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Manual Installation
MassOS now has a Live CD ISO image which allows you to try out MassOS and install it more easily. If you'd prefer to install it manually, this page provides the legacy instructions on how to do that.
The latest version of MassOS can be downloaded from the Releases page.
Make sure you download the rootfs tar.xz file as opposed to the ISO file if you want to install it manually.
If you want to install a development branch build, you can download infrequent builds from this Google Drive folder or build MassOS yourself if those builds are not up to date.
Like every other operating system, MassOS needs to be installed on a partition. Only EXT4, BTRFS and XFS filesystems are currently supported, and only EXT4 has been tested.
You must have a root filesystem of at least 8GB, and must be formatted EXT4, BTRFS or XFS.
You may optionally have a Swap partition. This acts as a backup to prevent the system from crashing if it runs out of memory.
If you're using UEFI, you must also have a small EFI system partition to store the UEFI bootloader files. The EFI system partition must be FAT32. If another operating system uses an existing EFI partition, MassOS can use it too, without conflicting, and you don't need to format it.
You can partition your disks using a command-line partition editor like fdisk or a GUI partition editor such as Gparted.
To format the root filesystem, run the following command, replacing XY with your actual partition, such as a1 for /dev/sda1:
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sdXY
If you chose to create a swap partition, format this too:
sudo mkswap /dev/sdXY
If you're using UEFI and don't have an existing EFI system partition, format the new one:
sudo mkfs.fat -F32 /dev/sdXY
Do NOT run this command if you have an existing ESP used by another OS!
Create a clean directory for the MassOS partition to be mounted to:
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/massos
Mount the ext4/btrfs/xfs root filesystem:
sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/massos
If you're using a swap partition, enable it:
sudo swapon /dev/sdXY
If you're using UEFI, create the necessary directory and mount the ESP:
sudo mkdir -p /mnt/massos/boot/efi
sudo mount /dev/sdXY /mnt/massos/boot/efi
Run this command to install the base system onto your MassOS partition:
sudo tar -xJpf massos-<VERSION>-rootfs-x86_64.tar.xz -C /mnt/massos
NOTE: Make sure you replace with the actual version of MassOS you are installing.
The /etc/fstab file contains a list of filesystems to be automounted on boot.
You must edit the /mnt/massos/etc/fstab file and enter the correct entries for your partitions. For each partition you need, uncomment the line beginning UUID=, and then replace the placeholder x characters with the UUID of your disk. You can use sudo blkid to view the UUIDs of partitions.
An example /etc/fstab file for a Legacy system without swap might look like this (notice how only the partitions needed have the UUID line uncommented):
# Root filesystem:
UUID=539db496-6dfc-4c80-91b6-11cd278ba43c / ext4 defaults 1 1
# Swap (optional):
#UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx swap swap pri=1 0 0
# EFI system (UEFI only):
#UUID=xxxx-xxxx /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1
An example /etc/fstab file for a UEFI system with swap might look like this:
# Root filesystem:
UUID=539db496-6dfc-4c80-91b6-11cd278ba43c / ext4 defaults 1 1
# Swap (optional):
UUID=6d31d057-df1e-4784-a287-019b310992a8 swap swap pri=1 0 0
# EFI system (UEFI only):
UUID=2712-B165 /boot/efi vfat umask=0077 0 1
When you're finished, save and close the file. It may be worth double-checking you're entries are correct by running cat /mnt/massos/etc/fstab to view them. Mistakes in this file could prevent your system from booting.
While your system has a built-in chroot tool, you should use mass-chroot from this repo. It's a wrapper around chroot which ensures all virtual kernel file systems are mounted correctly.
wget -nc https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MassOS-Linux/MassOS/main/utils/programs/mass-chroot
chmod 755 mass-chroot
sudo ./mass-chroot /mnt/massos
Entering the chroot by default keeps the same PATH as whatever your host system uses. This may be incorrect for MassOS, so set the path correctly now:
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin
A list of locales can be found in the /etc/locales file. Edit this file using nano or vim, and uncomment the lines of any locales you need. Note that if you're a US user that only requires the en_US.UTF-8 locale, you don't need to edit this file since en_US.UTF-8 is uncommented by default.
Generate the locales by running the following command:
mklocales
If you require the default locale to be something other than en_US.UTF-8, edit the /etc/locale.conf file and replace LANG=en_US.UTF-8 with your desired locale.
The default keyboard layout is us, which is ideal for US residents. If you require a different layout, edit /etc/vconsole.conf and replace KEYMAP=us with any other keymap. A full list of available keymaps can be found with the following command:
ls /usr/share/keymaps/i386/qwerty | sed 's/.map.gz//'
For example: The keymap for British users is uk, so the entry would be KEYMAP=uk.
You can run tzselect to find your timezone in the Region/City format. It will ask you a few questions about where you live, and return your timezone.
