tbaMUD Continued development of the CircleMUD core

A while ago Rumble posted a tutorial for a TBA thumb drive install. Well, I've been trying for a while now to get one working that doesn't rely on cygwin (or windows at all), and I've got the solution! I just haven't gotten around to actually making the working version yet.

What you'd want to do this with is Puppy Linux. It's a completely portable Linux install, intended to be run completely from a USB key or CD/DVD. If you burn the install with a multi-session disc, you can actually save your session right to the disc! I however recommend burning a copy of it first, then install it to the USB key. (You can find instructions to put the iso right on to the USB key though, you just need to look a little).

The problems I've had with the most recent version of Puppy (5.01) is that svn doesn't want to install properly, and ./configure has a problem finding gcc. So, I'm going to try an older version of Puppy (not based on Ubuntu) to see if it will come together easier. The good news is that it is theoretically possible!

The cool thing about Puppy is, it runs from memory- making it lightning fast.. which is great for older computers too. The total size of the ISO is about 128MB and there's plenty of help right in the OS to make the experience quite easy for non-seasoned linux users to adapt to. If you do happen to find a way to make TBA/Puppy 5.01 work, please let me know. In the meantime I'm going to try older versions or ask on the forums about getting svn and gcc to work properly.

For a little extra portability, you might also want to take a look at QEMU-Puppy.

I haven't tried it myself. It makes use of Puppy Linux, marrying it with QEMU, allowing the option of running Puppy Linux in a virtual machine on top of Windows or Linux. This allows you to continue using whatever OS you are working with and give your thumbdrive it's own little world in parallel.

Want to run purely off the USB? You can (assuming the machine supports booting off a thumbdrive). Plug it in and boot.
Want to run on top of Windows? You can. Run the windows binary to boot the VM into Puppy Linux.
Want to run on top of Linux? You can. Run the Linux script to boot the VM into Puppy Linux.

VMWare may have an option as well but I'm not sure it will be a slim as puppy linux looks.

So once you get Puppy Linux working as you want, you should be able to add QEMU and you can tour the world, jabbing your thumbdrive into various systems and running your environment atop the native OS.

Ha! that's a good idea!

After not being able to get puppy 5.01 working quite right I kind of gave up on the project. It also occurred to me that if you were constantly booting and compiling on a thumb drive, you're likely to ruin it a lot faster because of the volume of read/writes.

If you want portability, I think the best thing to do is set up svn or git and pull a copy of your code on to your laptop (or wherever you might be), work on it, then push the changes out when you can get network access again.

The next thing I'd like to see somebody try is running a MUD (server) on a cell phone :P.

Haven't tried it yet, but...
You ever try a unetbootin image? Install to USB, boot, and set it up with the packages you need/want? I have been debating trying it for a while, but just haven't gotten around to it, and I'm not sure if your changes are stored to the image on the USB.

I *think* (but I may be dead wrong!) for the most part, you can't really save to where the installation resides on the USB because it lives in a compressed file system. I know with Ubuntu's USB creator, you can set aside some space to be able to save data and what not. I'm not sure if it uses open space on the USB or is able to add it to the filesystem. I suppose a plausible workaround to the Unetbootin situation could be to create a separate partition on the USB and mount it from the LiveOS. I don't know of too many distros that come with everything you would need to compile TBAMud.. so basically you'd need to remaster an existing one first, then use unetbootin to make a USB copy. It seems like way too much work for the minimal gains you'd acquire.