Electronic Software Delivery
Generally, ArcaOS is delivered via a download link. Because each licensed copy of the operating system is personalized for the user, it is important not to share your download link. Various features of ArcaOS rely on validating your personalization data. Altering this in any way may adversely impact the functioning of the system.
Before booting the installation medium, please review the Installation Guide, the End User License Agreement, and the README.TXT file located in the root of the DVD. You may wish to copy these documents to a secondary system (if installing to the current one) or print them for reference during the installation.
Downloading and creating your ArcaOS 5.0 product
The download process
After you have purchased your ArcaOS 5.0 license you will not be able to immediately download the software from our website. We must first build your personalized ISO file. You will receive an email when your download of the ArcaOS 5.0 ISO image is ready. This process normally takes approximately 10 minutes.
Your ISO will remain available on our servers for download for a limited time, but you may always request a new ISO by logging into your customer portal page and visiting the original order page. Click the button to request a new ISO.
You should have adequate space to store the downloaded file. Assume 1GB for the compressed download, and another 1.4GB for the extracted ISO file.
Unpacking your download
Your downloaded ArcaOS 5.0 ISO image is compressed using 7zip, a file compression format similar to the well known ZIP file. You must first unpack the downloaded file before you may burn the ISO image to DVD.
For your convenience, here are some links to 7zip archive tools for various operating systems:
- If you already have ArcaOS installed, 7z file format is supported directly by our Archive tool.
- For OS/2 and eComStation, you may download Zippy (a graphical tool) or 7zip(command line).
- For Windows, you may download the 32-bit or 64-bit version of 7zip (a graphical tool).
- For MacOS X, you may download the free utility Keka or p7zip (installable viaHomebrew, as discussed here, or MacPorts).
- For various Linux and Unix distributions, please see this page.
Three installation methods: ISO, DVD, or USB
If you will be installing ArcaOS in a virtual machine, depending upon your hypervisor, it is usually sufficient to mount the raw ISO file as a virtual DVD. In this case, once the archive has been extracted, it should be ready to install.
The traditional method for installing ArcaOS is from a physical DVD. In this case, follow the directions in the next section to burn the ISO to DVD.
Beginning with ArcaOS 5.0.2, it is now possible to install ArcaOS from a bootable USB stick (also commonly known as a flash drive, jump drive, or thumb drive). See the section below for details of the two methods available for creating the bootable USB stick.
Burning your unpacked ISO image file to a DVD
After you have unpacked your ISO image, you must use software to burn it to a DVD. Please take the following things into account:
- The unpacked ISO image file is about 1.2 Gigabytes in size, and it must be burned onto a DVD. It does not fit on a CD.
- You should never copy an ISO as an individual file to a DVD. Instead, you must burn it directly to the DVD. Most CD/DVD burning software will automatically recognize an ISO image file by its extension and do this correctly. If yours does not, look for an option to burn a “raw” image or perhaps “image mode” in your software.
If you already have ArcaOS installed you may burn the image to disc with DVD Tools. For other operating systems, the following techniques may be helpful:
OS/2 Warp 4 and eComStation
RSJ is a good choice, if you have a full version of the product (eComStation ships with a limited function version which is not capable of burning DVD images). Alternatives are DVD Toys, dvddao, and cdrecord.
Windows 7, 8, and 10, and Windows Server 2008r2, 2012, and 2016
It should be sufficient to put a writable DVD in your DVD drive. Then right-click on the ArcaOS ISO file in Windows Explorer and select the menu option Burn disc image.
Unix and Linux
Burning an ISO file may vary on your Unix/Linux distribution. There are many different tools available to burn an ISO to DVD. Most modern distros include burning software which is installed by default. Here is an example of how to burn an ISO file to DVD with Ubuntu.
MacOS X (10.3 and newer)
MacOS ships with a command line utility, drutil, which should be usable for this purpose. Open a terminal, switch to the directory where the ISO has been extracted, and with blank media in the burner, run:
drutil burn <filename>
Another option is the included Disk Utility, as discussed here, and which should work with earlier OS X versions. For 10.11 and up, an alternative is to burn straight from the Finder’s menu, as discussed here.
Other Notes
You may use a DVD-RW (rewritable) for your ArcaOS installation disc. However, if you are experiencing installation issues, such as ArcaOS failing to boot from the disc or the installation not finishing correctly, try burning the ArcaOS ISO to a DVD-R (or DVD+R) disc.
