"Visopsys (VISual OPerating SYStem) is an alternative operating system for PC-compatible computers, developed almost exclusively by one person, Andy McLaughlin, since its inception in 1997. Andy is a 30-something programmer from Canada, who, via Boston and San Jose ended up in London, UK, where he spends much of his spare time developing Visopsys. We had the great fortune to catch up with Andy via email and ask him questions about Visopsys, why he started the project in the first place, and where is it going in the future."
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Member since:2011-01-28
UltraZelda64,
This is my experience:
apt-get install kvm
Download the cdrom image on this page:
http://visopsys.org/download/index.php
# I can get the cdrom to run without the installer
# run (as normal user)
kvm -cdrom visopsys-0.71.iso
This allows you to go in and play around with some of the built in software. Does this work for you?
For me installation fails...
# This creates a 1GB hard drive image (optional)
kvm-img create -f qcow2 viso.hd 1G
# Run the installation cdrom
kvm -hda viso.hd -cdrom visopsys-0.71.iso -boot d
# visop wouldn't allow me to partition and install on the same boot, but after creating a partition I was able to restart kvm and run the installer "successfully" (at least it said so).
# After install, run the virtual machine without the cdrom
kvm -hda viso.hd
For me, it just hangs there.
Given that you've tested it on bare metal too, I suspect it's likely an issue with the OS itself.
Edited 2012-09-18 01:33 UTC
Member since:2006-12-05
I don't know; like I said, I did run the older version on an older Gateway machine from around 2001 (P4 1.7GHz, 256MB RAM, ATAPI). The problem machine I am trying to run it on is a Dell from around 2006 with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 3800+, a gig of memory and a SATA connection to all drives. If I had to guess, I bet the problem lies in the SATA interface or the BIOS, but really I have no clue. I can't remember exactly what the error was when running it directly on the system, but I think it did mention something about the drives. Still, the OS initially loaded from the CD fine, so I don't know. Anyone else able to get this OS running on a SATA-based system?
Member since:2007-03-26
You mean apart from VMWare, Xen and KVM? You could even run qemu from the desktop, if you just wanted pure hardware emulation without any kernel optimisations.
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Member since:
2006-12-05
I've played around with Visopsys a few times before, and I figured... why not give it another try, see if there's been a new release since I last tried it. There has been. Problem is, every single time I attempt to run it in VirtualBox the entire (host) machine crashes. First time, the screen just locked up. Then, two or three times after, the whole system crashed and rebooted. I found that this problem still occurs even with the older release (0.69), which I have successfully run before (though I'm not sure if it was in VirtualBox or even in a virtual machine at all). OS? openSUSE 12.2 with VirtualBox 4.1.18_OSE, so pretty damn recent.
I wish there was a better virtualization program for Linux... VirtualBox seems too damn buggy and causes nothing but problems. Over the years, it still is a pain in the ass.
Update: Damn. I burned both versions of Visopsys to a CD-RW, and neither one would boot on my hardware. Error initializing. But at least it ended more gracefully than VirtualBox, giving me the option to press a key to reboot the system.
Edited 2012-09-18 00:15 UTC