Installing Equinox OS

Equinox installs from inside itself: you boot the ISO, run the installer, and the OS formats a disk, copies its own layout onto it and compiles the userland there with the in-OS compiler. Two paths:

• Path A — equinoxinstall (recommended): a 4-phase interactive wizard. One command, few prompts, bootable result.
• Path B — manual: individual commands (Qfs, mount, copy, set, Qfs -install-boot) for scripted or surgical installs.

Either way, afterwards the target disk boots without the CD.

What ships and what does not: the base system carries the kernel, shell, mtcc + tool/libc sources, the EquiX desktop and the Qfs / eggkg machinery. The classic coreutils (ls cat cp mv rm mkdir rmdir rm touch stat and friends) are not bundled — they are installed as the bash package via eggkg right after the first boot (see PACKAGES.md). Until then the shell's builtins and aliases cover basic navigation.

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Path A — the equinoxinstall wizard

Run it from the shell:

root::users / $ equinoxinstall

[1/4] Pick the target disk

The wizard lists every disk the block layer knows (hda–hdh, with size and label — this spans both PATA and SATA/AHCI disks, see DRIVERS.md):

[1/4] pilih disk target
   0)  build in place (tanpa install ke disk)
   1)  hda  64.0 MB  ...
  target [0]:

• 0 or plain Enter → build in place: compile into RAMFS, skip all disk work. Perfect for a quick first try (make run).
• A disk number → continue to phase 2.

[2/4] Prepare the volume + copy the layout

• No FAT32 partition on the disk → the wizard offers to format: fat32_mkfs writes a fresh MBR with a whole-disk FAT32 partition (type 0x0C at LBA 2048) labelled EQUINOXBASE. ⚠️ Formatting destroys everything on the disk.
• A FAT32 partition with a different label → offer to relabel it to EQUINOXBASE (required for the volume to be promoted to / on boot).
• The volume is mounted at /mnt, then the layout is copied onto it: /equinox (tools, libc, bootimg, ruf recipes), /user, /test, .mrp programs, .wad files, /boot/kernel.elf, README.TXT.

[3/4] Network driver

Pick the NIC the installed system should use at boot:

   1) ne2000   NE2000 ISA 0x300 IRQ9 — default
   2) e1000    Intel PRO/1000 PCI — DETECTED on the PCI bus
   3) no networking

The choice is written to /equinox/conf/system.ecf on the target:

# konfigurasi sistem — ditulis oleh equinoxinstall
[net]
driver = e1000

At the next boot net_nic_init() reads it (see CONFIGURATION.md). If you pick e1000 without the card being present the boot falls back to the NE2000.

[4/4] Build the userland

mtcc compiles the tool + libc sources from the target volume with a live status line. On a volume the sources are kept — they are the install content and allow later rebuilds with equinoxinstall -compile. RAMFS-only builds remove the sources after a successful compile (that content comes back with the next ISO boot anyway).

[5/5] Bootloader (optional)

For a real disk target the wizard offers:

[5/5] pasang bootloader GRUB ke hda (boot tanpa CD)? [y/N]

Answering y runs Qfs -install-boot, which writes GRUB boot.img + core.img (staged in RAMFS at /equinox/bootimg/) onto the disk. Skip it now if you like — it can be run at any time later.

Reboot into the install

root::users / $ reboot

Remove the ISO (or let -boot order=d still prefer the CD); the disk now boots GRUB → Equinox with its userland already compiled and persistent.

Wizard shortcuts (no disk work)

Command	What it does
equinoxinstall	Full wizard (phases 1–4 + optional 5)
equinoxinstall -compile <dir>	Only phase [4/4]: compile userland from <dir> (expects <dir>/libc + <dir>/tools)
equinoxinstall -build <file.ruf>	Build one ruf v3 recipe via mtcc -make
equinoxinstall -build <name>	Build a single tool from /equinox/tools (mtcc -c)
equinoxinstall -build *.ruf	Build every matching recipe (single-star glob)

Path B — manual install

Every wizard step is also a standalone command; this is the route for scripts and for people who want control.

# 1. See what is attached (PATA slots 0-3 -> hda..hdd, SATA/AHCI -> hde..)
Qfs -list-disk

# 2. Format the target (DESTROYS its contents) as FAT32 label EQUINOXBASE
Qfs -t hde -format fat32

# 3. Mount it and copy the layout with the copy builtin
#    (glob, directories auto-created, recursive-copy guard)
mount hde
copy /equinox        -> /mnt/equinox
copy /user           -> /mnt/user
copy /test           -> /mnt/test
copy /boot/kernel.elf -> /mnt/boot/kernel.elf

# 4. Write the boot configuration (INI-lite .ecf, see CONFIGURATION.md)
save /mnt/equinox/conf/system.ecf << "# config"
[net]
driver = ne2000

# 5. Install the GRUB bootloader so the disk boots without the CD
Qfs -install-boot hde

# 6. Build the userland in place (sources were copied with the layout)
equinoxinstall -compile /mnt/equinox

# 7. Optional: pivot the base directory, applied at next boot
set -b /mnt/equinox

umount hde
reboot

Notes:

• copy SRC -> DST (the -> is optional) copies files and trees; the destination directory is created automatically.
• set -d FILE [-path DIR] [-base SRC] registers an .ecf as the system config; set -b PATH records the base pivot; both are persisted through system.ecf (see CONFIGURATION.md).
• Qfs -install-boot hdX needs /equinox/bootimg/{boot.img,core.img} in RAMFS — the ISO ships them (make bootimg).

After the first boot of an install

# the coreutils are still not bundled — fetch them:
eggkg update && eggkg install bash -y

# and verify the system picked up its config:
set list            # active .ecf contents
ifconfig            # driver per system.ecf + DHCP lease
info                # version, RAM, uptime

Sizing the install

Media	Minimum	Comfortable
Guest RAM (QEMU -m)	64 MB	256 MB
Target volume	~32 MB	64 MB+ (room for packages, DOOM WAD, downloads)

The FAT32 write path is write-through per close, so there is no "eject" semantics beyond umount — but prefer a clean umount before killing QEMU after writes.