VMware

VMware (Workstation, Player, Server) is a commercial virtualization system that emulates hardware resources allowing one computer to host a number of x86 architecture-compatible operating systems. The Player and Server versions are distributed free of charge (gratis). It runs on either Win32 or Linux host machines, allowing one to run Sugar images within the virtual machine. A Mac version is also available, VMWare Fusion, however this is not provided free of charge. A free 30-day evaluation is available, and free licenses are available for academic instruction and research use.

Software applications, such as the Sugar platform, may be deployed as VMware Virtual Appliances, which are one or more virtual machines pre-built, packaged, installed, updated, maintained, and managed as a unit.

Building a virtual appliance

from a live.iso file (No Persistence)

• Make a new Appliance in VMware Workstation (30-day, free evaluation license) with (minimal) hard disk.
• Set XXX-live.iso as CD in VMware Workstation with a 0.1 GB hard disk.
• Boot and run VMware Workstation, then shut down.
• Copy contents of the new Appliance in the VMware directory a USB flash drive.
• Copy XXX-live.iso file to the same USB drive.
• Open this copied Appliance on the USB drive with VMware Workstation, and edit the location of the live.iso file to point to one on the USB stick, then close it.
• Start VMware Player (free downwload) and open this Appliance from the USB drive, or any other VMware Player on any PC.

  this appliance is just like a boot CD—it has no persistence—the system image is treated as a read-only file. (You are running the .iso image with VMware Player.) The appliance file size is only slightly larger than the .iso file.

Boot this Appliance from a USB boot drive/stick (see below)

• The system can be run on any PC without changing or accessing its primary hard disk.
• Use it to run Soas .iso images on PCs lacking a CD-ROM reader but with a USB port.
• Run Sugar on unbootable PC's using a VMware Player application

Appliances with Persistence

• VMware Workstation 6.5.2 with Fedora-11-i386-netinst.iso (need link)
• Settings for VMware Workstation:
  1. Create a new virtual machine
  2. Typical
  3. Installer disk image file:(Fedora-11-i386-netinst.iso)
  4. Linux
  5. Other linux 2.6xx kernel 8-GiB disk
  6. Max Disk Size (GB) 8.0
  7. Split disk into 2-GiB files
  8. 512 kB memory.
• Net install with network connection
• Use entire disk
• De-select Gnome Desktop
• Customize now
• Select Sugar Desktop (Only selection entered)
• Set a root password (sugarroot?) and time zone
• When finished (about 45 min on ??-kbyte/s cable)
• Reboot, set user password (sugaruser?), shut down.
• Clone and save clone on Desktop and use to load on 4-GiB SD or USB or make DVD (3.2-Gib files)

  See note below to remove the Sugar user information and make the image ready for a new first user login. Original passwords for root and user (sugarroot/sugaruser?) entered during the install will remain and are needed for login & administration. This is required so that copies will have different identities.

Method to remove Sugar user information (from Dave Bauer VirtualBox/Preparing_a_disk_image).

1. Open Terminal
2. Terminal
3. rm -rf ~/.sugar (if distributing image)
4. su -
5. shutdown -h now

Alternatives

• Fedora 11 Sugar Spin :http://spins.fedoraproject.org/torrents//F11-Preview-i686-Live-Edu.torrent see Fedora 11 below
• SUSE Sugar Spin:(see section below)

Comments

• Run on free VMplayer loaded on any PC with 512 kB of memory (256 kB required for VMplayer).
• ADVANTAGE: No need to boot USB stick on problem machines.
• Same machine can be used by a succession of students with their own copy of Sugar.
• Students can take USB/SD drives home and run them on their own PCs.
• Disadvantage: Have to install VMplayer on PCs

Two virtual machines on different PCs, each running NAT on same network, seem to cause "collisions" in jabber (Neighborhood View gets depopulated on both ???).

• Logon screen allows user to switch session types:
  • KDE
  • Sugar
  • Failsafe

Two stick alternative

• Install VMware Player on a 2-GiB USB/SD boot stick
• Install the Sugar platform in a virtual appliance on a second 4-GiB or larger stick.

This allows VMware Player to be used by multiple students without rebooting the PC.

One 8-GiB stick with 2 partitions

Ubuntu 9.04 has a "USB Startup Disk Creator". I used a 8-GiB USB stick with 2 partitions to run a VMware Player Appliance on the Same Stick VMware Player WILL install on Ubuntu or Fedora 10, but NOT on F11 at this time. METHOD:

• In PC running Ubuntu 9.04 (or running in VMware Workstation 6.5.2.)

Start partition manager

• Delete existing partitions on USB [/dev/sdb?]

  (BE CAREFUL TO BE LOOKING AT the USB drive and not your Hard Disk.)

• Create a FAT16 2-GiB Primary Partition, set boot flag, and label it Ubuntu
• Exit partition manager
• Run USB Startup Disk Creator
• Create USB, select: /dev/sdb1 "Ubuntu"
• Select "Other" and find Ubuntu 9.04.iso (not live install) previously downloaded to Desktop
• Create live usb on first partition.
• Start partition manager again

  (BE CAREFUL TO BE LOOKING AT the USB drive and not your Hard Disk.)

