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

[Carlo Falciola]

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
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