Virtualizing Haiku OS Beta R3 on Synology Virtual Machine Manager

Recently managed to get the latest Haiku OS running on my MBP so I decided to test out the Virtual Machine Manager included in my Synology 920+. I am running 20GB of RAM so there is plenty of hardware to run Haiku.

Setting up the Virtual Machine

Install Virtual Machine Manager in the Synology package manager. This might be in the beta apps depending on your version of DSM.

Next, select Virtual Machine > Create to get the process started. You'll be presented with a few screens and selecting the defaults is just fine. 1GB of RAM and 10GB of storage are just fine. Add your anyboot ISO from your NAS when prompted.

There's a helpful checkbox at the bottom of the summary screen that starts the instance when it finishes setup.

Installing HaikuOS

First, VMM is using QEMU in the background so we'll follow those instructions. You've just booted the ISO which is basically installation media. You'll need to use their partition manager to prep an install location. Click Setup Partition. The order of the following steps is important:

• Select the 0/master/raw virtual drive, it'll be the first line.
• Click Disk > Initialize > GUID Partition Map (this is different than the main installation tutorial on Haiku-os.org. Select the defaults or adjust as you see fit and Write Changes.
• Select the second row, 0/master/0
• Click Partition > create > and select the entire 10GB disk as Be File System. Click Active too so it will boot.
• Select the partition you just created. It'll be the same row.
• Click Partition (again!) > Format > Be File System.
• Select your preferred block size. 2048 is perfectly fine.
• Click Format and Write Changes when asked.

Close out of this partition helper by clicking the box at the top left yellow tab and you'll be returned to the installer.

Click the "Onto" dropdown and select the partition you just created. Click Begin!

Once completed, you'll be asked to restart. Hit it and you'll reboot into the actual instance.

Enjoy your Haikuing!

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