Well I finally got the Maemo SDK Virtual Image installed. A very
frustrating experience, having been mislead repeatedly by the
documentation and the install script. More by errors of omission.
Everything actually DID work, and I now have Ubuntu installed in a
virtualbox, but man it was FRUSTRATING.
<semi-rant begins>
I downloaded
Maemo_PreFinal_2_Ubuntu_Intrepid_Desktop_SDK_Virtual_Image_Splitted.zip.001
and ...002. (And then I then had to find, build and install 7zip.....)
I ran 7za x Maemo.....001 and it ran. I tried to do the same for ...002
and got a 'Not an archive' error. I had no idea if 7za dealt with both
files serially, or if the file was corrupt.
A little explanation in the documentation would be helpful. How about
telling us what the proper result will be?
"7Za will serially extract the split numbered zip files, and report:
'Everything is Ok
Files: 5
Size: 8453907228
Compressed: 1572864000'"
Then we run the installer script, which is a fun guessing game. It asks
for information without the slightest hint as to the expected response
and uses misleading names for the information. HOW ABOUT A HINT?
"Location of VirtualBox binaries (normally /usr/bin)?"
Then it asks for "The name of your VirtualBox Image." Off the bat, I
thought that was the name of the image file. But what is wanted is not
actually the name of the file, but a name under which your virtual
instance will appear in the Manager. It has nothing to do with the name
of the vdmk file. A short alias is what is wanted. Of course, I inserted
the name of the file: maemosdk_desktop_intrepid-10-08.vmdk. Since I had
already manually created a virtual instance, I now had 3 instances
(including the pre-existing WinXP), one of which had an unreadable name,
due to its length.
How about:
"Please provide a (short) name for this virtual instance. This name will
appear in the list of virtual instances in the VirtualBox Manager
(Maemosdk-2)"
Finally, it asks for the "location" of the VirtualBox image. But what it
wants is not actually the location of the image. Generally a 'location'
for a file is the folder 'where' it is. The script actually wants the
'what' of the file: the fully qualified pathname of the image file. That
is: /tmp/downloads/maemosdk_desktop_intrepid-10-08.vmdk or whatever.
So how about:
"Please provide the full pathname of the vmdk file
(/tmp/downloads/maemo-xxx.vmdk)"
Of course, what is NOT discussed, is that this script will create the
virtual hard-drive instance *out of the vmdk* and exactly where the vmdk
presently resides. Yes, of course I wanted to create a virtual in my
/tmp/downloads folder. Although a different place would be better.....
I had to parse the script, and read 'VBoxManage --help' to understand
what the script was trying to do. Once I got past being misdirected, I
was able to install. Only took me about 2 hours, not including download
time..
</semi-rant>
Now that I do have it installed, I must congratulate those who put this
together. Despite my frustrations at the installer, it probably took
less time than I expended each time, when I tried to install scratchbox
versions 1 or 2. I strongly suspect that the script was run up in short
order by someone who knew *exactly* what he wanted, and therefor could
not see the forest for the trees.
Geoff
--
Please let me know if anything I say offends you.
I may wish to offend you again in the future.
Tux says: "Be regular. Eat cron flakes."
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