When I started this project back in 2002, A/UX versions prior to 3.0.1 appeared to be "lost to history." In October of 2003, I acquired a software package containing the A/UX 2.0 installation CD, and three 800k floppy disks. Unfortunately, the documentation was not included in the package. After considerable research, I was able to piece together a successful installation guide.

Before proceding with the installation, let's take a moment to examine the product itself. A/UX 3.0 encorporates Mac OS 7.01 into a Unix environment based on AT&T Unix System V.2.2. Version 2.0 of A/UX does essentially the same thing using Mac OS 6.05. The user interface is not quite as advanced as A/UX 3.0, and some commonly used Macintosh programs are not compatible with the System 6 software. However, it does turn an ancient IIci into a fully functional and robust Unix server.

The A/UX Compatibility Chart shows which sytems are supported - The Mac II (with a PMMU), IIx, IIcx, IIci, IIfx, and the SE/30. (Apple Knowledge Base Article 5208 shows the complete list.) The IIsi was not supported until A/UX 2.0.1, as indicated in Apple Knowledge Base Article 6588. A minimum of 4MB of RAM, and 80MB of hard drive space are required. My IIci runs A/UX 2.0 quite smoothly with 24MB of RAM, and a 230MB hard drive. The documentation indicates that the AppleCD SC is supported under A/UX 2.0. Personal experience indicates that the Apple 300i plus is as well.

I have been unable to locate the formal A/UX 2.0 installation documentation, so the procedure presented here is undoubtedly incomplete. This information has been pieced together from various newsgroup articles and Apple Knowledge Base documents... Most of the installation routine is derived from Apple Knowledge Base Article 8304.

I have obtained a copy of the "A/UX Installation Guide" for version 2.0, and confirmed that several items are missing from my A/UX 2.0 package. The "A/UX Accessory Kit" contained documentation, and various installation utilities listed below:

• A/UX 2.0 Release Notes
• Road Map to A/UX
• A/UX Installation Guide
• Setting up Accounts and Periferals for A/UX
• A/UX Essentials
• Read Me disk
• Mac OS 6.05 disks
• Startup and Startup Utilities disks
• System Checker disk

Version 2.0 of A/UX was distributed on floppy, tape, and CD. I will assume you have the CD distribution with all three necessary floppy images. The floppy images are in 800K format, and must be written to 800K diskettes on a Macintosh. The PC floppy drive does not react well to 800K floppies due to physical differences in the read/write mechanisms. If you don't have 800K floppies, simply cover the HD indicator hole with a piece of tape. Some sites caution that disks formatted in this manner will be unreliable, but they only need to work for a few minutes to complete the installation. The disk images are available in my downloads section.

I created my A/UX 2.0 CD using Nero 5.5 under Windows 2000. Under the File menu, select Burn Image. Note that the same procedure can be used to create the A/UX 3.01 Installer CD, and the A/UX 3.1 Update.

Burn the image using Data Mode 1, and do not check the box labelled Raw Data.

Apple Knowledge Base Article 5424 states that an 80MB hard drive is sufficient, but I chose a 230MB Apple-Logo drive. Make sure you note the SCSI ID of the hard drive and the CDROM... You will need this information during the installation process.

The first step is to prepare the hard drive partitions. Boot from a copy of Mac OS 6.05, and doubleclick the HD SC Setup Utility. Remove all partitions except for the Mac driver. Then create a 12MB Mac partition, a 32MB Swap, and a 184MB A/UX Root & USR partition. (Naturally, you will have to adjust these numbers if you use a larger or smaller drive.) Doubleclick the Mac OS installer, and load OS 6.05 onto your hard drive.

Mac OS 6.05 did not include CDROM support out of the box... Therefore, you must install a CDROM driver. I copied the "CDROM hack" extension from the A/UX 3.0 startup floppy to the system folder, and restarted.

The A/UX 2.0 "Floppy Launch" disk contains no system folder, and is therefore not bootable. Copy the contents of this disk to the Mac Partition. The Apple Knowledge Base Article 8304 mentioned earlier also references an "A/UX Startup and Startup Utilities" disk. It recommends copying the contents of this disk to the Mac partition as well. Unfortunately, I do not have this disk... So I copied the A/UX Startup program and the bin folder from the Mac partition of the installation CD.

After copying the necessary files to the Mac partition, doubleclick the "A/UX Installer" program. This starts stage #1 of the installation, and requests a "floppy with an A/UX filesystem." Insert the "Root Floppy" to continue.

The installer will ask several questions regarding your regarding your hard drive, and the installation media. As noted above, you will need the SCSI ID of the hard drive and the CDROM.

After about a page of questions, stage #1 is complete. Press RETURN to reboot.

Once you boot back to MacOS, doubleclick the "Read_Disk" utility and insert the "Kernel Archive" floppy. The installation procedure refers to this as the "Special Kernel."

Close the "Read_Disk" program, and doubleclick the "A/UX Startup" utility. This will launch stage #2 of the installation. Stage #2 loads the remaining A/UX files from the installation CD onto the hard drive... Completing the installation.

Once you have booted to A/UX, it would be advisable to build a new kernel tailored to your specific hardware. This can be done by executing the 'newconfig -v' command from a command shell.