Installing KollibriOS

Mon Nov 20, 2023 10:36 am

Hi. I am new to this.
I do not run windows or linux currently, I have a bootable CD/DVD that I can boot from.
I read the install.txt but I don't really understand.

I cannot find the HD_load folder and thus neither the HD_load\mtldr_installer.exe file either.
I pretty much tried to search but only found people complaining it was hard to understand. Well, everyone has a different background and people tend to forget that. What is obvious to another may not be for me. But I digress.

How can I "install"/run KollibriOS from my SSD? Do I need to remove the SSD and dd (not from linux, I don't use linux) to it the HDD image? Or can I somehow install it from the live CD/DVD?
This is a very very interesting project and I do have another laptop with MSDOS7/Windows 3.1 that I plan to run it on. But I would prefer to try it out first since that old laptop is way more annoying to install or change drive thing (no internet and no way to boot from USB or CD, it has floppy and I have a hard time getting my hands on those).

Since I never used MS DOS and been many years since I used windows, and I don't use linux either, I don't mind if people explain it to me as if I never touched a computer before. I mostly run different BSDs and I am not afraid of the terminal, but KollibriOS is it's own thing and my prior PC experiences and knowledges may not translate very well.

Anyhow, very interesting project that I hope I will use and learn so I can contribute.

Kind regards, and thanks in advance for responses.

Fri Dec 01, 2023 9:24 pm

You should be able to 'dd' it from any BSD to a pendrive or HDD, (not sure about an SSD), & run it from that.

If it doesn't, may I suggest putting FreeDOS (plus a GUI) on that old laptop, it is quite a modern version of DOS, & you might find it useful.

P.S. Re floppy booting, take a look at Plop bootloader - https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html

Mon Dec 11, 2023 12:41 am

zyxer wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2023 10:36 amI cannot find the HD_load folder and thus neither the HD_load\mtldr_installer.exe file either.

You can download several different files. latest-raw.7z contains kolibri.raw and Rawrite32kos.exe (dd for Windows), while latest-distr.7z contains everything, including the HD_load folder. You have probably downloaded the wrong one, you'll need latest-distr.7z instead.

zyxer wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2023 10:36 amHow can I "install"/run KollibriOS from my SSD? Do I need to remove the SSD and dd (not from linux, I don't use linux) to it the HDD image? Or can I somehow install it from the live CD/DVD?

The dd tool is the same on BSD. You can use it from the live CD/DVD as well, but if you prefer a windowed application, try USBImager (kb. 300K, does the same as dd, just with a minimalist GUI window).

zyxer wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2023 10:36 amBut I would prefer to try it out first

Why don't you run it in a vm then? Something like qemu -fda kolibri.raw -boot a works like a charm.

zyxer wrote: ↑Mon Nov 20, 2023 10:36 amSince I never used MS DOS and been many years since I used windows, and I don't use linux either, I don't mind if people explain it to me as if I never touched a computer before. I mostly run different BSDs and I am not afraid of the terminal, but KollibriOS is it's own thing and my prior PC experiences and knowledges may not translate very well.

No need. As I have said, there's no difference on BSDs, the dd tool and qemu are exactly the same, you can use any Linux tutorials just as-is.

Hope this helps,
bzt

Installing KollibriOS

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