Installing
and Running XOS version 4.5.1
For instructions for installing XOS version 3.1.69,
click here.
The xosmkinst program is used to create a bootable XOS
image on a USB mass storage device (USB stick). This program runs
under MS Windows, reads an .xis input file and initializes this USB
stick to contain a FAT32 file system containing all XOS system and
source files and the XOS bootstrap. This program has been tested
under Windows XP and Windows Vista and will probably work under
Windows 7. (Note: The term "bootable disk" is used to refer to the
USB stick written by xosmkinst.) This is currently the only
supported method for creating a bootable XOS disk. With past
versions, an ISO image of a bootable CD has been available, but that
is not practical at this time since version 4 of XOS does not
currently support CDs.
Download the xosmkinst.exe and the xos.xid files to
the same directory. (It is not actually necessary that they be
in the same directory but it makes running xosmkinst a little
easier since it defaults to the directory from which the exe file
was run when looking for the xid file.) xosmkinst has no installation
procedure but is simply run by runing the downloaded .exe file.
Run xosmkinst and select the
xos.xid file as input. Select the USB stick to initialize. Only
USB mass storage devices with a size of 8GB or less are shown in
the target selection window. The size limit is imposed to make it
less likely that a USB hard disk will be imitialized by mistake.
NOTE: BE CAREFUL NOT TO SELECT THE WRONG DISK. BECAUSE OF THE
WAY WINDOWS ASSIGNS LETTERS TO REMOVABLE DISKS, IT IS VERY EASY TO
GET CONFUSED ABOUT WHICH DISK IS WHICH. THE SELECTED USB STORAGE
DEVICE WILL BE COMPLETELY INITIALIZED (ERASED) WHEN "START" IS
CLICKED. TO PREVENT CONFUSION, IT IS STRONGLY SUGGESTED THAT
ONLY ONE REMOVABLE USB STORAGE DEVICE BE CONNECTED WHEN RUNNING
XOSMKINST!
If a USB disk does not appear in the target list, or
if you get an error that says the disk is in use, remove and reinsert
the disk. One the disk has been initialized, it will be removed
from the system and will not be visible again until it has been
removed and reinsterted.
Once a bootable disk has been created with xosmkinst,
you have a fully functional version of XOS that does not require
any additional installation. You should be able to boot and run
from the boot disk on any PC that supports booting from a USB disk.
Doing so will not touch any other disk on the PC unless you
explicitly access another disk.
To boot XOS from the boot "disk", select the disk as
the current boot device or, if available, use the BIOS Boot Select
(BBS) menu. This should display the XOS bootstrap which displays a
blue box at the top of the screen. Type ENTER (or just let it time
out) to load the non-debug version, type xosx to load the local
debug version, or type xost to load the remove debug version.
XOS should come up accessing only the boot disk.
- At this point you can simply use XOS from the boot
disk or you can install it on a hard disk. XOS can be installed in
any FAT16 or FAT32 partition. There are two ways to do this:
- Use the install program (which always installs XOS to
the first partition on the first hard disk).
- Manually copy the necessary files.
- To use the install program, type "install" at the
command prompt. This will run the install program. You should see
three items that can be installed:
- The OS.
- The install program.
- The source files.
You should install the OS and will probably want to
"install" (really just copy) the source files. Installing the OS
copies the xossys directory and writes the XOS bootstrap to the
partition.
NOTE: Installing the bootstrap requires that the
partition has at least 40 reserved blocks. If this is not the case,
in most cases (depending on the BIOS) you can still run XOS from
the hard disk by booting with the bootstrap from the USB boot disk.
It's a but awkward, but usually works. You would normally specify
the harddisk as D1P1:xossys\xos, assuming xossys was copied to the
first partition.
Once you are finished installing, you should be able to
reboot from the hard disk.
You can also install XOS by simply copying files. All
files needed to run XOS are in the xossys directory. This can be
simply copied from the boot disk. Use the XOS command;
copy \xossys\...\*.* D0P1:\xossys\...\
This assumes you are copying to the first partition on
the first hard disk. XOS numbers EDI hard disks as disks 0 to 3 and
numbers the partitions on each disk starting with 1. NOTE: XOS does
not currently have an AHCI driver but will support disks (including
SATA disks) connected to an AHCI that supports IDE emulation (most,
but not all, do).
You can manually install the bootstrap with the XOS
command:
mkboot DnPm: /def=dimage /tim=seconds /fn=fimage
DnPm specifies the m-th partion on disk n. dimage
specifies the default image to load (usually xossys\xos for the
non-debug image, xossysxosx for the local debug image, or
xossys\xost for the remote debug image. As stated above this
requires that there be at least 30 to 40 reserved blocks
available.
The source directory trees (xossrc, xosaux, and
xosexp) can be copied using the same copy command (with the
different directory names, of course).
All of the directory trees can also be downloaded as
zip files if desired.
It is recognized that the requirement for reserved
blocks may be a major problem. We will try to make available a
floppy image that can be used to load a bootstrap "real soon".
We may consider removing this restriction in a future version.
Comments are welcome.