Berkeley Phonetics Machine

The Berkeley Phonetics Machine (BPM) is a virtual machine with software for doing phonetics already installed.

Requirements

In order to use BPM your computer must support virtualization and

1. be able to run VirtualBox. Currently VirtualBox supports the running of VMs on host machines with 32-bit and 64-bit Intel-compatible processors, running Windows, OS X, Linux, and Solaris.
2. have sufficient disk space (approximately 8GB minimum)
3. have sufficient RAM. We recommend you reserve a minimum of 1GB for the virtual machine.

Getting started

1. Download and install Virtualbox.
2. Download the virtual machine image.
3. Open Virtualbox.
4. Click File, Import appliance...
5. Find the .ova file you downloaded (probably in your Downloads folder), and click Continue.
6. In the Appliance Settings dialog box you can change the amount of RAM dedicated to the virtual machine; the default is 2048MB (2GB). If your computer does not have much RAM you might reduce this number *before* you start up the virtual machine. For example, if your computer has only 2GB of RAM, you cannot allocate 2GB to your virtual machine and have enough left for the host computer to continue to run. The amount of RAM you need to leave available to the host computer depends on how much your operating system and open applications need. 1GB for the host computer is probably the minimum amount.
7. Click Import.

Shared folders

Shared folders are folders that reside on the host machine and are accessible to the virtual machine. These are optional but highly recommended. First, it is convenient to be able to access files from both the host and the guest machines. Second, if the guest machine becomes damaged and fails to boot, the files in the shared folder will still be accessible on the host machine. If necessary, you can simply import the BPM again and start working with the data in the shared folder.

These are the steps to create a shared folder:

1. Use your file manager to create a folder on your host computer, e.g. bpmshare on your Desktop, or wherever you like.
2. Return to Virtualbox, select your virtual machine, and click Settings, Shared Folders.
3. Click the + icon to add a shared folder.
4. In 'Folder path', browse to the folder you created and choose it.
5. Also click 'Auto mount' so that this folder will automatically be available in the virtual machine when you start it.
6. Click 'OK' to leave Settings.

When you boot the machine the shared folder will be mounted under /media with an sf_ prefix, for example, /media/sf_bpmshare.

Booting the machine

Now you're read to boot the BPM. Make sure your virtual machine is selected in VirtualBox and click Start.

Sharing with colleagues

Comments on privacy, secrets.