CDROM

Floppy

These days floppies can be found useful only to boot if your PC's BIOS doesn't support booting from CD or on some really obsolete PCs. But it's still maintained.

> cd AROS-<version>-pc-i386-boot-floppy
> dd if=aros.bin of=/dev/fd0

Getting ready

First, set up your HD - either real or a virtual drive image - for use. For a real drive, this may involve plugging it into the machine (always a good start) and setting it up in the BIOS. For a virtualiser's or emulator's virtual drive, you probably just need to select an option to create a new drive image, and set it as one of the virtual PC's boot devices (the CD drive must be the first boot device during installation of AROS however).

The following options are depending on what you want to do.

Installing AROS Only

The most simple situation is that with AROS alone on the whole disk, new or with some unneeded data on it. Also you can use an additional HDD for AROS.

Currently the installation is meant to be made by means of InstallAROS program, which is located in the Tools drawer on your BootCD. Please launch it by clicking on its icon. See it's launched up and showing you the greeting screen. Then click Proceed button in installer to get a screen with installing options.

You can see the current installing device (ata.device) and its unit (0), which is your first HDD. If you intend to install on additional disk, please change this number. To find out the number, you can use an /Tools/HDToolbox utility. The option Only use free space must be checked if you want to keep current partitions as is or select Wipe disk to erase existing data on hard drive. You can set the size of new AROS partition if you wish, and add an extra WORK partition to install programs on it. After you click Proceed button again, installAROS will make partitions and ask you to reboot. After reboot done please run InstallAROS again.

Now you must see the option Use existing AROS partitions is selected. Proceed with this. You will see some extra options (defaults shown) in a window:

[ ] Choose language Options
[x] Install AROS Core System
[x] Install Extra Software
[ ] Install Development Software
[x] Install Bootloader

The first one, Choose language Options allow you to select locale of your new installed system (by launching /Extras/Locale program). Install AROS Core System allows installing of all AROS base programs, needed for OS to work. Install Extra Software allows installing an additional programs (located on in /Extras drawer and, if selected, on WORK partition). Install Development Software allows installing of some development software like some programming languages. Install Bootloader enables installing of GRUB bootloader to the MBR of HD (there can be some situations when you don't need to install it). Make your choice and click Proceed button.

On the next installer screen you can choose which partitions you want to format, and to copy files on, whether WORK partition is used to copy files on it:

Destination Partition     [x] Format Partition
DH0

[ ] Use 'WORK' Partition
[ ] Copy Extras and Development Files to Work

Work Partition            [ ] Format Partition
DH1

After you made your choice and proceed installer will show the GRUB installation device and path to GRUB files for you to check it. Proceeding, you will see the last screen before installation, that warns you about pre-alpha status of AROS install process. The last clicking Proceed and you will see installer doing its work. You can be asked to select your keyboard type and locale settings, then the files are being copied. Please wait a while.

After the install finishes you can remove AROS Live CD out of CD drive an reboot into your new installed system.

Installing AROS along with Windows(R)/DOS(R)

Installing AROS along with Windows must be an easy task (assuming you use Windows XP). Generally, you'll need to just follow the installer prompts as shown above to make this working. Installer is designed to detect your Windows installation and put it to GRUB menu automatically. Check the chapter above about standalone AROS installation to do this. If you ever need to restore previous NT loader, you can use fixmbr command in recovery console from your Windows installation CD.

There can be problems with some older and newer Windows versions (like 95/98 and Vista). For installing over Vista you can use steps, similar to the ones for Linux with GRUB installer. In some cases Grub can installed and used to boot Vista, you'd just need to add a menu entry to your /boot/grub/menu.lst:

title Windows Vista
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1

If you prefer to use Vista bootloader, you can use some programs like EasyBCD to manage its behaviour.

TODO more...

Installing AROS along with Linux/BSD

Installing AROS along with Linux or BSD systems is almost the same as the one for Windows. You'd need to create a free space for AROS with available tools. Then use InstallAROS to do the partitioning and formatting the AROS partition and copy system to it (you can use additional WORK partition if you want to), but it's better to not install the bootloader (uncheck the corresponding checkbox):

[ ] Install Bootloader

After the installer has finished copying the files, it will ask you to reboot. After the reboot you'd need to boot your Linux/BSD again, to set up the bootloader. AROS uses patched GRUB bootloader, able to load kernel from AFFS. But you don't have to use it, if you put AROS kernel to the place, where your system kernel is (usually /boot) and use a conventional GRUB from your distribution. Just copy /boot/aros-i386.gz from AROS LiveCD to /boot. Then put some new lines to the end of your /boot/grub/menu.lst file to enable AROS menu entry:

title AROS VBE  640x480  16bpp
root (hd0,0)
kernel /boot/aros-pc-i386.gz vesa=640x480x16 ATA=32bit floppy=disabled
quiet
boot

You can change the kernel's parameters to set the screen resolution. The 'floppy=disabled' option disables the floppy trackdisk device, which is not too useful these days but can cause troubles in some cases.

If you happen to use lilo or any other booloader, this trick won't be that easy. (is hard to make lilo booting AROS kernel). You will need to somehow chainload AROS GRUB and set it to start up a kernel.

