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

[Dave Bauer]

On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 5:29 PM, Sebastian Dziallas <sebastian at when.com> wrote:
> Sean DALY wrote:
>> Thanks for this Douglas
>
> This is all great stuff! :) Thanks for drafting these ideas up...
>
>> I believe virtualbox was chosen since free (beer) and multiplatform.
>
> Well, it was, from what I recall, since VMware isn't free on Macs and
> generally not really open source (though they made some steps in that
> direction). However, the point that has been made on its portability is
> still valid - I'm not sure how portable it currently is.
>
> So here's the thing. I think we might want to provide additional
> solutions with the Blueberry launch; however, I would prefer not to
> stretch the SoaS metaphor further than it has already been.
>
> https://blueprints.edge.launchpad.net/soas/+spec/joint-soas-release
>
> * VirtualBox might be a possibility. I see there's some portable version
> spreading around, but it seems to be somewhat hack-ish.
>
> * QEMU doesn't require administrative rights and should work directly
> from USB keys - together with a nice autorun config, this might already
> fit our needs, though it probably doesn't perform as well as VirtualBox
> does (mind you, we're already composing virtual appliances at build time).
>
Last I heard QEMU did not have acceleration on Mac OS X so it was
pretty unusable. I haven't checked into it lately.

Do these have the guest additions or whatever for VMWare and
VirtualBox? For a good experience you want to have clipboard and mouse
integration with the desktop as well as the video drivers for
Virtualbox.


> * Moka5 (www.mokafive.com) - that's an interesting possibility, too, but
> is only free for Windows, since it requires VMware Fusion on the Mac.
>
>> Sebastian, what do you think about these ideas?
>
> Well, I think we might want to figure a solution here. Something
> interesting would probably also be to have it working both on Windows
> and Macs. If I get a spare minute, I'll think about this and hack a bit
> into it... anybody up to jump in? ;)

I can help out with Virtualbox stuff.
>
> --Sebastian
>
>> thanks
>>
>> Sean
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 3:07 AM, 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.
>>>
>>> Now, these are all old ideas I brought up with Fedora years ago, but they
>>> just aren't that interested, perhaps due to demographics.  I.e. sugarlabs
>>> demographics would seem to benefit more from these things IMO.
>>>
>>> The reason in my own fedora derivative I haven't spent much time on (C) for
>>> instance, is because I personally just really don't care that much about
>>> windows.  One thing that scares me is how fragile qemu for win32 sounded.
>>>   It looks like virtualbox is gpl and available for win32 but I haven't tried
>>> it.  As such, I think it would be a good idea to do (C), but not really
>>> advertise it as anything but experimental for at least a year.
>>>
>>> Also, since pygtk appears available for windows ala liveusb-creator, perhaps
>>> the best in the long term would be an autorun program that is just a simple
>>> pygtk app that can either launch information via a portable firefox install
>>> pointed at the html on the stick/cd, or launch the cd/stick virtually under
>>> qemu/virtualbox.  Or enter a chat session with sugarlabs techsupport.  Or
>>> launch liveusb-creator (in a mode that pulls the data from the stick if that
>>> isn't yet supported.  I.e. stick replication)
>>>
>>> Anyway, thats where I see the lowest hanging fruit for the longterm solution
>>> to the problem end-users grokking the whole experience upon first
>>> introduction to the product.
>>>
>>> $0.02...
>>>
>>> -dmc
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-- 
Dave Bauer
dave at solutiongrove.com
http://www.solutiongrove.com