Getting Started

Installing RakuOS

1. Boot from the USB stick

Plug in the stick, restart, and open your firmware's boot menu (often F12, F11, F10, Esc or Del, depending on the PC). Pick the USB stick, preferably its UEFI entry.

The boot menu offers:

  • the default entry, which starts the live desktop;
  • Basic Graphics Mode, if the screen stays black or freezes while starting;
  • Text-Mode Installer, a console installer.

The live system starts with Secure Boot on, so you don't need to turn it off.

2. Run the installer

The live desktop lets you try RakuOS before installing. When you're ready, start the installer from the desktop. It asks for:

  • language, keyboard and time zone;
  • the disk. You can only install to an internal NVMe or SATA disk of at least 40 GiB, never the USB stick you booted from. The disk is erased.
  • the filesystem: Btrfs (recommended), Ext4 or XFS;
  • encryption, optional: a passphrase, or automatic unlocking with the TPM 2.0 chip plus a recovery passphrase;
  • your user account and password.

Nothing is written until you confirm. The installer then copies the system onto the disk, creates your user, sets up Flatpak with Flathub and copies your Wi-Fi settings.

Encrypted installs need one of the graphical installers; the text-mode installer's encryption options don't work yet.

3. If something goes wrong

The installer shows an install log on the last page when it fails. Copy it before you reboot: the live session forgets it. Then report the problem (see Reporting bugs).

4. Reboot

Remove the USB stick and reboot. If Secure Boot is on, a blue screen appears first: see First boot.