After the reboot, you must be able to see AROS entry in GRUB menu and boot it.

Installing AROS along with other systems

There's a lot of another systems out there on the platforms AROS supports. IF your system uses GRUB bootloader the process must be fairly similar to the one of Linux. If not, please remember that all you need for AROS to boot is just to place its files on a partition where GRUB can find it and boot the kernel.

TODO more...

Manual install

(almost deprecated) Using InstallAROS is recommended.

As the InstallAROS is useful now, the following information is kind of deprecated but still can be of some interest, so it's been kept here for infomational purposes.

Partitioning

Single partition install

Here we will learn how to install AROS as the only system on PC and being placed on a single partition. This is an easier case to install.

This chapter can be found a bit tricky, as install feature is incomplete. First, remember a common rule for this process - reboot after any significant change made to the filesystem (we will note where it is needed). Rebooting means closing the HDToolbox window if it's open and restarting the computer or VM, so it's a hard reset. You can also try a soft reset by typing <reboot> ENTER in CLI window.

First, find a tool on the AROS CD called HDToolBox. It's located in the Tools drawer. This is your HD tormenter for a while. When you run it, you will see a window with a device-type selector. In this example (here and further on), we are using a real or virtual IDE hard drive (also known as an ATA hard drive). So, clicking on the ata.device entry will show Devices:1 in the left window. So, this is our HD. By clicking on this entry we will enter the available HD list.

So here we should see our HD listed. If it's a virtual HD, we will see something like QEMU Harddisk or the equivalent VMWare one. If your HD is real, you should see its name. If this doesn't happen, you must make sure you've correctly prepared your HD. Clicking on the HD name will give us some information:

Size: <Size of HD>
Partition Table: <type of current PT; must be unknown after cleanup>
Partitions: <count of partitions on HD; must be 0 as we've just started>

Well, now we must create a new partition table. Here, for a PC we must create a PC-MBR type of table. To do this, please press the Create Table button and choose PC-MBR from the list. Click OK.

Then we must write the changes to disk. To do this, click on the HD's name and press Save Changes. Answer Yes in the confirmation dialog. Close the HDToolbox window and reboot the system from the Live CD.

After the system boots up, run HDToolbox again. Now, after entering the ata.device entry we must see the info "Partition table: PC-MBR, Partitions:0". That's OK, we set no partitions yet. Let's do it now. Click on the HD's name to go to the partitions list. The list is empty now. Click on Create Entry button, choose all the space by clicking on unselected empty space and click OK. Now in the list you should see a "Partition 0" entry. Choose it by clicking to get this information:

Size: <Partition size. Almost equal to HD size>
Partition table: Unknown <Not created yet>
Partition type: AROS RDB Partition table <That's OK>
Active: No <Not active>
Bootable: No <Not bootable>
Automount: No <Will not mount on system startup>

Here can be some difference - make a partition in RDB table or as usual PC-MBR partition. RDB (Rigid Disk Block) is the choice of compatibility and was used in Amiga HDD's partitioning, and we can use it too. Although, AROS supports FFS partitions created within a common PC-MBR table, like an usual PC partitions like FAT/NTFS/etc. Second way can be considered somewhat more modern and more compatible to some new AROS programs. Let's consider both.

FFS in RDB Now, click on Create Table button, select RDB table and click OK. To save changes, go one level up by clicking the Parent button, select the HD name again and click the Save Changes button. Answer Yes in the confirmation dialog twice. Exit from HDToolbox and reboot the machine.

FFS in MBR ...to be added

After booting up, run HDToolbox (you've guessed that). Now the info for our Partition 0 is the same except that the partition table is now RDB (or not). This partition must be set to Active. To do this, click on the Switches button, select the Active checkbox and click OK. Now what? Yes, save the changes by going a level up and clicking the button. Exit and reboot.

Why are we rebooting so much? Well, HDToolbox and system libraries are still unfinished and quite buggy, so rebooting after every step helps to reset them to initial state.

After boot up, HDToolbox must show us that Partition 0 has become active. That's good, now we must create our disk to install AROS on. Go one level down by clicking on the "Partition 0" entry. Now what? Yes, click the Add Entry button and choose all the empty space. Now you see a "DH0" entry there, which is our disk. Clicking on it shows information:

Size: <well...>
Partition Table: Unknown (it's OK)
Partition Type: Fast Filesystem Intl <OK>
Active: No <OK>
Bootable: No <we must switch it to Yes>
Automount: No <we must switch it to Yes>

Now, go 2 levels up to the HD name, click Save Changes, confirm, exit and reboot. After booting up (pretty boring, isn't it?), what should we do? Yes, we must set switches to the DH0 drive in HDToolbox. We go to the DH0 entry and set switches with the relevant button and checkboxes: Bootable: Yes and Automount: Yes. Save changes after going 2 levels up again, confirm and reboot.

How long is it left to go? Well, we're more than half way to success. After booting up and checking all the settings for DH0, we must see it's OK now. So now we can exit HDToolbox with no hesitation left. Now it's time for some CLI magic.

