UML Builder

Running It

Run umlbuilder to get the command line version. Run umlbuilder_gui to get the graphical version.

Don't forget to look in the known problems. Also look for any special instructions in the distributions list.

After umlbuilder has finished, you will have a control script in the install directory. You can supply arguments like stop or start.

Package selection

Don't worry about having to get all the packages installed initially. Once you can run your UML session, you can install any remaining packages easily.

This example assumes the RPMs are in /home/rpms/foo1.2 and that you want to install kdewizard.

# mount -t hostfs hostfs /mnt
# cd /mnt/home/rpms/foo1.2
# rpm -i kdewizard.rpm

Getting an X session

Generally, you just need to install with --initdefault 5, or edit /etc/inittab after installation (tick 'Graphical Login' in the gui tool). You will then get a window appearing on your main desktop with the guest operating system inside.

If you need a $DISPLAY variable, run /etc/umlmydisplay and it will output the correct value of your display when the guest was started.

UML builder works by linking in a script /etc/umlxserver to be the actual X server. This script then runs Xnest pointing it at the display you used when the guest session was started. To all other programs on the system it will feel no different than a local hardware based X server.

You can give extra arguments to control start to fine tune X. One of interest is UML_XARGS which allows you to give arguments to the X session. By default, the graphical session will occupy three quarters of your display. You could use:

  control start UML_XARGS=-geom@1024x768

Networking

UML builder automatically sets up networking and routing rules based on the ip address and hostname supplied during install. It also copies the /etc/hosts and /etc/resolv.conf from your real host into the guest session.