Creating a bootable ArcaOS USB stick for installation
It is now possible to create (write or restore, actually) the image of a bootable ArcaOS USB stick under practically any major operating system, from Windows 2000 through Windows 10, most modern Linux distros (2.4 kernel and newer), and Mac OSX, as well as from OS/2 versions from Warp 4 and newer, all versions of eComStation, and of course, from another ArcaOS installation.
In addition, it is possible to “build” the USB stick image natively, from the tool located in the AOSBOOT directory of the ArcaOS ISO. This requires a running OS/2 system, with REXX capability.
How to create a bootable ArcaOS USB stick using the image utility
Log into your customer portal page and view the original order details for your ArcaOS ISO. In the list of subscription downloads, click the button to download the AOSBoot package. This file is a zip archive, approximately 20MB in size.
Save the zip and extract its contents to the same directory where you have downloaded the ArcaOS ISO, as you will need to copy the ISO to the stick as the last phase of preparation.
Extract the zip archive using a suitable tool (see above for some examples, though remember that this is a zip, not a 7z archive). You may also verify the integrity of the stick image file (imz) using the included md5 checksum file.
Before proceeding, be sure that you have a reliable backup of the system on which you are running the stick creation utility. The creation of the bootable stick is a destructive procedure, and selecting the wrong device will result in loss of data.
Insert a USB stick of at least 1799MB in size to be overwritten. You will be given a confirmation prompt during the procedure. Be sure that you are directing the image to the right device.
OS/2 Warp 4, eComStation, and ArcaOS
Run the following from an OS/2 command prompt:
dfsanos2.exe -q run aosboot.dfs <Enter>
Skip to step 5.
Windows 2000, XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10, and Windows Server 2008r2, 2012, and 2016
Run the following as Administrator from a command prompt:
.\dfsanwin.exe -q run aosboot.dfs <Enter>
TIP: To get to the Command prompt, or Power Shell prompt in later versions of Windows, display the directory in Windows, then click File, and select to open Command Prompt or Power Shell, then select the option to open in administrator mode.
Skip to step 5.
Unix and Linux (kernel 2.4 and above)
Run the following from a terminal with appropriate permissions:
chmod +x dfsanlinux <Enter> sudo ./dfsanlinux -q run aosboot.dfs <Enter>
Skip to step 5.
Mac OS X
Run the following from a terminal with appropriate permissions:
chmod +x dfsanmacos <Enter>
Insert stick and unmount any existing filesystems on it first (skip this step if the stick has already been wiped):
sudo ./dfsanmacos disklist <Enter> diskutil unmountdisk /dev/rdisk# <Enter>
(where # is the device number as reported in the disk list, e.g., rdisk2, rdisk3, etc.)
Finally, run:
sudo ./dfsanmacos -q run aosboot.dfs <Enter>
- Assuming the USB stick is the smallest disk in the system, it should be selected as the target automatically. Note that if you have configured a RAM disk or some other device smaller than the intended USB stick, this may be seen as the target device, so review the automatically selected device and confirm before proceeding. If the target should be a different disk, respond N to the confirmation prompt, and restart the procedure as:
dfsanxxx -q run aosboot.dfs <disk no> <Enter>
(where xxx is the platform executable designation and <disk no> refers to the number shown in the disk list for your intended target)
Again, confirm the target of the operation. To find the disk number in the disk list, note the following example:1 = MBR disk /dev/sda Disk1 - 114473 MiB Size: 111.79 GiB 2 = MBR disk /dev/sdb PAE_RAM_DISK Size: 4.47 GiB 3 = MBR disk /dev/sdc Disk3 - 15268 MiB Size: 14.91 GiB ^
The first column displays the disk number (3). In this example, the following command would explicitly target disk 3:
dfsanxxx -q run aosboot.dfs 3 <Enter>
- Once the image has been written, eject and reinsert the stick.
- Copy arcaos-5.0.2-en.iso to:
\ARCA_ISO\ARCAINST.ISO
or, on Linux or Mac:
/ARCA_ISO/ARCAINST.ISO
CAUTION
On operating systems which are case sensitive and/or VFAT-capable, ensure that the ISO filename is specified in UPPER CASE.
The resulting USB stick should function exactly the same as one built using the AOSBOOT.CMD script.
How to create a bootable ArcaOS USB stick using the AOSBOOT.CMD script
Mount the DVD burned previously (or the ISO directly) from an OS/2 system, and from a command prompt, navigate to the AOSBOOT directory. Full details for this procedure are available in the included aosboot.txt file located there.
