Installing Godot and MPF in a VM

To assist in development the aim is to have:

1. A Virtual Machine running Mission Pinball Framework with Godot on Linux.
2. Many copies of this Virtual Machine for testing.
3. The same Godot and MPF projects on Windows computer for development.
4. A target PC running Linux for installation into the pinball machine.

I managed this previously but it needs reworking to accommodate Godot.

🔥 Achieving point 1: VM Linux MPF Godot

• Virtual Machine Selection: VirtualBox from Oracle - free, used it for years, works well.
• Ubuntu server (v24) for the Linux selection. Debian gave me heartache (see later) during testing - so Ubuntu server.
• Gnome-core for the GUI - minimal bloat.
• Python lots of mucking around to get it right for installing and running MPF.
• Install 0.80 version of MPF, the one that uses Godot.
• Install Godot (super easy).
• Configure Godot to use MPF (tricky, but getting better doc).

🔥 Achieving point 2: VM Copies

Super easy - VirtualBox takes care of it all.

🔥 Achieving point 3: Same Godot and MPF projects on Windows and VMs

VirtualBox provides a shared directory feature, setting up permissions in Linux is a little obscure, but not difficult.

🔥 Achieving point 4: Target PC for pinball machine

For this, I'll wait till I have a better idea of the resources needed.

Debian Note

Debian under VirtualBox with a gnome-core installation gave me a system where Godot Dialogue boxes hung. I didn't get to the bottom of it, but a full Gnome install (standard desktop install) seemed to make it go away. Since I want a minimum install I reported the bug to the Godot people and moved to Ubuntu, where gnome-core install works in the VM without problem.