How to: Install Windows 98 on your PS3

[johnnyfives12]

Alright for all you PS3 linux users out there (or those that are curious). Here's how to get windows (windows 98 specifically) running on your PS3.

You will need the following before you can do this.

A windows install disk (full not upgrade) or iso
1 GB (bare minimum) of free space on the PS3's linux partition.
It is also possible to install and run windows from an external hard drive. There is a small performance difference if any from doing this

First get qemu. This is a machine emulator which will allow you to run windows.

Here's an rpm of it. Just download it then run it (in nautilus just double click it).
[removed dead link]

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[MODERATOR EDIT]

If you follow the How to Install Software guide on this forum, you can install qemu with yum install qemu or use "Add/Remove Software" ...

The Fedora 7 version mentioned can be found here:

http://fedora.mirror.facebook.com/linux ... c7.ppc.rpm

Actually, any of the Fedora mirrors that have Fedora 7 PPC packages should have it ...

http://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/public ... ora/9/ppc/

It would be located releases/7/Everything/ppc/os/Fedora/ (there's a huge number of packages in there so the page may take a long time to load when you browse to it on one of the mirrors.

billb

[END MODERATOR EDIT]
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Now insert the windows disk into the drive

Before we actually run qemu we need to make a hard drive image for windows. This will be the "drive c" for windows. To do that open a terminal then type...

"qemu-img create -f win98.img 1500M"

win98.img is the name of the image you're making. 1500M is the size of the image (it'll be filled as needed) you can also specify size in giga bytes. M is for megabytes G is for gigabytes.

Now with the hard drive image created and the cd in the drive we can start qemu and then install windows to the hard disk image

NOTE: While qemu is emulating windows 98 it will use the some of the CPU even when idle This is becuase of windows 98 not using the CPU HLT instruction right. This needs to be fixed after you install windows

To start qemu so that we can install windows 98 type the following in the terminal

"qemu -cdrom /dev/scd0 -boot d win98.img"

This tells qemu to boot from the cdrom drive and passes the hard drive image along so that it can be used.

Then follow the on screen instructions to install windows! It will take at least an hour.

Note: To install with an iso replace the "/dev/scd0" with the directory you mounted your iso image to. ("mount -o loop iso_file.iso /whereever" iso_file.iso being the name of the iso)

Now if you want to share files between your emulated windows and linux a shared folder must be setup in linux. Don't worry it's easy. Basically make a directory then when you start qemu again just do this

"qemu win98.img -hdb fat:rw:/wherethediris"

edit: Apparently the ampersand doesn't matter

The directory passed to qemu in this way will show up as a seperate hard drive in windows.

I haven't been able to switch cd's (literally it won't eject) while in windows so unfortunately using -cdrom /dev/scd0 option to use whatever cd is in the drive will lock the cd drive until you quit qemu (shutting down windows will close qemu automatically.) If you use an external drive you'll be able to switch cd's but windows won't see the new disc that's put in.

How does it work you ask? Is it slow? Is it usable?

Honestly it's odd. Windows itself runs pretty well. However once you start running a decent sized program (say a web browser) It starts to run slow. I think this might have something to do with part of the emulated windows (or program) running in the linux page file but I don't know for sure. It is usable though and the ps3 is still able to be used while running windows. I'm installing the winzip trial version in windows now while typing this story in linux (edit: That part was written when it was first written for the GAP on playstation.com it remains for context and performance evaluation). Processor is at around 70-90% while doing this and when windows is idle the processor hovers around high 30's to mid 50's.

Don't be afraid to ask any questions. The info on this page comes from the following pages. Thanks to rpmfind.net for hosting a ppc build of qemu.
http://www.engr.colostate.edu/~reinholz ... ators.html

Also to fix the CPU HLT problem in windows 9x. Download the following file
http://rtbuhler.googlepages.com/amnhltm.zip

Then uzip it in windows then run the .bat file then click yes when it asks you about adding the registry entry. Viola! Enjoy.

