Sage-4.7 VirtualBox image

[Volker Braun]

I've built a Sage-4.7 VM with my automatic script:

http://www.stp.dias.ie/~vbraun/Sage/Sage-4.7.ova

md5sum: 

f5118d0e4a2370a2a526a308c0eeca59  Sage-4.7.ova

[Jeroen Demeyer]

Great, thanks!

By the way, do you think it would be possible to run this script on
(sage|boxen).math.washington.edu? That way, it might be integrated
better with the release management scripts.

Jeroen.

[ancienthart]

This is the best way I've found so far to run Sagemath on windows.

Joal Heagney

[Volker Braun]

I think the script is working well enough to put it on the sagemath servers. It needs VirtualBox 4, though. Maybe somebody with admin rights can install/upgrade it during SageDays 31...

[Nicolas M. Thiery]

On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 03:25:09PM -0700, Volker Braun wrote:
> I've built a Sage-4.7 VM with my automatic script:
> http://www.stp.dias.ie/~vbraun/Sage/Sage-4.7.ova

Thanks for your work on this! I installed it yesterday on a
colleague's machine (I am assuming that this is the same as the one we
get via the link "Download Sage for windows").

Some feedback:

- VMware 4.6 and the new version I got when VMware suggested to
upgrade both complained about "unknown -t option" when cliking on
Sage-4.7.ova. I then tried loading the virtual machine directly
from VMware, and also got a problem. Alas I did not keep track of
the error message; it may have been the same. I then switched to
virtual box, and it worked.

- Would it be possible to include latex in the virtual machine? If at
all possible with a recent pgf/tikz package? Otherwise view does
not work, and the documentation cannot be rebuilt properly.

- Is there a reason why the virtual machine grew from 1Gb to 1.4Gb?

- It would be good to choose once for all a strategy: either to have
a full linux distro, and expect the user to use firefox within the
virtual machine (as for 4.6), or to have a text-only linux distro,
and expect the user to connect to the notebook server from its
Windows browser. The Windows user I have helped find it confusing
to switch from one strategy to the other depending on the version
of Sage. I don't have a real preference. Having a full linux distro
makes it a bit easier to go beyond basic usage, and do things like
editing the Sage sources or installing the Sage-Combinat patches.
But it's bigger.

- It would be great if there was a single and up to date source of
truth for how to install Sage under windows.

Cheers,
Nicolas
--
Nicolas M. Thi�ry "Isil" <nth...@users.sf.net>
http://Nicolas.Thiery.name/

[ancienthart]

Can I also add PNG/JPEG/Cairo support in R to the list of requests please?

Joal Heagney

[Volker Braun]

I think its still up for discussion what the best strategy of running Sage in VirtualBox is. I feel that textmode Sage server using the native browser as interface is the most natural way since there is no confusion about which web browser to use. The disadvantage is that we can't automatically open a browser from the sage process with a magic url, so the user has to log in manually. You don't need any GUI to install the sage combinat patches. 

For developing Sage you should probably install Linux first. Still, if you have to use a VM for some reason then I think its better to export the sage directory via Samba than have a GUI editor run inside the VM. If you are happy with vi/emacs then you probably run Linux already...

The VM is larger than before because it is not particularly tuned for the minimal number of packages. There is a certain trade-off between minimal size and making it easy to create the base linux install, and I don't see much point in spending time to save a little bit of hdd space. Adding latex/libpng/libjpg/cairo will make it even bigger, but again I think usability is more important than space savings.

[Nicolas M. Thiery]

On Sat, Jun 04, 2011 at 09:57:40AM -0700, Volker Braun wrote:
> You don't need any GUI to install the sage combinat patches.

Indeed. But you need to log in to the virtual machine, which is not
hard, but not obvious either. By the way, could there be a message
written on the virtual machine startup saying:

"to get a shell, do ... and log in as ... / ..."

The concrete use case is for mathematician colleagues with minimal
computer science background that want to use our software. Well,
alternatively, I can tell them to do it from a %sh in the notebook;
but in case of trouble it gets messy.

> For developing Sage you should probably install Linux first.

I sure agree. But I have trouble convincing several colleagues that
want to go a bit further with Sage but don't want to switch system :-)

> Still, if you have to use a VM for some reason then I think its

> better to export the sage directory via Samba.

Is it done automatically? That would be great. Again, our use case is
non-computer proficient potential developpers.

Btw: an advantage of the no-GUI approach is a reduced memory
footprint.

> than have a GUI editor run inside the VM. If you are happy with
> vi/emacs then you probably run Linux already...

Just for the record, we had several beginners use gedit or variants.

> The VM is larger than before because it is not particularly tuned
> for the minimal number of packages.

Ok.

> There is a certain trade-off between minimal size and making it
> easy to create the base linux install, and I don't see much point
> in spending time to save a little bit of hdd space.
> Adding latex/libpng/libjpg/cairo will make it even bigger, but
> again I think usability is more important than space savings.

hdd space and download time! But +1 on usability.

Thanks again for your work!

[Volker Braun]

On Saturday, June 4, 2011 9:05:32 PM UTC-6, Nicolas M. Thiéry wrote:

On Sat, Jun 04, 2011 at 09:57:40AM -0700, Volker Braun wrote:
>    You don't need any GUI to install the sage combinat patches.

Indeed. But you need to log in to the virtual machine, which is not
hard, but not obvious either.

You just have to quit Sage in the virtual machine and you'll drop into the Sage user's shell. 

E.g. press Ctrl-C, and run "./sage -combinat install"

Should be documented, of course.

>    Still, if you have to use a VM for some reason then I think its
>    better to export the sage directory via Samba.

Is it done automatically?

Not setup yet but shouldn't be hard.

 

[Nicolas M. Thiery]

On Sat, Jun 04, 2011 at 10:02:08PM -0700, Volker Braun wrote:
> You just have to quit Sage in the virtual machine and you'll drop into the
> Sage user's shell.
> E.g. press Ctrl-C, and run "./sage -combinat install"
> Should be documented, of course.

Ah ok. I thought I had tried Ctrc-C to at least stop the notebook; but
maybe I screwed up. I'll try again next time I get an occasion.

> Not setup yet but shouldn't be hard.

Please :-)