VMWare Anyone?

I've been using VMWare in my consulting practice for some time now. What it allows me to do is to run Windows Server 2003 as a virtual machine on my Windows XP dual processor computer. In this guise it is an EXTREMELY handy means of checking how things work on a server before I actually upload.

VMWare will also run just about ANY flavour of Linux that you'd care to name with no kinks or apologies.

What we might want to do with RepRap is to simply do a build of it that works and release that with a VMWare wrapper to run on just about anything. I keep my server apps running under VMWare resident on an 80 GByte external hard disk that I just jack into my system via a USB port. It works like a dream and is very cost-effective.

[www.physorg.com]

thats a good idea. unfortunately vmware is proprietary and costs $$$. a similar solution, that has been tossed around before (and the one i like the best) is to make a linux LiveCD. you download and burn it to disc, pop it in your computer. it boots up, recognizes / configures all your hardware and then has whatever apps you want (reprap...) ready to rock.

no extra software needed. no install needed, you just pop it in and go. there are even tools out there that let you make your own livecd. i havent had much time to look into it, but perhaps some brave soul out there would like to look into it? having a livecd would make the project SOOO much more accessible to your average user.

Quoting RepRap Forum Mailer :

> thats a good idea. unfortunately vmware is proprietary and costs
> $$$. a similar solution, that has been tossed around before (and the
> one i like the best) is to make a linux LiveCD. you download and
> burn it to disc, pop it in your computer. it boots up, recognizes /
> configures all your hardware and then has whatever apps you want
> (reprap...) ready to rock.
>
> no extra software needed. no install needed, you just pop it in and
> go. there are even tools out there that let you make your own
> livecd. i havent had much time to look into it, but perhaps some
> brave soul out there would like to look into it? having a livecd
> would make the project SOOO much more accessible to your average user.

Can we combine the best aspects of the two and create such an image for
a USB memory stick?

Best wishes

Adrian

Dr Adrian Bowyer
[staff.bath.ac.uk]
[reprap.org]
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yup... if i recall correctly, its fairly trivial to put a livecd onto a usb keychain and then boot from that.

VMWare Player is free, which is all we'd need.

Of course, since we already run it on Windows and Linux, I don't see the
necessity anyway. We just need to build an installer, which I had
planned to do, but I've been overrun by work recently. BTW, I'm also
out of the country for the next week so more delays... I have been
fixing some of the comms problems, but there's still more to do. After
that I might whip up a Windows installer for it all.

Zach wrote:
> thats a good idea. unfortunately vmware is proprietary and costs $$$. a similar solution, that has been tossed around before (and the one i like the best) is to make a linux LiveCD. you download and burn it to disc, pop it in your computer. it boots up, recognizes / configures all your hardware and then has whatever apps you want (reprap...) ready to rock.
>
> no extra software needed. no install needed, you just pop it in and go. there are even tools out there that let you make your own livecd. i havent had much time to look into it, but perhaps some brave soul out there would like to look into it? having a livecd would make the project SOOO much more accessible to your average user.
>

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Simon McAuliffe wrote:
> VMWare Player is free, which is all we'd need.
>
> Of course, since we already run it on Windows and Linux, I don't see the
> necessity anyway. We just need to build an installer, which I had
> planned to do, but I've been overrun by work recently. BTW, I'm also
> out of the country for the next week so more delays... I have been
> fixing some of the comms problems, but there's still more to do. After
> that I might whip up a Windows installer for it all.

As Zach would say: awesome!

I still like the idea of "RepRap on a USB stick" though. Apart from
anything else, we wouldn't have to take laptops to demos...

--

Best wishes

Adrian

Dr Adrian Bowyer
[staff.bath.ac.uk]
[reprap.org]
_______________________________________________
Developers mailing list
Developers@reprap.org
[reprap.org]