So, can only techies embrace Haiku? I am really drawn to its simplicity and flexibility. But it seems that its advocates are too techie to be able to explain adequately and clearly how to install it. I have had my own website for decades, regularly maintained via iPad, written in Wordpad, and for almost a dozen years was an instructional designer competent in web based training and desktop publishing, Why then can’t I decipher how to install Haiku? Can anyone explain installation in such a way that does not assume anything or leave out anything? Please?
When I first installed Haiku on bare metal, it was fairly an easy process. Only additional setup I had to apply was to create another small partition for the EFI loader as documented on the website.
One common problem you might encounter at this point is blacklisting your video driver, if it is not supported yet (which is a fair chance). This is documented as well, and should be expected from an operating system in beta phase.
What problems did you encounter? Please elaborate, so that we can assist you.
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No, not at all. Haiku aims to be user friendly, which at the moment has it´s limitations because it is still in beta phase.
I think it would be the easiest if you let us know where exactly you are having problems with the installation. Then you´ll get help from the community for sure. The installation process is also explained in detail in the installation guide you can find on the haiku website at Installation Guide | Haiku Project
Hope that helps for now 
I have read and followed that guide many times. It seems to assume too much. I have attempted installation I think six times. You know the five or six icons at the bottom of the window that each highlights in turn during the process? I get to the second or third one and the installation stops. It’s been a month or so since my last attempt so I will try and again and report back. Thanks!
OK, so you don’t even get to the actual installer because Haiku encounters some problems during the initial boot. If you can report which icon is the last one that appears, the experts here on the forum (I don’t consider myself as one of them 
) will know what exactly happened. Also good to know would be a few details about your machine. Which model, does it have the traditional BIOS or the newer UEFI firmware? And which version of Haiku, 32bit or 64bit, nightly or beta3. Beta 3 is definitely the recommended version.
I’m not 100% sure, but expecting “non-techies” to be aware of BIOS vs EFI, 32 vs 64-bit might be asking too much. Maybe the installer should figure that out. Could the boot loader at boot time decide 32 or 64-bit? If so, put them both on the install image and let the installer abstract that away.
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64bit will fail to boot on 32bit hw, and 32bit works on both, I don’t know what the benefit would be to have both included, you basically force all users to download both variants where they only need one
Maybe have the installer be 32-bit, but install the 64-bit packages & loader if on a 64-bit system. Doesn’t address BIOS/EFI for “non-techies” though.
Installing an operating system, especially a beta stage niche OS is a technical endeavour by definition. If we want to help the OP to get Haiku installed we have to know these things. I think your suggestions for improving the boot process regardless of BIOS or UEFI are very valid though.
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The system Installer may work, but install a broken set, this makes it more complicated imo, and you still have both sets of packages
Hi and welcome! What kind of computer are you using?
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32-bit Win 10 Pro, Dell Optiplex 380, Intel Duo CPU, 3.16 GHz, 4GB Ram. I used the 32-bit file. I am familiar with what the BIOS is, but not how to get to it in Windows 10.
Sorry for the late reply, so you have some choices. You can run Haiku in a virtual machine (special software you can run in Windows that will simulate another computer running within Windows) that Haiku can be installed on. Examples of this software is VirtualBox (https://www.virtualbox.org/) or VMWare (VMware Workstation Player | VMware). This will require some setup and research on your part but it is programs you can install easily. The upside to this approach is that you will not alter your hard drive partition(s). We have documentation in Haiku that can help once you get this emulator software installed. Here’s a link to follow: Virtualizing Haiku | Haiku Project .
The other route is to create a new partition on your hard drive to house Haiku. This is called running on ‘bare metal’ like Windows is currently installed on your computer. This is more risky on one hand but on the other hand, Haiku will run on the physical hardware and use all the available resources. If you have never done partitioning, I would highly recommend reading up on this first and perform a backup of any data you cannot stand to loose. Most partitioning software is very good and accurate but the backup is a must. If you choose to go this route, let us know. We can suggest some resources to get you going. Either way, ask for help. We are looking forward to you getting going with Haiku!
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Scott, what a friendly, helpful reply! Thank you! I have heard of some of those things, the virtual and the partitioning. Yes, I will have to bone up on them. Thank you again!
If this is new territory, I would suggest the virtual machine route for now. It is the easiest to experiment with and will pose no harm to your machine. Keep us posted and feel free to ask for help.
I recommend VMware Player over VirtualBox because VirtualBox relies too heavily on its “guest additions” driver software to make the guest OS run smoothly on the host platform.
Another problem you might run into is that the EFI firmware configuration defaulted to having virtualization support turned off which makes it difficult to run multicore software on the guest OS. If yours also does this, it may be under Advanced Configuration under CPU where you might not be likely to look for it.
VMware drivers are available to get larger screenmodes to work than 1024×768. I run mine at 1440×900.
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Which additions exactly do this? You can use the VMWare video driver on Virtual Box if you think that helps anything run faster (it doesn’t AFAIK but it adds a bunch of extra screen modes), aside from that the guest additions do things like guest/host clipboard and shared folders. There are ways to help make the mouse smoother between host/guest (or just set the mouse as a touchpad) but I’m not aware of anything in the guest drivers that would actually make it run better.
Hi,
When you know howto get it done eventually, maybe you would want/like to create a ‘howto’ for non-techies then and publish that? 
I can indeed imagine more people having problems finding out things (I am having the same sort of problem often as well, on other tech-stuff related to development on/for Haiku unfortunately…)
Since you have a fresh pair of eyes your take is interesting I’d say 
Good luck with the install process! Hope you nail it 
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