i should be working (but i'm fixing my computer).

I mentioned here a couple of times "Haiku" OS.  So, having better things to do but not doing them, I have spent the evening making Haiku installs.

...

A week or so ago, or whenever, I downloaded the VM of the current alphaR2 release.  Which ran just fine, except I couldn't think of anything useful to use it for.  As far as I could tell, there was no particular way to get data in or out or utilize disks other than the VM image itself.  (Although at the moment I am wondering if I overlooked something), but anyway...

So, I tried to use the Anyboot image, which Haiku website says is the "preferred" distro.  I followed the Haiku instructions to make a live USB version -- wouldn't boot.  I burned a CD -- wouldn't boot.

Well, actually, that was my effort for yesterday and if I wasn't a complete geeky moron, I would have then given up altogether.  Especially since, for the life of me, I can't think of anything I could possibly use Haiku for.  But, the graphics are nice.

Tonight I tried again, which is sort of a "grrr" sort of thing, but I am unduly tenacious with ridiculous tasks.  I downloaded the zip/iso version and burned another CD -- and it booted just fine.

However, my first effort was to run it on an elderly eMachine desktop -- and although it would boot up just fine, it would randomly freeze shortly after booting and I could not successfully run anything.  But, I have this particular computer on a KVM switch and perhaps the KVM hardware was not adequately recognized by Haiku.

So, I put the CD in my elderly Toshiba A15 laptop because it is not actually doing anything else at the moment (although I think it still has its original WindowsXP intact, in case I need to do some windows-required activity) and it also has OpSu 11.something on it.  Which doesn't leave any room at the moment for a Haiku install, but maybe it's possible to put Haiku where OpSu resides -- don't know.

In any event, the Haiku CD worked just fine in the A15.  Not only that, I found that the browser is quite zippy.  Well, it is not encumbered by all addons, etc., I like about Firefox, so it is not a straight-up comparison -- but it's rather refreshing to click on a link and see the page emerge something on the order of "instantly" -- especially on the A15.

At first I was stymied as to "what now" -- as in, how do I get data in or out of the system.  Which, of course, was my problem with the VM.  But after a few minutes of poking around, I realized there was a tool to mount the various hard drive partitions -- so I have access to my regular data.  (In fact, before realizing this rather easy option of mounting other drives via the menu system, I was trying to figure out if I could just ftp stuff in and out.)

(Which -- come to think of it -- would work in the VM; although, that would not solve the problem of the VM being limited to about 640 mb or so.)

In the course of looking for various "solutions", I stumbled across OpenSuse Studio Image Writer.  This is an iso drag'n'drop ui for making bootable live USB installs.  Woah, Dude!

So, I decided to work on creating a usb Haiku -- but I pushed the window to hard.  My first effort resulted in an image that imagewriter told me required a DVD and not USB.  Don't know why.  But, in any event, I went back and got the zipped "raw" version of the nightly build.  Yes, I know, why go there?

When unzipped, the file has an .image extension, which imagewriter did not recognize.  However, I simply renamed it to .raw and image writer loaded it right up.  How cool is that!!!  I rebooted and everything ran well -- that is, until the nightly build borked, not being able to find a partition or something.

Sooo...I have now downloaded the alphaR2 release (for the umpteenth time, due to the fact I keep switching computers) and in minutes I will see if imagewriter can create for me a Haiku build that will boot and run.

TTFN

OK, that didn't work.  Imagewriter again told me that the iso required a DVD media.  I changed the extension to .raw.  Imagewriter than wrote the image -- but it's not bootable.

Hmmm.

Later:  I discovered in the vm download (which is installed into virtualbox by using the manager, mounting the vdmk volumes and then using these to install a "new" machine.  Rather than, for instance, directly importing an "applicance," which requires an .ovf file) that it's possible to mount the 2g "blank" vdmk using the storage option in Virtualbox and adding the drive as a second drive to the IDE controller.  So, this gives more storage to the Haiku VM install -- which it seems to me could be increased further by replicating the blank and attaching it to the virtual ide controller, or the SATA controller or whatever.

Still haven't figured out how to get data out of the VM, other than by possibly ftp.  Obviously can bring data in via download.

Separately, it occurred to me that maybe I could make a live USB install using the Haiku installer, since I have a version running via CD.  Well, can't report on that yet because although this seemed to work, I think I yanked the USB drive out of the computer prematurely and it wasn't actually complete, finalized, whatever.  In any event, I crashed the Haiku computer and the USB drive did the same partial boot and then crash that I was getting with my imagewriter efforts.

BTW, you have to switch the default network card to the intel desktop model for Haiku to access the internet from the VM in Virtualbox.

The other thing I have noticed is that Haiku runs far slower in the VM than my WindowsXP VM (which is actually faster than the native XP install on the same computer.   Whereas, Haiku runs quite well from CD, but much less well in the VM.

That is baffling -- but makes the VM not really useful as a trial install.  Too slow to say, "oh, well I'll try web browsing in Haiku."  You could -- but why would you?

When testing a new system I like to find something it does pretty well and use it for that purpose.