AROS Installer Test

Now that Neil Cafferkey has released the new installer for testing, I thought I would fire up VMware and test it myself. While reading you can follow the screen shots at the bottom that I have provided. My main goal was to get it installed natively. I wasn't trying to do anything fancy. I used the newest version of VMware Server (1.0.4). I've been using the server version ever since VMware made it available for free download. I've installed OpenSUSE Linux and Source Mage GNU/Linux on it in the past and it works very well. I started by downloading the latest nightly build from http://www.aros.org. This is available from the download link on the left side of the main page. On the download page I looked under the "Binaries" section. I downloaded the i386-pc-boot-iso.

I was ready to start my native install of AROS! I started VMware Server and chose to use Local Host. I created a new custom virtual machine with 0.5GB(500MB) hard drive and 256MB of RAM. I named it AROS of course. I then right clicked on AROS on the left and selected Settings. I clicked on my CD-ROM drive and clicked on the "Use ISO image:" on the right. Then I browsed to where I unpacked my AROS ISO from the compressed file I downloaded from http://www.aros.org earlier. I started my virtual machine and it booted the AROS Live CD very quickly.

I double clicked the "AROS Live CD" icon on the left and went to the Tools folder to run the "InstallAROS" file. From reading some other posts about the new Installer, I knew there was a known bug if you didn't quit Wanderer right after you ran the Installer. (You can quit Wanderer by holding down your right mouse button and going up to the Wanderer menu and selecting Quit.) So since I ran the Installer, I quit Wanderer and was left with the Installer window only. I clicked Proceed to continue. On the next screen I chose "Only use free space" which was already checked. I left everything else alone and clicked Proceed. It states that AROS partitions had been created and asked me to reboot and afterwards run the Installer again. So I did.

If you are following this to do it yourself, don't forget to quit Wanderer again after you start the Installer again because of the bug that currently exists. When I rebooted and started the installer again, I forgot to quit Wanderer. When I reached the point where AROS needed to format my hard drive it just sat there and did nothing. This was because of the bug. This is obvious in my screen shots below. You can see the background of Wanderer appearing again while I'm running the Installer. I left it this way, so it would be obvious. If you just remember to quit Wanderer the second time, it won't be a problem. The AROS developers already know about this bug.

When I ran the Installer this time it gave me the same screen, but this time it had "Use existing AROS partitions (on any drive)" selected by default. I clicked Proceed to continue. The next screen asked me to please choose my installation options. I stayed with the defaults and clicked Proceed to continue. The next screen asked me to "please choose where to install AROS. If you are unsure, then use the defaults." I figured the defaults would be good enough, so I clicked Proceed. Next it explains that AROS uses the GRUB bootloader. "The installer will install it to the first drive on your system and configure it to boot AROS". It shows you the GRUB settings. I was ready to Proceed.

The next screen was pleasant and scary all at the same time. It stated "we are ready to begin", but then warned me that this is pre-alpha software and I can no longer undo changes. But that wasn't a big deal, because I had a brand new virtual disk and nothing to lose! So I clicked Proceed to begin the installation.

"Installing AROS..." is at the top of the next screen and it starts installing and copying files. Then I received an "IO Error has occured". (If you look at the screenshots I provided, you will see the full error message.) I clicked the "Yes (always)" button to overwrite and it continued. "Congratulations, you now have AROS installed!" I clicked the Proceed button and the system rebooted. I now notice a hard drive icon that reads AROS in Wanderer. Whoo hoo, it is installed!

So there are some bugs, but compared to how it used to be to try and install AROS natively this was a breeze! It is awesome to finally have a native version running. I have been running the hosted version of AROS for years now. I haven't tried it on a real machine yet, but installing on VMware was a good test I think. The developers will make sure the bugs are worked out, so I'm not worried. I want to remind you to report any bugs you find while testing. You can report them on the AROS-Exec.org forum. I want to thank Neil Cafferkey again for his hard work!