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Installing RetroForth/Native

RetroForth/Native is an operating system for x86 compatible PC's. Traditionally it has been booted from a floppy, but hard disk installations are also possible. This guide will help you setup and install RetroForth/Native onto your hard drive.

Installing RetroForth/Native is an easy process, but it does require that you have at least a basic knowledge of Linux or FreeBSD. (For this guide we will assume that you have Linux and GRUB already installed).

Before starting, please make a backup of your disk. RetroForth/Native ("retro") will operate directly on your hard disk, so please don't blame us if something goes wrong and you don't have a backup ready!

TIP: We recommend that you download the ISO and burn it to a CD. Try it out and make sure it boots on your hardware before you go through with a full installation. The Native port works on most systems we've encountered, but it never hurts to be sure that it works on yours. If it doesn't, let us know where it hung (if possible) and the basic hardware information so that we can work on improving compatibility.

Step 1: Get Retro

If you followed our tip in the introduction, you already have a copy of the retro kernel image on the CD. Otherwise, obtain a copy of it from RetroForth.org. Copy this to a safe, accessible place.

Step 2: Prepare the Hard Drive

Now that you have a copy of Retro, you will need to create a partition for it. At this time, the partition must be a primary partition in the first 8 GB of hard disk space. Use fdisk or cfdisk to create a primary partition for Retro. Also, this partition must be on the first hard drive in your system.

The partition should be at least 1MB in size. Give it a type of "9e" (hexadecimal), which Linux will report as "unused" since it does not recognize this partition type. Make a note of the partition number. Save the changes and reboot if necessary.

Step 3: Copy Retro to the Partition

Now we have to get the retro file from Step 1 onto the partition we created in Step 2.

dd if=/path/to/retro of=/dev/hdaN

Of course you should use the appropriate path to retro and the correct value for N.

Step 4: Configure GRUB

Once you complete Step 3, RetroForth/Native is installed and ready for use. However you still need to configure GRUB to load the kernel image. This is not difficult. Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst (the exact location may vary slightly in your distro) and add a section for Retro:

title RetroForth Native
root (hd0,0)
kernel 0+100

Replace the (hd0,0) with the actual partition information that corresponds to the partition you created in Step 2.

For example, if the partition was /dev/hda3, you'd use (hd0,2).

Save the changes to this file and when you next boot there should be a new menu item called RetroForth Native. Selecting this to boot your new OS.