Install Linux next to Windows without a USB stick.

hop is a single Windows app that installs Linux alongside Windows. Pick a system, choose a drive, drag to choose how much space it gets, and click Install. There's no USB stick to find and nothing to install first.

• Downloads from official sources. It gets the ISO from the project's own server and verifies its checksum where the project publishes one. You can also use an ISO you already have.
• Makes room safely. It checks your PC first, and nothing on the disk changes until those checks pass.
• Frees space that's stuck. A drive can show plenty free and still refuse to shrink, because of files Windows can't move. Make room clears them in one click and puts your settings back afterwards.
• Goes where there's room. Shrink C: or another drive, use free space, or use a second disk inside the PC. If C: is full, hop suggests a drive that isn't, and the download can go elsewhere too.
• Tells you what to click. It lists the exact choices to make in the Linux installer.
• Gets you unstuck. If the PC goes back to Windows, reopening hop explains why and can restart into the BIOS.
• Cleans up after itself. Undo gives the space back to the drive it came from, and it can also remove another Linux already on the drive.
• Can replace Windows entirely, for the systems where hop has seen it work: Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu Budgie, Ubuntu Cinnamon, Edubuntu, Ubuntu Studio, Zorin OS, Fedora Workstation, Ultramarine, elementary OS, Debian, Arch and Omarchy. It's a separate choice with its own warning, and you have to type ERASE. hop only makes the installer, which copies itself to memory so it can erase the disk it started from when you tell it to. It needs more memory than the ISO's size, and it's only offered for systems where hop has seen it erase a disk and start again afterwards.

Systems: elementary OS, Ubuntu and its flavours (Budgie, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Cinnamon, Unity, Edubuntu, Studio), Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, Zorin OS, Debian, Fedora Workstation, Ultramarine, CachyOS, Arch Linux and Omarchy. Other Ubuntu-based ISOs should work too, if you choose the file yourself. Kubuntu isn't supported, because its ISO has a file too big for FAT32. CachyOS, Arch, Omarchy and Pop!_OS need Secure Boot off. Omarchy also needs BitLocker fully off on its disk, not paused, and hop refuses until it is. hop won't turn it off for you. Debian, CachyOS, Linux Mint and Zorin OS can't go on a second disk yet.

Needs: Windows 10 (1803 or newer) or 11, on a UEFI PC with a GPT disk, which is nearly every PC sold with them. Linux has to go on a disk inside the PC, not a USB drive.

A USB installer is just a FAT32 drive with the ISO's files on it. hop makes the same thing on your internal disk:

Before   [ EFI ][ C: Windows                              ][ Recovery ]
After    [ EFI ][ C: Windows       ][ Installer ][ Linux  ][ Recovery ]

1. Download and check the ISO, and confirm it's a system hop can install.
2. Make room after the drive you chose, using free space first and shrinking the drive only if needed.
3. Copy the ISO's files onto a small FAT32 partition, and check each one.
4. Add a startup entry with the ISO's signed boot loader, for the next restart only.
5. Restart. The Linux installer opens and installs into the space hop made.

More detail is in How hop works.

Download hop.exe from Releases and run it. Windows asks for administrator access, and SmartScreen may warn because hop isn't code-signed yet: click More info → Run anyway.

If something goes wrong, see Troubleshooting.

You need the .NET SDK, on any OS. The result is bin/Release/hop.exe.

dotnet build -c Release

See Contributing to help, or to add a Linux system.

MIT. Instrument Sans is under the SIL Open Font License. Linux logos belong to their projects and are listed in SOURCES.md. hop isn't affiliated with any of them.