Thanks for the tools.  I've gotten a simple profile set up along with the android recipe, on a plain Ubuntu install set up with chef and the two Sputnik repositories.  I did run into a couple of issues in the process:

The provided solo.rb fails to run for me, claiming 'realdirpath' is undefined, so I made myself a custom solo.rb with hard-coded file_cache_path and cookbook_path.  I tried installing ruby 1.9.3 and setting it as the default, but still no realdirpath found.

Attempting to use the provided profiles failed for me due to an unmet dependency for the emacs profile.  Making a custom profile for myself without emacs (just eclipse and ipython) worked for me.  

I've got eclipse set up with an Android project checked out of git and compiled.  I gave the directory created by the profile in /usr/local/android-sdk-linux user ownership and set it as the Android SDK Manager directory in ecliplse, and installed ia32-libs.  I had to modify the compiler compliance level for my eclipse project to 1.6 to get my project to compile.  If eclipse configurations could be included in a profile, I think that would be handy.

I ran into the same problem last night and posted an 'issue' at giithub.

Could you post more information on the workaround solo.rb you made? Or better yet, issue a pull request to fix it for the rest of us?

Also, I found it necessary to first make the checkout directory a recognized chef cookbook using knife:

knife cookbook create cookbook sputnik -o sputnik/

Okay, I've posted a modified solo.rb to my fork here:

github.com/.../sputnik

Thanks for the pull request. I patched my solo.rb but running that knife command didn't help me:

$ knife cookbook create cookbook sputnik -o sputnik/
WARNING: No knife configuration file found
** Creating cookbook cookbook
** Creating README for cookbook: cookbook
** Creating CHANGELOG for cookbook: cookbook
** Creating metadata for cookbook: cookbook

$ sudo chef-solo chef-solo -c sputnik/config/solo.rb -o sputnik::hippiehacker
#
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:53 -0700] INFO: *** Chef 10.14.0 ***
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] WARN: Run List override has been provided.
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] WARN: Original Run List: []
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] WARN: Overridden Run List: [recipe[sputnik::hippiehacker]]
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] INFO: Run List is [recipe[sputnik::hippiehacker]]
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] INFO: Run List expands to [sputnik::hippiehacker]
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] INFO: Starting Chef Run for id-sputnik
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] INFO: Running start handlers
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] INFO: Start handlers complete.
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] WARN: found a directory lost+found in the cookbook path, but it contains no cookbook files. skipping.
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] ERROR: Running exception handlers
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] ERROR: Exception handlers complete
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] FATAL: Stacktrace dumped to /var/chef/cache/chef-stacktrace.out
[Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:46:54 -0700] FATAL: Chef::Exceptions::CookbookNotFound: Cookbook sputnik not found. If you're loading sputnik from another cookbook, make sure you configure the dependency in your metadata

I've put a fix into the solo.rb I posted, to set the file cache path to the checkout directory.  Running the knife command isn't actually necessary.  Running chef-solo now I think should work for you.

cd # return to home dir

git clone git://github.com/hh-cookbooks/sputnik.git

wget " -O sputnik/config/solo.rb

chef-solo chef-solo -c sputnik/config/solo.rb -o sputnik::hippiehacker

#

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] INFO: *** Chef 10.14.2 ***

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] WARN: Run List override has been provided.

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] WARN: Original Run List: []

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] WARN: Overridden Run List: [recipe[sputnik::hippiehacker]]

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] INFO: Run List is [recipe[sputnik::hippiehacker]]

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] INFO: Run List expands to [sputnik::hippiehacker]

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] INFO: Starting Chef Run for id-sputnik

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] INFO: Running start handlers

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] INFO: Start handlers complete.

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] ERROR: Running exception handlers

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:43:35 -0700] ERROR: Exception handlers complete

/usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/chef/file_cache.rb:56:in `initialize': Permission denied - /home/chef-stacktrace.out (Errno::EACCES)

from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/chef/file_cache.rb:56:in `open'

from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/chef/file_cache.rb:56:in `store'

from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/chef/application.rb:144:in `debug_stacktrace'

from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/chef/application/solo.rb:248:in `run_application'

from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/chef/application/solo.rb:218:in `loop'

from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/chef/application/solo.rb:218:in `run_application'

from /usr/lib/ruby/vendor_ruby/chef/application.rb:70:in `run'

from /usr/bin/chef-solo:24

The permission denied error is because the cache path goes one level too high.

Changing the cache path back to ../cache and mkdir ~/cache/ I get this error:

chef-solo chef-solo -c sputnik/config/solo.rb -o sputnik::hippiehacker

#

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] INFO: *** Chef 10.14.2 ***

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] WARN: Run List override has been provided.

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] WARN: Original Run List: []

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] WARN: Overridden Run List: [recipe[sputnik::hippiehacker]]

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] INFO: Run List is [recipe[sputnik::hippiehacker]]

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] INFO: Run List expands to [sputnik::hippiehacker]

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] INFO: Starting Chef Run for id-sputnik

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] INFO: Running start handlers

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] INFO: Start handlers complete.

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] ERROR: Running exception handlers

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] ERROR: Exception handlers complete

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] FATAL: Stacktrace dumped to /home/id/cache/chef-stacktrace.out

[Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0700] FATAL: Chef::Exceptions::CookbookNotFound: Cookbook sputnik not found. If you're loading sputnik from another cookbook, make sure you configure the dependency in your metadata

Either way, the system doesn't know how to find some core sputnik cookbook.

Same issue:

$ cd
$ git clone https://github.com/flibbertigibbet/sputnik.git

Cloning into 'sputnik'...
remote: Counting objects: 113, done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (58/58), done.
remote: Total 113 (delta 42), reused 110 (delta 39)
Receiving objects: 100% (113/113), 18.02 KiB, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (42/42), done.

$ sudo chef-solo chef-solo -c sputnik/config/solo.rb -o sputnik::hippiehacker
[sudo] password for id: 
#
  
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:47 -0700] INFO: *** Chef 10.14.2 ***
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] WARN: Run List override has been provided.
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] WARN: Original Run List: []
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] WARN: Overridden Run List: [recipe[sputnik::hippiehacker]]
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] INFO: Run List is [recipe[sputnik::hippiehacker]]
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] INFO: Run List expands to [sputnik::hippiehacker]
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] INFO: Starting Chef Run for id-sputnik
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] INFO: Running start handlers
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] INFO: Start handlers complete.
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] ERROR: Running exception handlers
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] ERROR: Exception handlers complete
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] FATAL: Stacktrace dumped to /home/chef-stacktrace.out
[Tue, 11 Sep 2012 00:19:57 -0700] FATAL: Chef::Exceptions::CookbookNotFound: Cookbook sputnik not found. If you're loading sputnik from another cookbook, make sure you configure the dependency in your metadata

Is there something else I should be checking out, setting up, etc., as a prerequisite or something?

Backing up a step or two, where are you checking out the sputnik repo? I've been doing it in my home directory.

I created /etc/chef/solo.rb and included the two lines above, but that didn't help any either. I have /etc/chef/client.rb but it's empty.

There has to be something much more fundamental that's missing from my configuration/setup.

Hm, I'm guessing I've done something different in setting up chef then.  I think I edited /etc/chef/solo.rb to set:

file_cache_path  "/var/cache/chef"

cookbook_path  [ "/var/chef/cookbooks" ]