Yesterday I tried to re-install the Zonbu OS inside my VMware system at the office.
I wanted to be able to “login” to my account at work and see the magic of having all my documents and settings be available when I was physically away from my Zonbu.
I downloaded the script and ran it
It didn’t work, so I took at look to see why…
No URL stated for the source files
The script complained it had no source files to work from. That it could not download the tar files containing the operating system.
Odd, I thought, as I’d done all this before, both under VMWare and directly on my simulator box.
So I opened the script and took a look:
#Script to install the CF
#!/bin/sh
if [ $UID -ne 0 ]; then
echo “You must be root”
exit 1
fi
HTTPBASE=none
BASEDIR=none
CLEAN=0
DEV=0
R=0
TRGT=/dev/sdb
As you can see, there is no declared HTTPBASE server where you will get the files, or subdirectory where they will reside on the aforementioned server.
That is going to be a problem.
The lights are on but nobody’s home?
I took a quick look at http://oss.zonbu.com/ where the install script is located. As another reader has already pointed out, all the files are gone.
No sign of anything, except the broken install script.
No readme.txt explaining where things went or when they will be back.
Not very impressive, to be honest.
Conclusion
I’m not sure what conclusion to draw from all of this.
I just know I would like to install VMWare version again, and I have others at work that want to try out the OS stack as well, probably in VMWare but potentially directly on an old box.
I hope all this means that the LiveCD/LiveDVD is in the works and we can expect that soon instead.
-Mr. Zonbu
Real life with the Zonbu Mini-PC 
This could be bad. As I wrote before, it seems clear to me (again I’m no expert) that Zonbu violated the GPL by not freely releasing in a timely manner the source code changes for each incremental release and update. If that is the case, and they received a formal complaint from any FOSS package developers, then I believe according to GPLv2 they would have to go beg permission from each and every developer of every package that they use before they can be considered in compliance again.
We broke the installation script during an update this week because we actually are giving more food in the developer edition. Since last week, you may download and extract on a standard Zonbu image the developer.tar.bz2 image which contains much more than GPL forces to provide. The process is quite simple, works with any image and you end up with a system where you can do ANYTHING you want.
I want to point out here that we have been extremely cooperative on the open-source front. We have sponsored graciously a few projects or a few open-source leaders. Search zonbu on the mailing list of Banshee, mplayer, xfce, openchrome, you will find dozens of patches that we have sent upstream.
Gregoire,
Thanks for the clarification.
Where can the instructions on how to perform an installation be found?
-Mr. Zonbu
The updated installation instructions are on our developer page:
http://www.zonbu.com/company/developer.htm