RPCEmu Getting started
From nothing to a RISC OS desktop
Four steps, and the only one that takes any thought is choosing which version of RISC OS you want.
Step by step
What actually happens
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Install it
Take the package or archive for your platform from the download page. On Debian and Ubuntu the .deb sorts out what it needs; elsewhere unpack the archive and run it from wherever you put it.
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Get RISC OS
The emulator ships without an operating system, so a fresh installation has nothing to run. The first time you create a machine it offers to fetch RISC OS 5 and a ready-made hard disc from RISC OS Open, and shows you their licence terms first. It will not overwrite a disc you already have.
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Start the machine
Choose it in the selector and it boots to the desktop. Screen size, networking, USB and expansion cards all belong to that machine, so changing them leaves your others alone.
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Make it yours
Install software with the package manager, put a folder of your own inside RISC OS with HostFS, and if you are here to write RISC OS software, turn on the guest command line and compile from your own shell.
Which RISC OS
It runs 3.5 and later, and 5 is the one to want
RISC OS 5 is the version still being developed and it is open source, which is why it is what the emulator offers to fetch and what most of the software you will install expects.
Earlier versions from 3.5 onwards work if you have a ROM image of your own, and there are good reasons to want one: checking software against the version it was written for, or simply because that is the machine you remember. Point the machine at the image instead of letting it download one.