• Create a FAT32 primary partition with the remaining, unformatted space on the USB drive, set boot flag, and label VM_Apps
• Exit Partition Manager

Remove and reinstall USB stick

• Two USB icons will appear
• Cut and paste previously obtained VMplayer Appliance to VM_Apps

Re-boot PC with USB stick

• Start Firefox and download VMplayer (free) Linux xxxx.bundle
• Place .bundle file in /tmp
• su - command in /tmp
• Enter password for root
• Install bundle in /tmp ( ./ command as administrator. )

Run VMware Player

• Start VMware Player
• Choose VM_apps Icon and open VM Appliance file
• Choose Gnome or Sugar as login, enter password

  Initial Password for Sugar = sugaruser (change user name and password in live user)

  Passwoord for root = sugarroot

Have Fun (Fedora 11 0.93 0.84-2)

• Thus, with one 8-GiB USB stick loaded with Ubuntu 9.04 and VMware Player, plus the Appliance, a Student can carry the OS and a full copy of GNOME Desktop and Sugar on a single USB stick.
• It is complicated to make, but simple to use and it works.

Host operating systems

Windows XP SP2

Loads and runs VMware virtual machine in Windows XP SP2 {tested on a Dell 2350 Tower}

Appliance (packaged virtual machine) transfered by DVD and loaded on hard disk.

Ubuntu 8.04 and 9.04

VMware Workstation 6.5.2 can make virtual machine image files in Ubuntu. VMware Player will run these virtual appliances. The appliance can be distributed by copying to a DVD or a 4-GiB SD or USB drive or (in the future) by downloading from a Sugar Labs or other server.

Fedora 11

VMware Player will not load in Fedora 11 beta or Fedora Preview loaded with shell command; One gets "Unable to modify kernel" error and quits.

Spin of Sugar on Fedora F11 preview live

http://spins.fedoraproject.org/torrents//F11-Preview-i686-Live-Edu.torrent

• It works well as a boot CD or as a 4-GiB Appliance for VMware Player.
• It upgrades in VMware Player to Fedora F11 (Leonidas) after 167 files +45 updates as of 5/30/2009.
• It contains version 0.84.2 Sugar and Xfce 4 Desktop with a KDE switcher.
• It installs nicely in the normal manner.

• See the procedure above to make a VMplayer on a USB boot stick run the latest version of the Sugar platform in Fedora 11 as an Appliance.

Fedora 10

• VMplayer can be loaded in Fedora 10 and used to run a VMplayer Appliance of Sugar platform based on Fedora 11.
• The Sugar platform included in Fedora 10 is not the current version.

openSUSE

SUSE Sugar page

• http://en.opensuse.org/Sugar

(See: nubae and cyberorg on #irc #sugar #opensuse-edu for details.)

SUSE is building and hosting appliances at these sites for downloading.

Live CD

with a very large number (~50) of activities

• http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Education/images/iso/
• http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Education/images/iso/openSUSE-Sugar-live-unstable.i686-0.0.4-Build31.1.iso (latest one)

Installation to hard disk

Sugar terminal:

su -

yast2 live-installer

add user

yast2 users

change networking

yast2 lan

wireless networking

yast2 lan

• latest USB .raw file contains wireless drivers.

(EeePC900 booted from 2-GiB SD card works on Apple Airport extreme after this was done.)

• need to switch networking out of network manager; edit and add wireless wlan wireless wlan0; and enter info on encrypted or open, and if WEP, SSID plus WEP Key information.
• select the new wlan0, then select "manage with network manager".
• Reboot USB.
• Go to drop down box on network and delete network history. Be sure to have radio box checked.
• Reboot again, On F1 neighborhood should see circles for wireless network connections.
• Mouse over the one you want to use and enter passwords if requested on drop down box

This is a preliminary writeup please edit if you find a faster way.

Have Fun

Prebuilt Sugar Appliance

http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/Education/images/

• Run on VMware Player or VirtualBox after decompressing.

Image USB/SD Drives

• Details on how to use uncompresses raw file: http://en.opensuse.org/Disc_image_howtos

Unmount the USB first, then from terminal: sudo dd if=/home/suse/myappliance.raw of=/dev/sdb bs=4k

• Typical Image Session with raw file on Desktop (BE CERTAIN YOUR USB is sdb (the volume ID). (DO NOT use sdb1, the first partition ID). Change. if different.

xxxx@xxxx-Hardy:~/Desktop/$ sudo dd if=openSUSE-Sugar-liveUSB-unstable.i686-0.0.1-Build11.2.raw of=/dev/sdb bs=4k

[sudo] password for XXXX:

463360+0 records in

463360+0 records out

1897922560 bytes (1.9 GB) copied, 195.168 s, 9.7 MB/s

Resources

• http://www.vmware.com/
• OLPC:VMware