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Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Installing KaOSx Linux in VirtualBox

Here is what I did to install KaOSx Linux in VirtualBox. KaOS is a an rolling distribution, fully focused on KDE/Qt. It uses pacman as package-manager and is based on Arch Linux. Arch Linux is bleeding edge rolling, whereas KaOS is a bit more conservative.

To quote the website: "The idea behind KaOS is to create a tightly integrated rolling and transparent distribution for the modern desktop, build from scratch with a very specific focus. Focus on one DE (KDE), one toolkit (Qt), one architecture (x86_64) plus a focus on evaluating and selecting the most suitable tools and applications. Moving away from proprietary Operating Systems to open source options (Linux-based, BSD based, Solaris based) is about wanting freedom and choice in almost all cases. KaOS has made the choice to use the Linux kernel as a base (though the Illumos kernel is under constant evaluation, and a future switch is a wish). After that choice, the best available package manager, most flexible way of package building, repository maintenance is pacman/makepkg for a rolling distro like KaOS. As for the Desktop Environment, there will never be a change, whether it is Linux or Illumos based, KDE will be the choice, Qt the Toolkit. With those choices in place, April 2013 package building for this independent distribution was started. KaOS is a build from scratch distribution, every package in every repository is build by and for KaOS. By July 2013 the initial goal of about 1500 packages was reached."

Hardware requirements?
KDE is a modern Desktop Environment which can make use of most of any graphics or sound card capabilities. This does not mean KDE can’t be made to run on very low-end hardware, but in general there are better options available for such systems (OpenBox for example). The very minimal needed for hard-drive space is 8 Gb, but 25 Gb is recommended as minimal. KaOS will install with 1 Gb of RAM available, though a much better experience will start with 2 Gb of RAM. Since only x86_64 packages are available, a 64 bit capable cpu is needed.

I added 2 Gigs to the VM, and enabled 3D acceleration and PAE/NX.


 Boot up menu.Start KaOS Live with or without nVidia Drivers, Boot from first hard disk, preform and hardware detection or memory test. F1 is Help, F2 sets the default laungage, F3 sets the video mode, and F4 allows you to adjust the kernel paramiters at boot. 

Booting the kernel, no errors.

First Installation screen. Welcome!


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