[squeak-dev] running squeak from flash stick

David Mitchell david.mitchell at gmail.com
Sun Mar 29 00:32:28 UTC 2009


Most of the mainline Squeak's don't require install. Grab one and put
the files on the stick.

I always work using a one-click distro, which on a USB key allows you
plug the key into a Linux, Windows, or Mac machine and continue
working against the same image.

I just set up my two sons with usb keys to work like this. They both
run Linux, but they have friends on mac and windows. I used the
Seaside one-click experience, but since we are working through the
Robots book, we just replaced the image and changes file.

There are three text files that point at the image name (one for each platform):

squeak.ini (Windows)
squeak.sh (Unix)
Contents/info.plist (Mac)

Or you can rename your image and changes to match.

I believe Bert is to thank (or someone else from the Plopp team) for
this particular innovation. It is one of my favorite Squeak features
and use it heavily when I attend user groups for Java or Ruby. (I
suppose a Ruby or Java distro could do something similar, but they
certainly wouldn't have a cross-platform image.)

On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 5:44 PM, Bert Freudenberg <bert at freudenbergs.de> wrote:
> On 28.03.2009, at 22:30, Ralph Boland wrote:
>
>> I want to be able to store and run my Squeak project on a flash stick
>> so I can load it onto (someone else's) linux (ubuntu in this case
>> but that could change) laptop.
>> I need everything to be on the flash stick and to run from there.
>> I DO NOT WANT TO INSTALL ANYTHING ON THE LAPTOP!
>>
>> So I tried doing a manual install onto the flash stick.
>> First I stored Squeak-3.10-1.i686-pc-linux-gnu.tar on the flash stick
>> and then tried to untar the tar file.
>> I ran into problems because symbolic link operations could not be
>> performed.
>> I tried again using sudo but the symbol links operations still failed
>> and I also got errors of the form:
>>
>> Cannot change ownership to uid 1000, gid 1000: Operation not permitted.
>>
>> I also tried with Squeak-3.7-7*.tar but had the same problems.
>>
>> I am using a Lexar flash stick which mounts itself.  I have not
>> tried changing the mount settings for the flash stick which are:
>>
>> /dev/sdb1 on /media/Lexar type vfat
>> (rw,nosuid,nodev,uhelper=hal,shortname=mixed,
>> uid=1000,utf8,umask=077,flush)
>>
>> Can I fix my problems by:
>>  1) Changing the mount settings.  If so I don't know which ones; I
>> guess this is really a Linux question.  Or perhaps there is a hardware
>> restriction and this cannot be done.
>>  2) Copying the necessary files onto the flash stick from my machine
>>      from which Squeak can currently be run.
>>      If so which files to I need to copy and where do I put them.
>>      If this is the solution perhaps a set of instructions somewhere
>>      on how to do this would be useful since other squeakers may
>>      want to  do this.  If instructions exist and I have simply failed
>>      to find them then my apologies.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for your time especially to those who can help.
>>
>> Ralph Boland
>
>
> You should simply copy a working installation to the stick. That does not
> require symlinks.
>
> We are actually working on something similar for classroom use. Take a look
> at this:
>
> http://wiki.squeakland.org/display/sq/Etoys+on+a+Stick
>
> If you run this on a Linux machine it should create a zip file that you can
> unzip to a USB flash drive, and use on (x86) Linux, Mac, and Windows.
>
> - Bert -
>
>
>
>



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