Symmetry

There are many ways you can try Symmetry, with the easiest and most common being to download a CD image from the downloads page, and then burning it onto a CD-R.

Building a CD image

You do not need to build a CD image if you just want to try Symmetry. There are images available at the download page.

If you change the source code though, you must rebuild the kernel and make a new CD image. Instructions for doing this are on the Building Symmetry page.

Burning a CD Image

As Symmetry is not in a very functional state, there is not much point wasting a CD on it. It is better to use a virtual machine like Virtualbox or QEMU.

In some operating systems, like most Linux distributions, you can simply double click the .iso file, and it will be burnt to a CD-Rom. In Mac OS X, you can burn the iso with Disk Utility. Most other operating systems require you to download or buy a third party application to burn the image.

Installing on a Flash Drive

Running Symmetry on a flash drive is a good way to test it without wasting a CD. There are instructions coming soon.

Installing on a hard drive

If you have a Linux distribution installed, it’s likely that the GRUB bootloader is installed on your hard drive. If this is the case, you can simply download the Symmetry binaries, put them in a directory on your hard drive (like /Symmetry) and then add a GRUB menu entry to load the kernel and initrd. Then you can choose to boot Symmetry instead of your normal operating system the next time you restart your computer.

Running Symmetry

If you burnt a CD image, simply restart your computer with it in the drive. If your computer is set to boot from CD (if not, check your bios settings), then Symmetry will automatically start.

Alternatively, you can run the image in an emulator like QEMU or Bochs, or a virtualisation program like VMware or Virtualbox.