I’ve noticed, with all the Alpha installs I’ve done this week
That it’s a pain to get it booted, well not a pain, but not great
I always have to do the install, and then reboot the PC, with the CD in,
In Live / Desktop mode etc
And then mount the system hard drive, and run bootman from there
To set up the boot manager, to be able to boot the system
No big deal, but isnt there some way to put a icon or link on the installer box / menu
To get to bootman ?
Actually, lately, I just finish the install, and then hit "ctrl alt del"
To bring up the task manager? and then hit restart desktop
Then from there I can mount the system hard drive and run bootman
But still, there has to be a better way
I made some copies of Alpha to give away, and most people told me they never got it to boot, so they gave up and reinstalled Windows
I know they say to use Grub etc, but how many people have grub laying around, or use it ?
Most people looking for freedom in a OS, are coming from the Windows world
All this is planned. It just wasn’t something that should have blocked the release of the first alpha release any longer. It has been tried to communicate that this first alpha is, as the press release so nicely put, a “development snapshot of Haiku available to a wider audience for more extensive testing and debugging.”
Although I understand the excitement about it, esp. for ex-BeOS users, Haiku may be not mature enough for every end-user yet. It may be wise, to hold off spreading it to the “non-geeks” until at least a beta. Developers and very techy testers are the current focus.
“I made some copies of Alpha to give away, and most people told me they never got it to boot, so they gave up and reinstalled Windows”
Haiku is still Alpha. Not ready to replace Windows or Linux just yet. Wait for Final Release or Release Candidate ( or maybe Beta ) before trying to get non-technical people onto Haiku ( ie: Alpha & Beta is more for advanced computer users ).
Next release will have more things working better. If someone hasn’t already, then you should file a ticket about this so it gets done. http://dev.haiku-os.org