The following are notes i took, when i started with Mezzano OS for the first time.
Mezzano provides precompiled Demos, that can be booted in VirtualBox and qemu. Don't create a new HDD for Mezzano, but add the downloaded vmdk to VirtualBox/IDE-controller. The recommendation is to build a new image as the demos are somewhat outdated.
Follow the instructions at git README.
Note: `/some/file` to be entered for seriall/Port/COM1 at VirtualBox is destination for the boot-logfile.
Note: The instructions in the git README produce a local clone of Mezzano, that does not include the very latest changes to the repository. In order to get the Mezzanos bleeding edge technology say:
git clone https://github.com/froggey/MBuild.git
cd MBuild
git submodule update --init
cd Mezzano
git pull --ff-only origin master
cd ..
make clean
make cold-image-vmdk
make run-file-server
host -- guest
40050 -- 4005 swank-server leave host/4005 for host/sbcl
8080 -- 80 http-server leave host/80 for host/webserver
It is not necassary to provide VirtualBox with IP addresses of host or guest.
It is not necessary, to open these ports in host's firewall.
You can't open ports below 1024 without being root.
VirtualBox defaults video memory to 10MB.
That is sufficient for a screen resolution up to FullHD (1920x1080)
(1920 * 1080 * 4 = 8294400 Bytes < 10MB)
WQHD (2560x1440) requires 16MB.
(2560 * 1440 * 4 = 14745600 < 16MB)
That said, Mezzano runs happily on VirtualBox on WQHD with 2560x1440 screen resultion.
Meta-Tab ; mezzano-window-manager: other/next window
Mezzano comes with an application, called 'Keymap', that selects a keyboard layout per mouse click.
Alternatively Meta-F12, focus anywhere, rotates keyboard layouts: en us de es ... Yes, that's all: select layout per mouseclick or press Meta-F12 until keyboard layout fits. Shift-Meta-F12 does rotate backwards.
VirtualBox uses a Host-Key (the right ctrl key) to get mouse and keyboard focus from guest back to host. As Mezzano comes with guest-integration it is save to turn host-key off, in order to be able to access Ctrl-a, Ctrl-e, etc in Mezzano.
Turn host-key on again, before playing around with other than Mezzano VirtualBox VMs in case they don't have proper guest-integration. In case of arrest try something like Ctrl-Meta-Delete or Ctrl-Meta-Backspace (restart XFCE on my Linux).
In case of a frozen mouse switch to a text console with Ctrl-Alt-F1, kill qemu and switch back with Crtl-Alt-F7.
;;switch package to cl-user
mezzano.internals> (in-package :cl-user)
CL-USER>
To make a snapshot of the current state of entire system invoke the following command:
;; make snapshot
CL-USER> (mezzano.supervisor:snapshot)
;; or
;; Terminate the current repl and take a snapshot.
mezzano.internals> (snapshot-and-exit)
Wait for the yellow light to turn off. (see: Quickstart.md/Blinkenlights) Reboot.
Don't make a backup of the vmdk, created by VirtualBox; it would complain. Better export the entire VM from VirtualBox.
;; In order to reboot call
cl-user> (mezzano.supervisor:reboot)
In order to shutdown Mezzano wait for all blinkenlights to turn off.
Then just turn power/virtual-machine off.
Slime connect to a running Mezzano is the common way of doing development.
The swank server is started automatically on port 4005, all you need to do is forward it out of the VM and use slime-connect to connect to it.
For serious development at Mezzano slime/swank is the way to go.
As i do know neither slime nor swank, this is my current workflow: Create two files in a save place at a your host, for instance `first.lisp` and `second.lisp`. ( File editing at host. )
;; file: first.lisp
(defun seven?() 'seven!)
(defun rr()
"reread second.lisp"
(load "remote:/home/me/path-to-my-files/second.lisp")
)
;; file: second.lisp
(defun fac( i )
"i -- i // calc fac of i"
(cond
((> i 1) (* i (fac (- i 1))))
(t 1)
))
Now, at Mezzano repl say:
CL-USER> (load "remote:/home/me/path-to-my-files/first.lisp")
T
CL-USER> (seven?)
seven!
