way to work.
My experience allowed me to spot the incorrect behaviors and ask the right questions. The AI provided the instant, specific knowledge—the right command to check a CPU flag, the name of a conflicting kernel module, the precise logic error in a script. It acted as an tireless, knowledgeable partner that turned what could have been days of frustrating web searches into a focused and successful debugging session.
We got there in the end. The project is now truly cross-platform, and more robust than ever. And I learned that even after 55 years of building tools, there are always new tools that can help you build better.