Please let me know if there are any changes needed to this or if this thread is no longer neccessary.

[GrayFox]

Nice FAQ! Hopefully this will be a big help when I try to install Win98 soon.

Can anyone comment on the performance when running it on an external hard drive?

[johnnyfives12]

I've done it already like I said running 98 on either hard drive is pretty much the same. I couldn't see that it was any slower.

[GrayFox]

Ok, thanks. Are the PS3's USB ports powered? And is it okay for the external drive to be formatted FAT32?

[kopinux]

this is really helpful!

keep up the good work.

[johnnyfives12]

Ok, thanks. Are the PS3's USB ports powered? And is it okay for the external drive to be formatted FAT32?

The usb ports are powered and FAT32 is kinda required. I know linux can't write to NTFS I don't think it can read it either . So there's nothing else really to use.

[billb]

Here's an rpm of it. Just download it then run it (in nautilus just double click it).
http://rpmfind.net/linux/RPM/fedora/dev ... 7.ppc.html

Have you used that RPM with YDL 5.x? I've never had any luck installling RPM's meant for Fedora 7 on Yellow Dog -- just FC5 or FC4 RPMs. I don't currently have YDL installed to see if it works.

Thanks for posting the guide -- nice job!

[billb]

Now if you want to share files between your emulated windows and linux a shared folder must be setup in linux. Don't worry it's easy. Basically make a directory then when you start qemu again just do this

"qemu win98.img -hdb fat:rw:/wherethediris &"

The virtual VFAT part isn't working for me in QEMU 0.9.0 unless the :rw part is removed. So, I get a readable folder (shows up as hard disk) in Win98 but can't write to it. So in your example, it would look like this, instead:

qemu win98.img -hdb fat:/wherethediris

There is some discussion of this problem in the QEMU forum:
http://qemu-forum.ipi.fi/viewtopic.php?p=12250

[johnnyfives12]

Yea I've had the same problem. I hope they fix it.

[billb]

"qemu-img create -f win98.img 1500M"

win98.img is the name of the image you're making. 1500M is the size of the image (it'll be filled as needed) you can also specify size in giga bytes. M is for megabytes G is for gigabytes.

When creating the image I have had to specify the format instead of just saying -f, so with your example it would look like this:

qemu-img create -f qcow2 win98.img 1500M

And since the file size only increases as the virtual hard drive fills up, I make mine 4 GB instead of 1.5 GB in case I need more space than anticipated.

qemu-img create -f qcow2 win98.img 4G

[Snappywave]

Alright for all you PS3 linux users out there (or those that are curious). Here's how to get windows (windows 98 specifically) running on your PS3.
in.

May I ask why would we be interested in installing win 98? Is there something about Win 98 that is better than YDL?

[rikkisbeautiful]

Does anybody on here have any idea how to download windows 98 on the ps3 the furthest I got was making the hard drive image i just need to know how to get to the install menu to install it Im getting lost on here

[billb]

Does anybody on here have any idea how to download windows 98 on the ps3 the furthest I got was making the hard drive image i just need to know how to get to the install menu to install it Im getting lost on here

Do you have a Windows 98 install CD?

What happens when you follow this part of the guide:

Code: Select all

To start qemu so that we can install windows 98 type the following in the terminal

"qemu -cdrom /dev/scd0 -boot d win98.img &"

[rikkisbeautiful]

it tells me it could not open the hard disk im,age and it doesnt do anything right it wont let me do it i do have the windows 98 disc and for some reason it isnt working so i am getting frusterated and need a lil more help to install it i appreciate it

[billb]

it tells me it could not open the hard disk im,age and it doesnt do anything right it wont let me do it i do have the windows 98 disc and for some reason it isnt working so i am getting frusterated and need a lil more help to install it i appreciate it

Hmmm... let me get some more coffee in me and see if I can write up something more specific to help.

Argh ... I have a cold and plus was up too late playing WarHawk.