I just discovered Haiku existed a couple weeks ago, and I want to explore it.
The laptop… I’ve saved it from the recycle bin, so there is nothing important on it. In fact, I restored it to factory new condition, using the tools supplied by Dell.
I skimmed through the help document, and it seems to be aimed at a dual dual boot/multiboot situation. However, my goal is to have the laptop a “Haiku only” system. Turn it on, and it goes to Haiku.
My experimenting to get this done has all failed, and not being any kind of programmer, I do not know why.
How do I do this?
The laptop is currently back to the “out of the box” condition. Windows 7 Home Premium.
General info for everyone, I am not a young “whippersnapper”! I bought my first computer in 1983. I was 35! Do the math!!
I like using these things, and I am not a repair tech.
On the first attempt, I formatted the entire C:\OS partition to BeOS format. When I booted the computer, the computer immediately went into the Windows boot repair routine.
On the second attempt, I deleted all the partitions on the drive. Formatted the drive for BeOS. When I booted, the computer told me no operating system was installed.
I downloaded the .iso and created a boot disk. Patiently watched as the files were installed, both times.
I suspected some kind of bootmanager issue, but that is getting a bit out of my area of knowledge.
If this is the issue, this might be something that should be included in the installer for someone like myself that want’s a pure Haiku computer with Haiku as the only OS.
No, you don’t. When you create a partition table (either from BeOS or from Windows, a default MBR is installed which will boot the first active partition. If you want only a single operating system, that is perfect, and you don’t need bootman.
However, for this to work, you need an active partition. There is a checkbox for activating a partition when you create it, make sure to check it.
The first quarter of the video is the guy screwing around with parts in a box until he finds a combination that works, and he boots from a DVD. I don’t have “parts in a box”, I’ve got an off the shelf laptop.
Then, Haiku is running! With the rest of the video showing him using Haiku. Which doesn’t answer my question.
I don’t remember a single screen showing what options he actually chose to get Haiku installed. For all I know, his demo was running from the DVD.
I never thought about setting the partition active, but the setup partitions routine when running the installer appears to not have a checkbox to set the partition as Active.
I say “appears to not” because I could not see a box, even though there may be one. There are a myriad of screens out there that do not display colors accurately. Especially light blues and light yellows. And, often other colors.
This is my personal website: Ken’s Computer Tutor The bordered area of the screen should display a background color of light tan/sand, whatever word a person chooses for the color. I’ve seen monitors that show no color! Laptops seem to be the worst offender.
If there are square boxes on the screen, please point me to the right area so I have a chance of finding the box.
If there isn’t a box, how do I set the reformatted BE partition to active?
You need to select empty partition (delete some not needed partition if there are no empty partitions), open menu Partition > Create… and set following check box:
Then you need to format created partition (Partition > Format > Be File System…).
In your screen shot, I assume the "4095 " is the sector size. Why that size? What I’ve always seen before would be a power of 2, 4096.
What is the file manager called? IOW, the equivalent of Mac’s Finder and Windows 8/10 File Explorer? What the file manager looks like is the main reason I want to play with Haiku. I’m constantly on the lookout for a file manager that makes it easy to explain the file structure/hierarchy, and to date, the best I’ve found is the old File Manager from Windows 3.x
No, this is partition size. Default values are OK.
Haiku file manager is Tracker (Tracker). It display desktop and opened folders. It does the same as explorer.exe in Windows, except taskbar. In Haiku it is separate application Deskbar (Deskbar).
I modified menu setting to show keyboard shortcuts. I have experimental changes that simplify menu code and fixes menus keyboard navigation and underlined shortcuts. With this changes it’s possible to invoke menu by Alt+Esc and sequence of underlined letters, like Alt key combinations in Windows. This changes are incomplete, they have problems with mouse and deadlocks.
I bought my first computer in 1983. I was 35! Do the math!! 
