[Sugar-devel] [IAEP] A Virtual Box solution that works with Sticks

[Bill Bogstad]

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 4:26 PM, Gary C Martin <gary at garycmartin.com> wrote:

> Sure, you could just link the ~/default/datastore directory on the VM
> to the matching location on the stick. I'm not sure how the pretty way
> to do this would be (likely at this moment in time would be just
> tweaking the VMs to assume the stick was there). Pop stick in, then
> run the VM would be the workflow once set-up. From a future stand
> point, you'd likely want to push upstream for a feature where Sugar
> checked for valid (and correct version) data-stores on start-up
> (perhaps with a UI if more than one valid data-store was found), so
> any external media device, or perhaps even mounted network volume
> could become the default data-store for that session.

Could you clarify what you are suggesting?   Most VMs (including
VirtualBox) typically use large files within the host  environment to
provide the contents of virtual disks to the OS running under
virtualization. By default VirtualBox uses a format that dynamically
allocates in the real filesystem as the guest OS actually writes to
the virtual disk.   I don't think this file is going to be directly
compatible with any file (or filesystem image) that SoaS is storing on
a USB stick.  If you were thinking of something else, please let me
know.

Thanks,
Bill Bogstad