For people used to modern graphical installers for Linux, there's nothing particularly difficult or different about installing OzOS. If you have done it successfully before, you probably don't need this guide (but you may want to check out Section 6 below).
If you already have a “LiveCD” of OzOS and are ready to install it, you can go to Part 2 (Step 5) of this guide and start there.
If you already have a Debian or Ubuntu–based Linux system installed on your computer and want to add the OzOS e17 desktop rather than duplicate your base OS files and applications, you can simply install the oz-desktop package after enabling the OzOS repositories (see the detailed instructions here). This method will give you an OzOS e17 desktop as an alternative session available when you log-in to your computer.
The remainder of this guide gives a long and fairly detailed description (and links) covering the installation steps common to both the 32bit and 64bit Live CD versions of OzOS.
Remember: the installer on the OzOS Live CDs is the same one that is used by Ubuntu and its variants – as well as many other Linux distros. It is called “ubiquity”. If you can’t find the all the details or the answers you need here, do a web search for the key words describing your issue and add the terms “Ubuntu” and “install”.
On this page (Part 1), you have the following parts of the guide:
- Downloading the iso image
- Checking the iso file for errors
- Writing the iso file to a CD
- Booting a live OzOS desktop from the CD
- Installing OzOS “Monte Carlo” to a hard drive on your computer, either:
- As the sole operating system; or
- In addition to your existing operating system/s (“Dual Boot”).
- Update everything - this document will guide you though a few recommended steps to complete the installation and ensure everything is up-to-date.
On the following page (Part 2) we cover:
1.Downloading the iso image
An .iso file is a special type of disk image – a single file that your computer will read as a complete file system. You need to download and save the .iso to your hard disk.
On the OzOS download page, you have the choice of two .iso files – a 32bit (also called i386) version called oz-os-1.0-livecd-i386.iso and a 64bit (“amd4”) version called oz-os-1.0-livecd-amd64.iso. If you have a newer 64bit processor (eg AMD64, Pentium Centrino or any dual or quad core CPU) you can use the 64bit iso. If not, or if you are unsure, use the 32bit iso.
Downloading the iso should be as simple as clicking the relevant hyperlink – or downloading the relevant .torrent file if you can use file sharing.
Be aware that these files are around 600Mb in size and, depending on your download speed, can take several hours to completely download.
2.Checking the iso file for errors
Downloading any file across the internet carries some risk of corruption. You can check that the iso file you have downloaded is exactly the same as the one on the OzOS servers by comparing a special code number generated by a program called md5sum (sometimes called the “hash” number of the file, or simply its “md5sum”).
The md5sums of the OzOS “Monte Carlo” iso files are:
If you are already running a Linux system, you can check the md5sums of your downloaded files by opening a terminal window and typing the following command:
md5sum [your full path to]/[name of downloaded iso file]
for example if you downloaded the 64bit OzOS iso to your Linux desktop, the command would be:
$:> md5sum ~/Desktop/ozos-1.0-amd64.iso
Press "enter" and md5sum will return a string of numbers and letters that you can compare with the correct md5sums above.
If they match, you can proceed to burn the iso to a CD. If not, it is likely that the file is corrupt and unusable. You will need to go back to step 1!
For Windows users, the process of checking md5sums involves first installing a small third-party utility. There is a guide here that explains the process better than we could.
3. Writing the iso file to a CD
Again, this step is different for Linux and Windows.
In Linux, insert a new writable CD into your CDR drive, navigate to the icon of the iso (using your file manager or directly on the desktop). Right-click on the iso file and select “Write to disk”
Your disk burning software should start with the iso ready to burn to the CD as a disk image. Just check that you are using a conservative (low) write speed (its a big file and slower speeds are less prone to error.) It will take a few minutes to burn.
On Windows, you will again need some third-party software to burn the iso as an image (a normal “data” burn will not work). Again, this has all been said before much better than we could write it – so check out this guide to burning an iso CD on Windows.
When you have the CD ready, you might want to again check the md5sum to ensure there were no errors in the burn process (Step 2 above).
4.Booting to a live OzOS desktop from the CD
If you have removed the CD from the drive, put it back into your “main” CD drive. Re-start your computer with the OzOS CD in the drive.
You should see a different series of boot screens to the ones you are used to. Within a few seconds you will be presented with an OzOS boot menu. Hit
If your machine does not boot from the CD, don’t panic. It has probably been set-up to ignore the CD drive on boot. That is fixable from your computer’s “bios” settings. Each brand of computer (or motherboard) has its own way of accessing the bios settings. Early in the boot sequence a screen will briefly appear telling you to “Select F12 to access settings” or something like that (it may be F10 or escape or something else). This is one of those occasions that you will wish you had kept your motherboard’s instruction booklet. But it is generally pretty intuitive – you will be wanting to edit the basic bios settings that instruct the computer about the “boot order” of attached drives. Your objective is to navigate the bios menu screens and to move the CD drive to the top of the boot order. Save the revised settings and exit the menu system. Reboot with the CD in the now bootable drive.
Once you get to the OzOS desktop (just hit
If you have issues getting particular components to work, check out the CafeLinux forums or search the Ubuntu forums to see whether your particular problem has been encountered, and hopefully solved, by others. Some types of hardware problems (eg. non-working wireless card) cannot be resolved on a LiveCD but may have known solutions that can be implemented on a full install.
If you cannot get a particular important piece of your hardware to work on the LiveCD and you can't find solutions you are comfortable with, DO NOT INSTALL OzOS. You will probably find another Linux distribution that does work for you and we'd encourage you to find it!
We also encourage you to spend enough time using the LiveCD desktop to fully evaluate OzOS for your needs before you commit to an installation – especially if you are relatively new to Linux. The Enlightenment desktop used by OzOS is quite different from the more popular Gnome and KDE systems in mainstream use – and it is very different from Windows. If you haven't used it before, you may be surprised at how different these things can be.
There is an "install" icon on the desktop. If you haven't done this type of think before, don't rush. read through the next parts of this guide and plan your installation carefully. You won't regret it.