Formatting

We must format our created DH0 drive to make it usable. Currently AROS have a choice of two filesystems - Fast FileSystem(FFS) and Smart FileSystem(SFS). FFS is known to be somewhat more stable and compatible to most programs, SFS is more fail-proof and advanced, but yet have some issues with some programs. Currently we must set it to FFS, because GRUB bootloader is not supporting SFS (GRUB2 will). Also please note that you can get problems using some ported software with SFS (such as gcc). So now open the CLI window (right click on upper menu and select Shell from the first Wanderer menu). At the prompt, enter the Info command (type info and press Enter). You should see our DH0 in the list as DH0: Not a valid DOS disk. Now we will format it with the command:

>format DRIVE=DH0: NAME=AROS FFS INTL
About to format drive DH0:. This will destroy all data on the drive. Are
you sure ? (y/N)

Enter y, press Enter and wait a second. You should see the string Formatting...done displayed. If you got an error, check for all partition parameters in HDToolbox, as you may be missing something, and repeat.

If you're experiencing problems with format (such as ERROR messages, especially when using partitions in RDB), which is unlikely, then you can try a good old Amiga FORMAT64 utility:

>extras/aminet/format64 DRIVE DH0: Name AROS FFS INTL

Now the Info command should show:

>DH0: <size>  <used> <free> <full 0%> <errors> <r/w state> <FFS> <AROS>

That's it. Time for the pre-installation reboot.

Copying the system

After reboot, you may notice that you can see our AROS HD on the desktop now, and it's empty. Now we need to fill it with files.

Now after the Drag 'n' Drop support developed in AROS the whole system can be easily copyied from LiveCD by just dragging files to DH0: drawer. It's only left to replace the file dh0:boot/grub/menu.lst with dh0:boot/grub/menu_dh.lst.DH0 then.

There's an installer in AROS, as incomplete as HDToolbox is, but it can be used. At least, we can try. So, here's the first way to install.

1. Run InstallAROS in the Tools drawer. You will see the welcome screen telling you the same I did - we're using the alpha version. Let's get juice out of it ;) There's a Proceed button for you to click. Next, you will see the AROS Public License, and you should accept it to go further. Now you will see the install options window (if it says No, just uncheck the relevant box)

Show Partitioning Options...    []
    <No. As we've done that already>
Format Partitions               []
    <No. We have done that already>
Choose Language Options         []
    <No. It's better to do that later>
Install AROS Core System        [V]
    <Yes, we need it. We're here to do that>
Install Extra Software [V]
    <Yes. Uncheck only if you want a lite installation>
Install Development Software    []
    <No. This is mostly a placeholder at a moment>
Show Bootloader Options         [V]
    <Yes, bootloader will not be installed otherwise>

Let me note that Show Partitioning Options can be unselectable and greyed out in case if installer is unable to find any suitable partition. After you've selected or unselected everything we need, click Proceed. The next window shows us possible installation destinations:

Destination Drive
[default:DH0]

DH0  <that's correct>

Use 'Work' Partition                        []
    <uncheck it, we're installing all-on-one>
Copy Extras and Developer Files to Work?    []
    <same as above>
Work drive ... <skipped>

Now after we uncheck it, click Proceed. The window showing bootloader options appears. Here we only can check, if GRUB, the GRand Unified Bootloader, is to be installed to DH0 and on which device. Click Proceed again.

Now the window says we're ready to install. Click Proceed once again. Do you like this pretty button? ;)

After that, the copying progress bar will appear as files are copied. Wait a while until the process finishes. After that, you will get the finishing screen and Reboot checkbox. Leave this checked and click Proceed. No, that isn't all yet - wait till the last step remaining. Now our machine will reboot with the same settings as before, from Live CD.

Installing the bootloader

Now we still see our AROS disk, and all files are there. Haven't we already installed the bootloader in previous steps, what are we missing? Well, if you use fresh nightly build then GRUB must be already installed and working, you can skip this step. If not, please read.

For older versions (before Nov. 2006) there were a bug in GRUB, preventing it from installing correctly from the first try. So if you can't boot now and get messages like GRUB GRUB FRUB etc please read the following. The reinstallation on the second try usually helps to solve it. So, now we need InstallAROS once again. Repeat all the previous steps from point 1, but uncheck every checkbox. After the last click on Proceed, GRUB will be reinstalled, and a window will appear asking you to confirm that write. Answer yes as many times as needed. Now, on the last page, uncheck the Reboot checkbox, close the Install program and power off the machine.

Alternatively, GRUB can be installed from shell with this command:

c:install-i386-pc device ata.device unit 0 PN <pn> grub dh0:boot/grub kernel dh0:boot/aros-i386.gz

where PN <pn> (or PARTITIONNUMBER <pn>) is the number of partition where GRUB bootloader will be installed.

Preparing to boot

We have just done our first installation alchemy course, and AROS should be ready now. We must remove the Live CD from the CD drive (or disable booting from CD in VM) and check it out. Hear the drum roll? ;)

Troubleshooting

Installation process is the one of most frequently ones asked about on forums, mostly by newbies. You can check the FAQ if there an answer to your questions.