Set the timezone with the following command:
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/Region/City /etc/localtime
For example: For America/New_York:
ln -sf /usr/share/zoneinfo/America/New_York /etc/localtime
hwclock --systohc
Decide on a secure password, and set it with the following command:
passwd
A combination of letters, numbers and symbols, and 8+ characters is recommended for a secure password. If you can't think of a secure password, running pwmake 64 will generate a reasonably secure one for you.
Adding a separate user is strongly recommended for desktop use since logging in as root means that a single bad action could cause irreversable damage to your system. Add a user with the following interactive program:
adduser
It will ask you a few questions, including whether the account should be an administrator or not. If you're the main user of the system, you should answer y here. By default, administrators are added to the wheel, netdev and lpadmin groups. Users in wheel can run commands as root with sudo. Users in netdev can manage network interfaces and connections with NetworkManager. Users in lpadmin can manage printing with CUPS.
If your machine supports Bluetooth, the Blueman graphical utility and applet can help you manage it in the graphical environment. If you wish for the Blueman system tray applet to be auto-started when you login to the desktop, run the following command:
blueman-autostart enable
You don't need to (and probably shouldn't) run this command if your system does not support Bluetooth, or you wish not to use Bluetooth capability. If you previously enabled it and now want to disable it, simply replace enable with disable in the above command.
Some hardware, such as wireless or graphics cards, may require non-free firmware "blobs" in order to function properly. If you are the owner of such a device, you can install the most common non-free firmware using the following commands:
pushd /usr/lib/firmware
git clone https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git .
rm -rf .git
popd
Modern Intel and AMD CPUs support Microcode. While they are usually loaded by the system's BIOS firmware, loading it in the operating system can allow you to have updated versions which the BIOS may not have.
Loading Microcode in the operating system is not required, the system should still be functional without it.
If you have an AMD CPU, the above commands to install non-free firmware will automatically install the AMD Microcode firmware.
If you have an Intel CPU, you must install the CPU microcode manually, by running these commands:
MVER=20210608
pushd /tmp
wget https://github.com/intel/Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-Files/archive/microcode-$MVER.tar.gz
tar -xf microcode-$MVER.tar.gz
install -d /usr/lib/firmware/intel-ucode
install -m644 Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-Files-microcode-$MVER/intel-ucode{,-with-caveats}/* /usr/lib/firmware/intel-ucode
rm -rf Intel-Linux-Processor-Microcode-Data-Files-microcode-$MVER microcode-$MVER.tar.gz
popd
unset MVER
An initramfs is a temporary filesystem used to load any necessary drivers and mount the real root filesystem. Generate an initramfs by running this command:
mkinitramfs $(ls /usr/lib/modules)
If you installed firmware and/or Microcode at the above step, this command will automatically include them when generating the initramfs.
WARNING: Incorrectly configuring GRUB can leave your system unbootable. Make sure you have a backup boot device available to be able to recover your system in case this happens.
On legacy systems, run the following command to install the GRUB bootloader, where X is your actual hard disk (NOT individual partition):
grub-install /dev/sdX
No further steps are required for legacy BIOS systems. Proceed to "Generating grub.cfg" below.
NOTE: Secure Boot must be disabled in the UEFI firmware settings to be able to boot MassOS.
On UEFI systems, you must first make sure /sys/firmware/efi/efivars is mounted in the chroot environment. If it isn't, the grub-install command below will fail:
mountpoint -q /sys/firmware/efi/efivars || (mount -t efivarfs efivarfs /sys/firmware/efi/efivars && touch /tmp/beforemounted)
Now install GRUB with the following command:
grub-install
This installs the UEFI bootloader EFI\massos\grubx64.efi to the EFI system partition and creates a UEFI bootorder entry called massos.
Alternatively (or as well as), you can install GRUB to the fallback location, EFI\BOOT\BOOTX64.EFI. This is only needed if you're installing MassOS to a removable drive, or if your UEFI firmware is buggy and doesn't support UEFI bootorder variables. Do not run this if another OS depends on the fallback bootloader:
grub-install --removable
You can customise your GRUB bootloader by editing the /etc/default/grub file. Comments in that file explain what the options do. Alternatively, leave it and use the MassOS recommended defaults.
Generate /boot/grub/grub.cfg by running the following command:
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
First unmount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars if it was manually mounted at the "Installing the GRUB bootloader":
test ! -f /tmp/beforemounted || (umount /sys/firmware/efi/efivars && rm -f /tmp/beforemounted)
Exit the chroot:
exit
Now, unmount the filesystems:
sudo umount -R /mnt/massos
Optionally remove the mountpoint directory:
sudo rmdir /mnt/massos
Now reboot your system, either graphically or with the following command:
sudo shutdown -r now
Congratulations, MassOS is installed! We hope you enjoy your MassOS experience!
For general information on how to make the most out of your new installation, have a look at Post-Installation. It contains information on how to do things like install software, customise your desktop, amongst other useful tips.