CL-USER> (rr)
T
CL-USER> (fac 10)
3628800
CL-USER> (if (rr) (fac 6))
720
CL-USER> (rr) (fac 7)
T
CL-USER>
5040
;;modules
CL-USER> *modules*
("SWANK-PRESENTATIONS" "SWANK-REPL" "SWANK-C-P-C" "SWANK-UTIL"
"ITERATE" "UIOP" "uiop" "ASDF" "asdf")
;;features
CL-USER> *features*
(SWANK FLEXI-STREAMS BORDEAUX-THREADS THREAD-SUPPORT
SPLIT-SEQUENCE
ASDF3.3 ASDF3.2 ASDF3.1 ASDF3 ASDF2 ASDF ASDF-UNICODE
PACKAGE-LOCAL-NICKNAMES
UNICODE LITTLE-ENDIAN X86-64 MEZZANO IEEE-FLOATING-POINT
ANSI-CL COMMON-LISP)
;;asdf
CL-USER> (asdf:already-loaded-systems)
("uiop" "chipz" "med" "trivial-features" "cl-video-gif" "mezzano-usb"
"skippy" "cl-video" "cl-jpeg" "flexi-streams" "pet" "cl-wav"
"split-sequence" "png-read" "asdf-package-system" "iterate" "cl-vectors"
"trivial-gray-streams" "bordeaux-threads" "cl-video-wav" "cl-riff"
"mezzano-usb/class-drivers" "cl-paths-ttf" "cl-aa" "mezzano-usb/ohci"
"cl-video-avi" "asdf" "alexandria" "cl-paths" "zpb-ttf" "babel")
;; fixnum
;; 63-bit signed integer: 62-bit mantissa, 1 bit sign, (1 tagbit)
CL-USER> (eql most-positive-fixnum (1- (expt 2 62)))
T
CL-USER> (= 62 (integer-length most-positive-fixnum)
(integer-length most-negative-fixnum))
T
;; The upper exclusive bound on the value returned by the function char-code.
CL-USER> char-code-limit
1114112
CL-USER> (integer-length char-code-limit)
21
Invoke application Peek, press 'n'. As Mezzano is connected via VirtualBox/Network/NAT it's IP is not visible within the local net or to the local router.
Do port forwarding in VirtualBox.
Point browser to: http://localhost:8080
The Build does lots of file transfer while building via a file-server running at host. Keep this file server on host running while working on Mezzano. Mezzanos application `filer` provides GUI style access to both file systems, host and guest.
;; load a file, stored at host
CL-USER> (load "remote:/path-to-my-file/at-host/my-stuff.lisp")
There is currently no clipboard integration with the host system when Mezzano is running as guest in a VM. A workaround may be to read or write text from Mezzano via file-server to a file at host. And from that file read it into the host clipboard or write it from clipboard to file. That way copy/paste from for instance a web browser to Mezzano and back is quite straightforward.
# xclip - command line interface to X selections (clipboard)
# read hostclip.txt into host clipboard:
bash> xclip -selection c -i /home/heiko/q/mezzano/hostclip.txt
# write clipboard into file:
bash> xclip -o >/home/heiko/q/mezzano/hostclip.txt
(defun as-colour( r g b &optional (f 255))
(mezzano.gui:make-colour-from-octets r g b f))
(defparameter +in-white+ (as-colour 255 255 255))
(defparameter +in-red+ (as-colour 255 0 0))
(defparameter +in-green+ (as-colour 0 255 0))
(defparameter +in-blue+ (as-colour 0 0 255))
(defparameter +in-gray+ (as-colour 128 128 128))
(defparameter +in-black+ (as-colour 0 0 0))
(defparameter +on-background-like-clear-glass+ (as-colour 0 0 0 0))
(defparameter +on-background-like-sun-glasses+ (as-colour 0 0 0 128))
(defparameter +on-background-like-black-board+ (as-colour 0 0 0 255))
;; In Mezzano/gui/desktop.lisp edit
(defun redraw-desktop-window( desktop ) ...)
;; At repl say:
(load "remote:/path-to-mezzano/Mezzano/gui/desktop.lisp")
;; Trigger some redraw event to apply changes.
;; With VirtualBox resize the window of mezzano os.
;; Or just click on the window background?
(mezzano.supervisor:snapshot)
MBuild/home/init.lisp init file of Mezzano.
init.lisp My personal initialization file for Mezzano.
Prints from this file go into the boot log file /some/file.
The git repo.
At least i don't know about any other homepage of Mezzano OS.
gui-postprocessing-effect More responsive window resizing (0:21) Mezzano operating system written in Common Lisp Introduction to Mezzano - Eugene Zaikonnikov - RevolverConf 2018.2 Virgl Demo