Installing WolOS

Erase a disk, install next to Windows or Linux, or lay out partitions by hand. Nothing is written before you confirm the summary.

What it is

Install WolOS is the installer on the live medium. It asks for language and keyboard, time zone, where to install, encryption and an account, then shows a summary of exactly what will change.

Why

A wrong step during an install destroys someone's files. So the installer does not act page by page: it writes a plan that names every partition it may touch, and the install stops if anything else on the disk moved in the meantime.

How

Start from the USB stick and choose Install WolOS.
Language and keyboard, then time zone (searchable, and guessed when online).
Where to install:
- Erase Disk uses the whole disk for WolOS.
- Install Alongside shrinks Windows or another Linux with a size slider and puts WolOS next to it.
- Manual lets you create, delete and resize partitions, set mount points and file systems, and keep an existing /home.
Encryption with a password, or with the TPM chip so the disk opens on its own at start. A recovery key is shown once: write it down.
Account: your name, account name and password. This account is an administrator.
Summary. Read it. Nothing has been written yet. Install starts only when you confirm.

What the installer will never do

Write to the medium it started from, a CD, or a read-only disk.
Touch a partition the plan does not name. If the disk no longer matches the plan, it stops.
Finish without checking that the boot entry, kernel and system files are in place.

After the install

The computer restarts into WolOS. On a Secure Boot computer you may see the one-time key screen first; see Secure Boot. Manual layouts without btrfs keep one copy of the system instead of two, and the installer says so.

Unattended installs

For labs and test rigs: add wolos.autoinstall=<disk> to the live command line. The installer erases that disk, installs and powers off.