At the pilot school for SoaS in Boston all the teachers have Apple laptops. We expect the most convenient way for the teachers to run Sugar will be as an emulation of their existing laptop.

These are instructions for using a copy of Sugar on a Stick, configured to run in virtual environments. A new, special version of SoaS-2 has been announced here: http://lists.sugarlabs.org/archive/sugar-devel/2009-March/012747.html

How do you grab it?

Please be aware of the fact that this is still alpha quality and not at all ready for production use. You might want to create your own image, though. Probably obsolete instructions to do so are located here.

Install VirtualBox

OS X

  1. Download VirtualBox for OS X from here, http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
  2. Install it by opening the DMG.
  3. Follow the instructions in the window
    1. Double click VirtualBox.mpkg
    2. If you see a warning about running a program from the internet click OK to run it.
    3. click continue until you see the license popup, click Agree.
    4. Choose location to install, probably something like Macintosh HD then click Continue.
    5. Click Continue, then Install. Enter password if required.
  4. Now you can run VirtualBox by opening the Applications folder and double clicking on the icon.

Windows

Download from http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads.

Linux

See http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Linux_Downloads
For Ubuntu, it is available in Synaptic Package Manager, once you add the the URI, distribution & components to your 3rd-party software sources or enter the following in your /etc/apt/sources.list.
deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian <distribution> non-free
Install dkms, as well, so upgrades will update the kernel modules.

Setup a Virtual Machine for Sugar on a Stick

  1. In VirtualBox click New
  2. Click Next
  3. Enter a name "Sugar"
  4. Operating System: choose Linux
  5. Version: choose Fedora
  6. Click Next
  7. For memory leave 256 MB then click Next
  8. Virtual Hard Disk click Existing
    1. A new window pops up
    2. Click Add button in the toolbar
    3. Browse to the location where you extracted the .vmdk disk image
    4. Click Open
    5. Click Select
  9. Click Next
  10. Click Finish
  11. Select Sugar in the left then click Start in the toolbar
  12. After a minute or two you should see the Sugar screen asking for you name.
  13. Enter your name and click Next.
  14. From now on you can start VirtualBox and start the "Sugar" virtual machine