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Install

Installing takes one USB stick, one network cable and about half an hour, most of it waiting. The installer asks one question and otherwise runs on its own. It wipes every fixed disk in the machine.

What you need​

  • A machine with a 64-bit Intel or AMD processor (x86_64) and UEFI or BIOS firmware, at least 4 GiB of memory and one disk of 40 GiB or more. Mini-PCs built for offices are ideal; most have a TPM 2.0 chip in the firmware (Intel PTT or AMD fTPM), which the installer uses to keep the disk key. LosOS is built for x86_64 only: it cannot be installed on an ARM machine, and in particular not on an Apple Silicon (M-series) Mac.
  • A USB stick of 2 GiB or more.
  • A wired network connection with internet access. The installer downloads the system it installs.
  • A screen and keyboard for the machine, for the install only. After that the screen shows a banner with the box's address and nothing else is needed.

Steps​

  1. Download the installer ISO and its .sha256 from the latest release and write it to the stick (balenaEtcher, Rufus in DD mode, or dd).
  2. In the machine's firmware, turn Secure Boot off. Nothing in LosOS is signed, so with Secure Boot on the stick is refused, sometimes silently.
  3. Boot from the stick. A menu offers UEFI, BIOS or autodetect and takes autodetect after 30 seconds, so an unattended boot still installs. Autodetect picks the mode the stick itself was booted in, which is right for almost everyone. Install variants explains the choice.
  4. Wait. The installer finds every fixed disk, puts them in one encrypted volume, downloads the system and installs it. It prints unlock: TPM or unlock: keyfile in the initrd near the end: see Install variants for what that means.
  5. Remove the stick and let the machine reboot. The screen now shows a blue banner with the box's address. Open that address in a browser on any computer on the same network and follow The first run.

Trying it in a virtual machine​

The box runs fine in QEMU, virt-manager or VirtualBox, and the maturita demo is given that way. Two things to know:

  • Give the VM an emulated TPM (swtpm) if you want the TPM unlock path; without one the box installs in keyfile mode, which also works.
  • The VM host usually does not resolve the box's .local name. Use the IP address from the banner. The wiki's Install page has the exact QEMU lines, and there is a ready-made demo disk image (losos-disk-qcow2, no encryption, no installer) for showing the box off.