[Marketing] [SoaS] installation fear, was Re: Governance & Trademark in the Wiki

[Dave Bauer]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 7:59 AM, Carlo Falciola <cfalciola at yahoo.it> wrote:
> I based my  VM tests on these instructions:
>
> http://agnipulse.com/2009/07/boot-your-usb-drive-in-virtualbox/
>
> with Strawberry you can let it plain boot, and it goes fine,( maybe it's better you first boot a newly created stick the normal way for the first time... )
> I think this feature of VB is not available on mac now...
>

Interesting. This requires you predict what /dev/sdX device the USB
will get. For a semi-permenantly attached USB hard drive or for
someone who is used to this sort of thing, it seems pretty neat.
Thanks.

Dave

> ciao carlo (F)
>
>
> --- Mar 20/10/09, Dave Bauer <dave.bauer at gmail.com> ha scritto:
>
>> Da: Dave Bauer <dave.bauer at gmail.com>
>> Oggetto: Re: [SoaS] [Marketing] installation fear, was Re: Governance &  Trademark in the Wiki
>> A: "Carlo Falciola" <cfalciola at yahoo.it>
>> Cc: marketing at lists.sugarlabs.org, soas at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> Data: Martedì 20 ottobre 2009, 12:54
>> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 6:48 AM,
>> Carlo Falciola <cfalciola at yahoo.it>
>> wrote:
>> > Sean, Martin,
>> > Recently I started playing with VirtualBox in order to
>> get a "standard" SOAS usb bootable key to boot into an
>> "empty" VM in VirtualBox.
>> > This is different from a livecd in sense you get
>> persisten updates and your stik could always be booted in
>> other systems...
>> >  VirtualBox supports, at least in Linux & Windows
>> the feature to define virtual bootable disk that belongs to
>> a USB stick.
>> >
>> > So now I've a generic VM that when started by VB look
>> for an USB Bootable Stick attached to a running windows
>> machine and start it
>> > Till' now it works for me with Strawberry & the
>> latest Soas2.iso.
>> >
>> > I actually followed  instructions I found on the web
>> (there shoud be a message to sugar-devel list about it)
>> >
>> > The solution is definitely not ready for primetime,
>> and should be  tested a lot, but right now is it possible
>> to:
>> > 1. Manually install VirtualBox
>> > 2. Get the VirtualMachine (containing the "special
>> Virtual Disk")
>> > 3. Stich the Strawberry in the running host
>>
>> Can you describe this step in some more detail?
>> Right now as I understand it, on Linux and Windows Hosts
>> you can hit
>> F12 (if you are very fast) to open the boot menu or also
>> quickly open
>> the USB menu at the bottom of the screen and activate the
>> selected USB
>> device. You can't boot from USB on OS X for some reason so
>> I have
>> created a boothelper VM which looks for a USB stick named
>> Fedora. On
>> OS X I have been able to automate this to umount the USB
>> from the host
>> OS, and attach it to the running VM so the use potentially
>> just has to
>> plug in the stick and make one click on an application
>> icon.
>>
>> Dave
>>
>> > 4. start the VM
>> > 5. Enjoy your Sugar Stick (with persistent storage in
>> the stick, networks, (dunno about audio, but it should work
>> either)!
>> >
>> >  I think some of those steps could be simplyfied...
>> >
>> >  Latest note : I'm not shure that a "Portable"
>> VirtualBox it's  doable because VB creates virtual net
>> interface I'm not shure that ccould be done on the fly.
>> >
>> > Could this approach helps?
>> >
>> > ciao
>> >
>> > carlo (f)
>> >
>> > On Mon, Oct 19, 2009 at 9:07 PM, Douglas McClendon
>> > <dmc.sugar at filteredperception.org> wrote:
>> >> Sean DALY wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> You've mentioned how the website could be
>> improved - the "fine print".
>> >>> When you look at the Sugar on a Stick page,
>> what do you think it could
>> >>> express better to guide inexperienced users?
>> The single biggest
>> >>> barrier we face is installation fear - this is
>> how Windows keeps its
>> >>> marketshare (with help from proprietary file
>> formats), and why
>> >>> GNU/Linux desktops have so much difficulty
>> breaking out. Sugar on a
>> >>> Stick sidesteps the problem by not touching
>> the hard disk, but does
>> >>> indeed require system-specific BIOS fiddling.
>> >>
>> >> In response to this, and DancesWithCars autorun
>> html point, I can see
>> >> possible progress in this direction-
>> >>
>> >> a) autorun html.  Simple to add technically.
>>  I'd opt for pure open
>> >> source but possibly less compatable simple autorun
>> technique, as opposed
>> >> to using the various less-free and often closed
>> source autorun helpers.
>> >>
>> >> b) the content of the html to be autoran-
>> obviously the sky is the
>> >> limit, and something marketing is particularly
>> suited for.  To the
>> >> extent that technical information should be
>> contained, there is the
>> >> LiveDistro wikipedia page, which would be
>> included, as well as a layer
>> >> above it translated/shrunk into a quickstart
>> version targeted at average
>> >> parents/teachers.
>> >>
>> >> c) other low hanging fruit windows FOSS.  Firefox
>> seems worth it if
>> >> you've got the space.  But more importantly qemu,
>> or whatever the best
>> >> open source windows virtualization solution is
>> (qemu/virtualbox/?).
>> >> I.e. the webpage should include simple
>> instructions for launching that
>> >> virtualizaiton targeted at the CD/USB that
>> contains it.
>> >>
>> >
>> >>Virtualbox could allow a pretty good in-Windows
>> experience. With
>> >>seamless mode it runs in an OS window. We can
>> automate the startup so
>> >>a Sugar appliance starts up with  one click. The
>> trick is getting
>> >>permission to bundle an  installer with virtualbox
>> and the sugar
>> >>appliance. I think one would have to ask Sun for
>> permission to do
>> >>this.
>> >>
>> >>You could do this also with OS X and Linux although
>> each needs a
>> >>seperate installer.
>> >>
>> >>Dave
>> >>
>> >>--
>> >>Dave Bauer
>> >>dave at solutiongrove.com
>> >>http://www.solutiongrove.com
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > SoaS mailing list
>> > SoaS at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> > http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/soas
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dave Bauer
>> dave at solutiongrove.com
>> http://www.solutiongrove.com
>>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Dave Bauer
dave at solutiongrove.com
http://www.solutiongrove.com