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Android or WebOS? Try before you buy! Part 2.

Oct 14, 2009  By Ross Larson
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In Part I we tested out Android on VirtualBox. Now we'll try running Palm's WebOS as a Virtual Appliance.

This article assumes that you are using:

Steps to download and configure the virtual appliance:

Download and install the Palm Mojo SDK and novacom drivers, as the SDK includes a WebOS virtual image.  I used GDebi Package manager to install the two packages. (The Palm developer page suggests that you register an account to download and install the files.)
At the command line, type:

yourprompt@yourmachine:~$ palm-emulator



The Palm WebOS emulator should open and boot all by itself. 

   

Feel free to try out the different apps, and the "cards" multitasking OS!

 

Of course, don't forget to visit linuxjournal.com!




If you're a VirtualBox user, you may notice that the palm-emulator window menus are the same as the menus for VirtualBox virtual appliances.  Well, you're right.  If you open up Virtualbox on your machine, you'll see that the palm-emulator program has opened up its own virtual appliance, and you can see the info on it in the main VirtualBox window if you're curious about it.



There are a variety of command line options for developing and installing your own apps on the palm virtual appliance, as well.

If you've had any issues with your install, or you are looking for 64 bit instructions, see Palm's official Ubuntu SDK install page.


EDIT: The instructions for Ubuntu 9.10 are slightly different than the directions that are above due to a change in how Ubuntu handles items in the /etc/event.d/ directory. I figured out a fix to allow it to install correctly, and posted it to my blog if you are interested in seeing it.
______________________

Linux rocks! Personal blog: zootlinux.blogspot.com

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comment android

estetik's picture
Submitted by estetik (not verified) on Sat, 10/17/2009 - 01:34.

purchased and pretty simple to use android, features, is satisfactory.

WebOS looks cool

Alan Wambua's picture
Submitted by Alan Wambua (not verified) on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 15:13.

I dunno about functionality or openness... but WebOS looks slick. I'm also not an Ubuntu user, and I'm feeling really lazy right now, but I you can just extract the .debs and use them as usual on non-Ubuntu distros. Just google around a bit.

Once again an LJ writer fails

theillien's picture
Submitted by theillien on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 12:56.

Why do you not understand that Ubuntu does not make up the entirety of Linux? When are you going to realize that you are alienating a vast group of people who don't use Ubuntu? Every time I read an article that assumes the entirety of the Linux community falls within the author's narrow field of view I take one step closer to canceling my subscription.

Please fix this article.

so did you contact Palm?

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 11/01/2009 - 08:49.

so did you contact Palm?

Actually...

Ross Larson's picture
Submitted by Ross Larson on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 17:20.

I do understand that Ubuntu is not the entirety of Linux. "The author's narrow field of vision" was clearly indicated at the beginning of this tip, as the directions are Ubuntu-specific because Palm currently only provides a .deb file for installation. I'm sorry if this offends you. Part one of this article is distro-agnostic, as Android's live CD is released as an .iso file.

A Fedora 11 install guide is available on the WebOS internals wiki here. Other SDK documentation is available here.

If these options are not agreeable to you, I'd suggest contacting Palm directly and encourage that they release packages for more Linux distributions. A link to Palm's "Contact Us" page is here.

Linux rocks!
Personal blog: zootlinux.blogspot.com

nice article

Duncan_Idaho's picture
Submitted by Duncan_Idaho (not verified) on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 11:08.

but is there an option for people who don't use ubuntu or these are the only packages they distribute?
I use slackware and arch, so deb packages are pretty useless to me :(
great article tho :)

AUR

RandyPenguin's picture
Submitted by RandyPenguin (not verified) on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 22:10.

yaourt -S palm-emulator palm-mojo-sdk

"Part I" URL is broken

Anonymous's picture
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 10:42.

The "Part I" link is wrong

You are correct.

Ross Larson's picture
Submitted by Ross Larson on Wed, 10/14/2009 - 22:50.
The link has been fixed. FYI, this is the link for Part 1: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/android-or-webos-try-you-buy

Linux rocks!
Personal blog: zootlinux.blogspot.com