[SoaS] Experimental Virtualbox Boothelper for Mac OS X

[Dave Bauer]

I have created an experimental USB boothelper for Virtualbox on OS X.
This will let you boot from SoaS on USB into a virtual machine so you
don't have to try to reboot and use a cdrom.
This includes an applescript application called "Soas USB" which will
manage starting the virtual machine and connecting the USB to the
virtual machine.

It has been tested on a Macbook and an iMac running OS X 10.5.8 so
far. It seems to work reliably on my Macbook but the iMac had some
trouble getting the USB to be recognized. I am looking for folks for
might want to test and give feedback.

You'll need SoaS installed on a USB stick.

To install the appliance first download and install Virtualbox
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads. Note this only works with
the Personal and Evaluation License edition since the Open Source
edition does not have USB support.
Next download http://www.solutiongrove.com/SoaS%20Virtualbox%20Boothelper.zip
and unzip it.

Next open up Virtualbox and select File->Import Appliance. Navigate to
where you unzipped the appliance and select the Soas Boothelper.ovf
file.

Insert a SoaS USB. Make sure it is named "FEDORA" in the finder.
Now you can run the SoaS USB application which will eject FEDORA from
the finder, start up virtualbox and the virtual appliance and attach
the USB. Right now its using the verbose boot process to detect
errors.

If anyone has a chance to test this out I would appeciate it. Similar
automated solutions could exist for Windows and Linux virtualbox
hosts.

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