:~/Win98SE$ qemu-img create -f qcow2 w 600Mįormatting 'w', fmt=qcow2 size=629145600 encryption=off cluster_size=65536 lazy_refcounts=off refcount_bits=16 Given Windows 98SE has a tiny installation size compared to a modern Windows environment so 600MB should be more than enough. The create argument does as you'd expect while -f specifies the file format ( qcow2) followed by the file name and disk size. We use qemu-img to create a hard disk file. For this I'll use secure copy, scp, to copy the file over from another system on my network. This then needs to be transferred into the Debian environment.

I took an image of my Windows 98SE installation CD in ISO format. My Chromebook doesn't have an optical drive and I didn't fancy trying to pass a drive through to the Debian VM (and then through to Qemu) anyway. Move into the new directory with cd Win98SE. In the Debian shell create a new directory with mkdir Win98SE.

Make your working directory and copy the CDįor tidiness we'll store all our files in a directory. Next install Qemu via sudo apt install qemu. In the Debian shell, start with sudo apt update & sudo apt upgrade to ensure the Debian environment is up to date. Once Linux support is installed you'll be presented with a Debian shell (in this case a BASH terminal). You'll need to enable this from the settings menu, with more details on the Chromebook support site. Linux support has been available in beta since ChromeOS 66. It's a useful way of running multiple 'computers' on one piece of hardware.

If I can get Qemu then I can likely install Windows 98 SE in a Qemu virtual machine (VM).Ī virtual machine is like running a computer on another computer. Leaving for work the next morning it dawned on me that I should be able to get Qemu in the Debian environment. To my surprise I was presented with BASH in what looks like a Debian environment. ChromeOS currently has Linux support in beta so I installed it recently to give it a try.

Windows 98 virtualbox image