4 sims on a USB drive - looks like :|
oh yay, i can learn! thanks to Roger Stack’s video tutorials, i was able to install OpenSim on a USB drive
i had thought that setting this up would have been incredible technical, what with databases and all. subQuark had asked our previous OpenSim providers about doing this exact thing for workshops he was doing. since they never did it, i thought “holy cow, if they can’t do it, it must be impossible!”
but one night i thought i’d look into it again and thankfully came across Roger Stack’s instructions. they seemed very possible and pretty automated, but i messed up somewhere and failed. Roger saw this and created videos. this is the third post i do on this, and like a baseball game, rather than strike out, i hit a home run! (so Roger is now a winning baseball coach?) =D
and it only takes a small USB stick, i used an 8 gig Sony because it was laying around and i had no idea how much space i would need. well, after all is said and done, it’s less that 250 megs! of course, as you build it will use up space, but you don’t need a big stick for this (maybe 2 gigs? so for less than $10 you should be golden)
why do this? well, if you are thinking of doing OpenSim but not sure, this is about as cheap as you can go. this would be a good way for educators, municipal, and corporate users to try it out
if Ener can install it, so can you!
this installation sets up a four sim grid and took me about 20 minutes to do. i was following Roger’s video tutorial to the letter and one process took about 5 minutes to run on its own (i went and did some laundry while waiting) =D
if you are an educator being booted from Second Life, this may be a great way to do a proof-of-concept to help your school and its IT department see that OpenSim is worth installing on the school’s servers. it also may be a great option to save your builds while you are trying to figure out what to do
this is also a great way for corporate eLearners to do what subQuark talked about last year for no cost at all and without worrying about corporate firewalls or connectivity!
the only thing i varied from with Roger’s instructions was the command prompt for Windows XP, i used this info for that part
in the video below, i doubled the playback speed so you did not have to sit through as much and wanted to show the 4 new regions and how fast an OAR file loads (double the time since this is double speed). it works very well and is not laggy at all
thanks Roger for making “Ener-proof” instructions! =D
nice video ener – and great oar file to use as a demo! i’ve put the video on the wiki. http://vw-standards.wikispaces.com/Research+-+Transferability
i’m thinking of giving teachers a tropical island to take home at my next workshop – cocktails included :-)
thanks for the comments
Roger Stack
26 Sep 10 at 7:41 pm
cool! well your teaching ability shines through into the real world. following your instructions allowed me to do something that is actually quite technical and precise. i meant to mention installing Imprudence on the stick to be fully self-contained! i’d be glad to give you a strawberry colada i made in a coconut shell! complete with flexi straw and tiny drink umbrella!
clever on giving an OAR. that is the biggest concern i hear from teachers – the lack of any structure. for many people, that canvas is too blank and it is overwhelming to think of building all of the things you want. i should package my little stage as an XML for people to use. i used to give it away free inSL . . .
thanks Roger and great narration voice you have!
Ener Hax
26 Sep 10 at 9:26 pm
You’ve got a whole world… in your hand. ;p
DreamWalker McCallister
27 Sep 10 at 3:16 am
Well done on getting this working Ener, do you know which section you were missing out?
Jonathan
27 Sep 10 at 3:38 am
lol, no i am not sure! i followed Roger’s instructions to start and something was not right right before running configure .exe. when i first did it, that would run but only for about 10 seconds. this time i followed his video and paused at each step. this time configure.exe took about 6 or 7 minutes to complete
i started fully fresh by reformatting my stick and the only deviation was making my master avatar me and not Poly Tech. everything else i kept the exact same
good luck, and if you get it going let me know
i wonder if once a stick is setup if it can just be directly copied to other sticks? that would be a neat trick =)
Ener Hax
27 Sep 10 at 8:36 am
[...] instructions and video tutorials about the process. After watching the tutorials and reading a blog post by the wonderful Ener Hax regarding her experience with the setup process, I decided I was up to [...]
You can run OpenSim from a USB Stick? | Begonia Island
27 Sep 10 at 9:29 am
Can it be done on a Mac?
Grid Jumper
27 Sep 10 at 8:58 pm
great question, i am asking on twitter and will let you know (me –> @iliveisl on twitter) =)
Ener Hax
27 Sep 10 at 10:54 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Judy O'Connell, Botgirl Questi, Liz Dorland=Chimera, Nat, Maria Korolov and others. Maria Korolov said: RT @iliveisl OpenSim for free! on a stick http://bit.ly/9tfGpk [...]
