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 10GB)
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

1. Optional, recommended step: Set up a shared folder on your host computer that can be accessed from the virtual machine.
   1. Use your file manager to create a folder on your host computer, e.g. 'fieldmethods' 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.

Booting the machine

1. Make sure your virtual machine is selected and click Start to boot your virtual machine. The folder you created in your host computer will be available under /media. For the example given above, in /media/sf_fieldmethods.