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AMAZING2545 edited this page Aug 31, 2026 · 3 revisions

DISCLAIMER

under the GPLv2 this project, including the build scripts, executables, source code and archives come with NO WARRANTY

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE OF DEAD SD CARDS, BOOTLOOPS, BROKEN INSTALLATIONS and/or CORRUPTED DATA. Do not follow everything blindly

how to get started with HardCore Linux

HardCore Linux comes in various forms: .img disk image, .tar rootfs and as a complex set of build scripts

I recommend for most users to use option 1 if your primary use case is installing it to a laptop or in QEMU

Option 2 is ideal for docker containers and chroots, as well as users who build their kernels from source

Option 3 if for who is really HardCore and wants to audit everything, but it requires a beefy computer, a existing linux distro, and downloading the sources from the publishers' website (unless it needs a patch, like GNU Make)

if you use the .img file you need to know that everything is compiled with AVX2 support, you your PC must be at least from 2014

if your PC is older, uses x86_32 (i586/i686/iNetburst) or uses ARM/RISCV you will need to build from source and you will have no support from me

if you have NVMe, then you need to compile the kernel with NVME as <*> and not

installation guide is still being written, but it will be similar to old Arch Linux

installation

start by cloning the image to a installation media

su -c "dd if=/path/to/image.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M"

now boot the media and select the first entry from the GRUB menu. login as root. the password is Hardcore

type lsblk and locate your disk

1.2.0 and below:

  • type dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdx bs=1024 count=1024 to copy the GPT to the new disk

  • type cgdisk and remove all partitions

  • go to gdisk, enter expert mode and relocate the GPT to the end of the disk

1.3.0 and above:

  • proceed, EFISTUB does not need a bootloader

go back to gdisk and create two partitions: a EFI/kernel partition (I recommend at least 30MB, but the bare minimum is 8MB) and a normal partition

format the EFI partiton with mdosfs

format the system partition with mkfs.ext4

make a directory in /tmp called EFI

type mount /dev/sda1 /tmp/EFI (for 1.3.0 is already mounted at /system/esp)

type mount /dev/sdx1 /mnt

now copy all contents form /tmp/EFI (or /system/esp) to /mnt

1.2.0 and below

  • (cd /tmp/EFI; tar cp $(ls)) | tar -xpvf - -C /mnt

1.3.0 and above

  • (cd /system/esp; tar cp $(ls)) | tar -xpvf - -C /mnt

unmount /mnt and mount /dev/sdx2 to /mnt

now copy the whole rootfs:

tar cp bin home system usr etc lib lost+found no root sbin var| tar xpvf - -C /mnt

now make the rest of the directories:

(cd /mnt ;mkdir dev mnt proc sys run tmp)

now reboot:

sync

umount /mnt

echo b > /proc/sysrq-trigger

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