Tweets that mention OpenSim for free! on a stick at i live in science land -- Topsy.com
28 Sep 10 at 5:17 pm
[...] quick Googling brought me to Ener Hax’s wonderful blog, and a detailed explanation of her own experiences setting up and running OpenSim on a USB key. I also found a blog post by Peter Miller (the [...]
A Virtual World in my Hands: Running OpenSim and Imprudence on a USB Key | Be Cunning and Full of Tricks
7 Oct 10 at 12:37 pm
I want to run OpenSimulator on my Mac OS X 10.6.4.
I was unable to find OpenSimulator-0.7.0.2 for Mac.
I downloaded and installed MonoFramework-2.8_10.macos10.novell.x86.
I downloaded OpenSimulator-0.6.8, but was unable to install it with this error message “Mono CSDK not found.”
I think the MonoFramework is CSDK.
What am I doing wrong?
Stone Semyorka
10 Oct 10 at 9:41 am
whoa, i have zero Mac experience =( but did see instructions for Mac 10.5 with a caveat that says it *might* run on 10.6
http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Build_Instructions
10 years ago when i started in with flash i had a PC and wanted an Apple laptop. i figured it would be good for me to know both systems. i never got the Apple because i could not afford two versions of Macromedia (lol, that goes back eh?)
i never went down the Apple path and i feel like i short changed myself
apart from that link, i’d suggest the OpenSim forum. there are people that have 10.6 and have OpenSim running. i imagine that some of those people would be helpful if asked
http://osgrid.org/forums/search.php?keywords=mac+10.6&terms=all&author=&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search
good luck and sorry i was of little help =(
Ener Hax
10 Oct 10 at 10:01 am
[...] OpenSim for free! on a stick - september 26th sim-on-a-stick video showing an OAR being loaded [...]
sim-on-a-stick posts at i live in science land
26 Mar 11 at 10:34 am
wonderful,, i am so so happy that i was able to do this,, woo hoooo! first question i do have is how would i allow a friend to log on to my land ,, how would they go about doing this,, creating avatar logging in etc? thanks again, this is so awesome !!!
lesh
18 Aug 12 at 1:58 am
hi lesh, sim-on-a-stick is really just a private work space BUT . . . here are instructions on how to make it so that others can log in but i think you have to be in the same room
you can also make it hypergridable, but i’ve never tried
here are tow links and to make other user accounts you use the wifi admin panel – instructions in the readme.txt file)
http://metatek.blogspot.com/2011/07/multi-user-sim-on-stick.html
http://iliveisl.com/hypergrid-from-sim-on-a-stick-part-2/
if you are looking for something more like SL – i’d suggest Kitely.com
good luck!
Ener Hax
18 Aug 12 at 10:47 am
have a question,,, dont know if this is the right place to ask but i will start here,,, anyting i upload,,, xml,, oar,, etc. ends up underground ,,, way underground,,, how would i fix this? thanks so much.
lesh
18 Aug 12 at 11:20 am
wow, that’s odd! when i load an OAR it looks like this:
http://youtu.be/hBlQtG3fWAo
yours should too! i don’t understand how it could do anything else. importing an XML file, like the freebies i offer, should simply create it to the left of the avatar. those might end up partially in the ground, like my big rocket – but the registartion prim should be near the regions surface
i have never heard of such odd behaviour (but that does not mean it isn’t happening! you are witnessing it!)
i am dumbfounded on your issue =(
Ener Hax
18 Aug 12 at 11:25 am
i read somewhere in my desperate search for help on this, that to elliminate the problem in importing , use a platform in air, but for the oar file, i am not sure what to do , still playing around with it to try and figure something out.
lesh
18 Aug 12 at 12:31 pm
oar files wont load getting timeout exception errors,,,?? any clue what that means and how to correct it?
lesh
18 Aug 12 at 12:49 pm
dont know what it was i did different,, but it works now,,, thanks so much . YAY!
lesh
18 Aug 12 at 1:28 pm
wow, glad it works because i don’t know of any time out functionality – it’s Diva’s D2 distribution of OpenSim and i’ve never gheard of these issues
so glad it fixed itself, phew! =)
Ener Hax
18 Aug 12 at 4:55 pm