How to Install Haiku on Real Hardware or a Virtual Machine

Haiku installs from a single bootable image, whether you’re targeting a virtual machine or real hardware. This walks through both paths, and why trying the VM route first is worth doing even if bare metal is the eventual goal.

Step 1: download the installation image

Get the current release image from the official Haiku Project download page (haiku-os.org) — the standard “anyboot” image works for both USB flashing and virtual machine use without needing a separate image for each.

Step 2: try it in a virtual machine first

VirtualBox / QEMU / your preferred VM software:
  - Create a new VM, allocate at least 1-2GB RAM and a virtual disk
  - Attach the downloaded Haiku image as the boot medium
  - Boot the VM

Starting here sidesteps real-hardware driver uncertainty entirely (see device drivers and hardware support in Haiku for why this matters) — a VM only ever needs to support a small, consistent set of virtualized hardware, so you can evaluate Haiku itself without simultaneously debugging whether your specific graphics or network hardware is well supported.

Step 3: boot the live image and confirm basic functionality

Haiku’s installation image boots directly into a live, running desktop — before installing anything, confirm the desktop loads correctly, the mouse and keyboard work, and (if relevant) networking comes up, all directly from the live environment.

Step 4: launch the installer from the live desktop

Live desktop → Installer (available directly on the desktop
                            or via the Applications menu)

The installer walks through selecting a target disk/partition and copying the system onto it — straightforward, but double-check the target disk selection carefully if you’re installing onto real hardware with existing partitions you want to keep.

Step 5: for real hardware, flash the image to a USB drive first

# on Linux/macOS, replace /dev/sdX with your actual USB device —
# get this wrong and you can overwrite the wrong disk, so verify twice
dd if=haiku-anyboot.image of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress

Confirming the correct device identifier before running this is essential — dd writes directly to the block device with no undo.

Step 6: on real hardware, check BIOS/UEFI boot settings

Boot menu / BIOS-UEFI settings:
  - Boot from USB (or the flashed drive) selected explicitly
  - Legacy/CSM boot mode may be needed depending on Haiku version
    and hardware — check current release notes if UEFI boot fails

Step 7: complete installation and reboot

Once the installer finishes, reboot and remove the installation media (or detach it from the VM) — Haiku should boot directly into the newly installed system from the target disk.

Step 8: if boot or display problems appear, use safe mode

See fixing Haiku boot failures with safe mode and fixing display and graphics driver issues for a systematic way to isolate what’s actually wrong, rather than guessing.

Why the VM-first approach is worth it even for a bare-metal goal

Trying Haiku in a VM first isn’t just a safety net for uncertain hardware support — it separates “am I evaluating Haiku itself correctly” from “am I fighting my specific hardware,” which makes any real installation problems you hit afterward on physical hardware much easier to reason about, since you’ll already know the system itself works as expected under normal conditions.