VirtualBox is a way to run Linux (or other operating systems) inside a window under OS X or Windows. It's free for personal or educational use.
Recent versions of VirtualBox have support for importing "Appliances," pre-configured virtual machines. This provides a convenient way to get VirtualBox up and running.
System requirements:
At least 512 MB of RAM is required over and above what your operating system requires. For most OS's, 2 GB is probably close to the minimum for usable performance.
The installed appliance takes about 4 GB for its virtual hard disk file. You will need an additional 1.8 GB for the setup files, which can be deleted after the appliance is installed.
The default memory setting is 512 megabytes. This will get you started, but if you work with larger grammars you may find the virtual machine gets sluggish as it's forced to swap data to disk. You can increase the memory devoted to the machine by right-clicking it, choosing "Settings", and clicking "System" at the top of the dialog box.
Note: The virtual machine must be stopped ("powered off") before you can change memory settings.
You may want to set up a shared folder so you can easily move data between KnoppixLKB and your host operating system. To do this:
Note: [incr tsdb()] does not like having the Database Root inside a shared folder.
python matrix.py -C gmcs customize [choice file name] [output location]
Start the VM, start the Ubuntu+LKB+Matrix appliance, run emacs
Type M-x lkb to run the LKB
Unzip the grammar you downloaded (tar xzf english.tar.gz)
Load the starter grammar in the LKB:
Select "Load Complete Grammar" from the LKB Top menu
Navigate to the file called script inside the directory english/lkb
Alternatively, type C-c g in emacs and enter the path name in the command that pops up.
Try parsing:
Select "Parse | Parse input..." from the LKB Top menu and parse the sentence that appears in the dialogue.
You can also parse sentences by typing C-c p in emacs and then entering the sentence you wish to parse in the command that pops up.
Right click on the small tree that comes up to see a menu of futher things to explore.
Select "simple MRS" from this menu to see the semantic representation associated with the sentence.
Select "generate" to use the grammar to generate from that semantic representation.
Start the lkb
Load your grammar. (The script file is in your-grammar-dir/lkb/script.)
Start [incr tsdb()] (within emacs, that's M-x itsdb)
In the [incr tsdb()] podium, select Options > Database Root and input the path to tsdb/home.
In the [incr tsdb()] podium, select Options > Skeleton Root and input the path to tsdb/skeletons.
In the [incr tsdb()] podium, select File > Create. You should see your profile in the menu there. Select it, and get an instance.
Make sure your grammar is loaded into the LKB.
Once you have an instance, select it (by clicking on it), then do Process > All Items.
Explore the results, with functions such as Browse > Results, Analyze > Coverage, and Analyze > Overgeneration.
Note: If your tsdb/ directory is inside a shared folder on VirtualBox, it will not work.