Running Redox in a virtual machine

Download the bootable images

This section will guide you to download the Redox images.

(You need to use the harddrive.img image variant for QEMU or VirtualBox)

Stable Releases

The bootable images for the 0.9.0 release are located on the build server release folder. To try Redox using a virtual machine such as QEMU or VirtualBox, download the demo variant, check the SHA256 sum to ensure it has downloaded correctly.

sha256sum $HOME/Downloads/redox_demo_x86_64_*_harddrive.img.zst

If you have more than one demo image in the Downloads directory, you may need to replace the * symbol with the date of your file.

If the demo variant doesn't boot on your computer, try the desktop and server variants.

Even if the desktop and server variants doesn't work, use the daily images below.

Daily Images

If you want to test the latest Redox changes you can use our bootable images created each day by opening the build server images and downloading your preferred variant.

(Sometimes our daily images can be one week old or more because of breaking changes)

Decompression

The Redox images are compressed using the Zstd algorithm, to decompress follow the steps below:

Linux

GUI

If you are using the GNOME Nautilus or KDE Dolphin file managers, right-click the file and select the option to extract the file.

Terminal

Install the Zstd tool and run:

zstd -d $HOME/Downloads/redox_*_x86_64_*_harddrive.img.zst

Windows

GUI

  • Install PeaZip
  • Right-click the Redox image, hover the PeaZip section and click on the option to extract the file or open the file on PeaZip and extract

VirtualBox Instructions

To run Redox in a VirtualBox virtual machine you need to do the following steps:

  • Create a VM with 2048 MB of RAM memory (or less if you are using a simplier Redox image variant) and 32MB of VRAM (video memory)
  • Enable Nested Paging
  • Change the keyboard and mouse interface to PS/2
  • Change the audio controller to Intel HDA
  • Disable the USB support
  • Go to the network settings of the VM and change the NIC model to 82540EM
  • Go to the storage settings of the VM, create an IDE controller and add the Redox bootable image on it
  • Start the VM!

If you want to install Redox on the VM create a VDI disk of 5GB (or less if you are using a simplier Redox image variant).

Command for the pre-installed image

If you want to do this using the command-line, run the following commands:

VBoxManage createvm --name Redox --register

VBoxManage modifyvm Redox --memory 2048 --vram 32 --nic1 nat --nictype1 82540EM \
--cableconnected1 on --usb off --keyboard ps2 --mouse ps2 --audiocontroller hda \
--audioout on --nestedpaging on

VBoxManage convertfromraw $HOME/Downloads/redox_demo_x86_64_*_harddrive.img harddrive.vdi

VBoxManage storagectl Redox --name SATA --add sata --bootable on --portcount 1

VBoxManage storageattach Redox --storagectl SATA --port 0 --device 0 --type hdd --medium harddrive.vdi

VBoxManage startvm Redox

Command for the Live ISO image

If you want to use the Live ISO run the following commands:

VBoxManage createvm --name Redox --register

VBoxManage modifyvm Redox --memory 2048 --vram 32 --nic1 nat --nictype1 82540EM \
--cableconnected1 on --usb off --keyboard ps2 --mouse ps2 --audiocontroller hda \
--audioout on --nestedpaging on

VBoxManage storagectl Redox --name SATA --add sata --bootable on --portcount 1

VBoxManage storageattach Redox --storagectl SATA --port 0 --device 0 --type dvddrive --medium $HOME/Downloads/redox_demo_x86_64_*_livedisk.iso

VBoxManage startvm Redox

QEMU Instructions

Linux

You can then run the image in your preferred emulator. If you don't have an emulator installed, use the following command (Pop!_OS/Ubuntu/Debian) to install QEMU:

sudo apt-get install qemu-system-x86

This command will run qemu with various features Redox can use enabled:

SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0 qemu-system-x86_64 -d cpu_reset,guest_errors -smp 4 -m 2048 \
    -chardev stdio,id=debug,signal=off,mux=on,"" -serial chardev:debug -mon chardev=debug \
    -machine q35 -device ich9-intel-hda -device hda-duplex -netdev user,id=net0 \
    -device e1000,netdev=net0 -device nec-usb-xhci,id=xhci -enable-kvm -cpu host \
	-drive file=`echo $HOME/Downloads/redox_demo_x86_64_*_harddrive.img`,format=raw

If you get an error with the filename, change the echo $HOME/Downloads/redox_demo_x86_64*_harddrive.img command to the name of the file you downloaded.

MacOSX Instructions (Intel)

To install QEMU on MacOSX, use the following command:

brew install qemu

This command will run QEMU with various features Redox can use enabled:

SDL_VIDEO_X11_DGAMOUSE=0 qemu-system-x86_64 -d cpu_reset,guest_errors -smp 4 -m 2048 \
    -chardev stdio,id=debug,signal=off,mux=on,"" -serial chardev:debug -mon chardev=debug \
    -machine q35 -device ich9-intel-hda -device hda-duplex -netdev user,id=net0 \
    -device e1000,netdev=net0 -device nec-usb-xhci,id=xhci -cpu max \
	-drive file=`echo $HOME/Downloads/redox_demo_x86_64_*_harddrive.img`,format=raw

If you get an error with the filename, change the echo $HOME/Downloads/redox_demo_x86_64*_harddrive.img command to the name of the file you downloaded.

Note: The brew command is part of the Homebrew package manager for macOS.

Windows

To install QEMU on Windows, follow the instructions here. The installation of QEMU will probably not update your command path, so the necessary QEMU command needs to be specified using its full path. Or, you can add the installation folder to your PATH environment variable if you will be using it regularly.

Following the instructions for Linux above, download the same redox_demo image. Then, in a Command window, cd to the location of the downloaded Redox image and run the following very long command:

"C:\Program Files\qemu\qemu-system-x86_64.exe" -d cpu_reset,guest_errors -smp 4 -m 2048 -chardev stdio,id=debug,signal=off,mux=on,"" -serial chardev:debug -mon chardev=debug -machine q35 -device ich9-intel-hda -device hda-duplex -netdev user,id=net0 -device e1000,netdev=net0 -device nec-usb-xhci,id=xhci -drive file=redox_demo_x86_64_2022-11-23_638_harddrive.img,format=raw

Note: If you get a filename error, change redox_demo_x86_64_*_harddrive.img to the name of the file you downloaded.

Note: If necessary, change "C:\Program Files\qemu\qemu-system-x86_64.exe" to reflect where QEMU was installed. The quotes are needed if the path contains spaces.

Using the QEMU emulation

As the system boots, it will ask you for a screen resolution to use, for example 1024x768. After selecting a screen size, the system will complete the boot, start the Orbital GUI, and display a Redox login screen. Login as user user with no password. The password for root is password. Use Ctrl+Alt+G to toggle the mouse behavior if you need to zoom out or exit the emulation. If your emulated cursor is out of alignment with your mouse position, type Ctrl+Alt+G to regain full cursor control, then click on your emulated cursor. Ctrl+Alt+F toggles between full screen and window views.

See Trying Out Redox for things to try.

If you want to try Redox in server mode, add -nographic -vga none to the command line above. You may wish to switch to the redox_server edition. There are also i686 editions available, although these are not part of the release.