Hello Mike,
thanks for your interest in exploring Genode and welcome to the mailing list!
I've reached the end of my Linux skill set trying to get the Build environment working in a Ubuntu 11.04 environment. (In a VM) on my Windows 7 box. I really, REALLY want to get up to speed on Genode (as I see it as the ONLY effective stop for all this silly "cyberwar" stuff, thanks to it's native support of capability based security).
Is there somewhere I can download a VMware or VirtualBox image of it installed?
I am not aware of any prebuild VM image that contains a complete development environment for Genode.
It is unfortunate to hear that you struggled to set up the build environment. You question somehow hints to a lack of documentation on our side. Admittedly, the current documentation is primarily targeted at developers who are already familiar with Linux. However, I would love to improve the documentation for people who are less experienced in Linux as well. For doing this, it would be very interesting to know where exactly you got stuck.
I will gladly assist you with the process of setting up the development environment. Please just provide the specific points where you ran into trouble.
Cheers Norman