Norman,

Could you add this as a quick Genodians article?  It seems like the perfect companion to Josef's post about the Debian ISO & VirtualBox Guest Additions.

On 3/4/19 4:36 AM, Norman Feske wrote:

Hello Joel,

thanks for giving Sculpt CE a try. The documentation for the new version is not there yet. Sorry about that. Let me try to fill the gap.

...

Working on Sculpt CE with framework version 19.02. I've got Debian downloaded but I'm doing a terrible job of getting it to run. Running without any window manager has the Debian install boot up but I can't interface with it at all. So Im guessing I need to build my GUI software stack before it will work. I just have no idea where to begin! It was all done almost automatically with Sculpt VC. Can anyone show me how to properly setup the window manager so I can properly run vbox5-nova-sculpt?

the easiest way is using the "themed_wm":

1. Connect to the network, which is needed to install software.

2. In the '+' menu, go to "Depot... -> genodelabs -> GUI..." and select the "themed wm" and install it. Wait until the download is finished.

3. In the routing dialog, connect the themed wm as follows

   GUI (focus) -> keyboard focus GUI -> system GUI server Report -> system reports

   After clicking "Add component", the graph should show the themed wm running.

4. For a quick test that the themed wm is running properly, you may start "Depot... -> genodelabs -> Demos... -> nano3d" with the following connection:

   GUI -> themed wm

   You should now see a spinning 3D shape in a window. When pressing F12, you should be able to move the window around.

5. Start the "vm_fs" component by clicking on the corresponding launcher at the top level of the '+' menu. This is a chroot instance that provides the <sculpt-partition>/vm/debian directory as a file system.

6. Start the "shared_fs" component analogously to the vm fs. This chroot instance provides the <sculpt-partition>/shared/ directory as a file system.

7. Start the "usb_devices_rom" component from the '+' menu, which can be used to assign USB devices to the VM.

8. To add the VM, select "Depot... -> genodelabs -> Virtual machines... -> vbox5-nova-sculpt" and connect it as follows:

   File system (vm) -> vm fs File system (shared) -> shared fs GUI -> themed wm Network -> nic router ROM (capslock) -> global capslock state ROM (platform info) -> platform information ROM (usb devices) -> usb devices rom Report (shape) -> themed wm Report -> system reports Region maps -> custom virtual memory objects Real-time clock -> system clock USB -> direct USB device access

Now the virtual-machine window should come up.

BTW, it is possible to start the VM without any window manager. If no window manager is running, you may connect "GUI" to "keyboard focus", which will allow the VM to obtain (and manage) the keyboard focus. Note however, that only one component can manage the keyboard focus. Normally, this would be the window manager.

The upcoming documentation will of course go into more detail what all those assignments are about.

As two other practical hints:

• Your current system state corresponds to /config/managed/deploy (you can see it using the inspect window). To use it automatically at boot time (or when you select the sculpt partition for "use"), copy the file to <sculpt-partition>/config/19.02/.

• Alex noticed that the default RAM assignment of the genodelabs/vbox5-nova-sculpt package is set to 8 GiB where the default RAM assignment used in Sculpt VC was 4 GiB. I changed the default back to 4 GiB in my version of the package (you may use it from "Depot... -> nfeske").

• If you want to easily start and remove the VM without going though the routing dialog each time, you can create a launcher from the information of the /config/managed/deploy by copying the corresponding <start> node to a new file /config/launcher/vm and rename <start> to <launcher>. This also gives you a nice way to customize the component, e.g., be adding 'ram="6G"' as attribute.

I hope these hints will accommodate you with migrating to Sculpt CE. If you encounter any problem or have questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Cheers Norman