ReactOS Frugal Installation

[Julcar]

One of the main features of Linux is the possibility of perform a Frugal Installation that take some of the advantages of a LiveCD running, but using the same resources from a HardDisk installation.

As ReactOS evolves, it is possible to imitate this Linux feature.

A common LiveCD directory scheme is as follows:

folder_scheme.PNG (3.04 KiB) Viewed 19887 times

Of them, we are going to use only:

/loader/setupldr.sys which is to be renamed as /freeldr.sys
/Profiles contains user folders such as My Documents and Application Data
/reactos the most important as it has inside all of the needed files by ReactOS
freeldr.ini our freeloader config file

Now these files must be copied to our Hard Disk, preferably to the root of the active partition.

Once copied it's time to edit freeldr.ini to adapt it to the Frugal environment, this consists in removing the switch /MININT from boot options, and adding an ARC path to SystemPath parameter, this must be accurate with the partition where our Frugal installation resides, i.e. multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\reactos

If the partition is shared with another pre-existent OS, and/or if the Hard Disk has already a boot loader installed, let's say GRUB, is needed to add the ReactOS freeloader to the list

Code: Select all

title ReactOS
root (hd0,0)
kernel /freeldr.sys

Update 1: Is better to get rid of the default HAL (no ACPI) unless you know that your CPU does not support ACPI, but for the newer processors just make sure to delete hal.dll in /reactos/system32 and rename halacpi.dll to hal.dll.

And that is, you can reboot and init ReactOS as it was installed with the traditional way, except that some customization options are missing (but likely hidden in the registry), this is a TODO for a second revision of the tutorial.

[maugaci]

Thanks for sharing, it has worked very well for me

[Dogon]

Thank you so much. I will try it tmorrow morninng.

[Dogon]

I tried frugal install but i think did somethings wronge and it gives me black screen after grub. But i dont understand completely. Becoz probubly tutorial little bit superficial for give me. i had replace systempath=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\reactos and deleted /minint ones. copied all instructed folders and files.

[Ben]

I tried this on ReactOs version 4.15 dev 5853 using syslinux and it works , I even booted it off a USB drive

[cmonkey]

I'm not sure that this works with the 4.15 RC5 (or 4.16-dev). At least, not booting it from a USB drive. I always get a BSOD, unless I keep /MININT

EDIT:I've created a USB device using freeldr and the install files from a HardDisk install (after second reboot). Booting it on the same machine, via USB only worked with /MININT (BSOD otherwise). Note, that the copy on the HardDrive worked fine (normal post-install booting, no /MININT).

Likewise, in the reverse, when copying the liveISO (from USB) to the HardDrive (Standard frugal install, as described here) /MININT was still required.

But, I've only tested it on two machines.