Installation

Installing LeiOS takes four steps: download the ISO, write it to a USB drive, boot from it, and run the installer. Check the system requirements first.

Installing LeiOS can erase the disk you install it on. Back up anything you want to keep before you start.

Download the ISO

Public ISO downloads are coming soon. Follow the LeiOS blog or join the Discord to hear about the first release. Until then, you can build the ISO yourself.

The image is a hybrid ISO named like leios-<version>-amd64.hybrid.iso. It works both as a DVD image and as a raw USB image.

Write it to a USB drive

Because the image is a hybrid ISO, you can write it to a USB drive byte for byte. Everything on the drive will be erased.

Find the device name of your USB drive with lsblk, then write the image. Double-check the device name: writing to the wrong one destroys its data.

lsblk
sudo dd if=leios-<version>-amd64.hybrid.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync

Graphical tools such as KDE's ISO Image Writer or GNOME Disks work too.

Boot the live system

Plug in the USB drive, restart, and open your computer's boot menu. The key depends on the manufacturer; common ones are F12, F11, F8 and Esc. Choose the USB drive.

LeiOS starts a live system that runs entirely from the USB drive without changing your disk. The boot menu also has a Live system (German) entry if you prefer a German session.

Use the live system to check that your Wi-Fi, graphics, sound and other hardware work before you install.

Run the installer

Double-click Install LeiOS on the live desktop. This starts the Calamares installer, which walks you through these pages:

Welcome. Choose the installer language. The requirement checks run here.
Location. Choose your region, time zone and system language.
Keyboard. Choose and test your keyboard layout.
Partitions. Erase a disk, install alongside another system, or partition manually. You can also turn on disk encryption here.
Users. Create your user account and set the computer's name.
Summary. Review your choices. Nothing is written to disk until you confirm.

When the installer has finished, restart and remove the USB drive.

After the installation

No root password is set. Your user account is in the sudo group, so use sudo for administrative tasks.
The installer removes itself. The live-system packages and Calamares are uninstalled from the new system automatically.
Next step: follow First Steps to update your system and install software.