Install PureOS¶

PureOS boot options¶

If you start boot into PureOS live system, you will get to its boot options menu first:

A closer look:

Available options:

Test or install PureOS
- Starts a live PureOS instance, where you can install the system using the Calamares installer
Test or install PureOS (failsafe)
- Starts live PureOS instance with safe boot options enabled
Advanced Options
- Hardware detection tool and memtest (memory testing tool)

By pressing ENTER as soon the screen appears, you will boot the default (first) option.

Troubleshooting¶

If you boot into your USB drive but the boot fails or PureOS boot screen does not appear, you might try the following:

Disable secure boot/UEFI boot on your computer’s BIOS and try again
Make sure you followed the desired procedure to create a bootable USB drive:
ISO image you burned to your USB might not be downloaded correctly, ensure the download is okay by verifying its sha256 checksum <software_pureos_installation_download>

Installing from a live system image¶

Note

This guide assumes that you have booted into a live PureOS instance.

Pre-installation steps¶

Start the live PureOS instance from a USB you have prepared.
Choose option 1 (Start live PureOS) at the PureOS boot prompt and wait for the GNOME desktop to fully start.
When GNOME desktop is started, finish the PureOS Initial Setup procedure.

You are now ready to follow the steps below.

Simple installation¶

Start the Calamares installer:

Ensure that you are connected to the power supply and the internet, and click Next:

Choose your time zone, set the system language and number and date locale:

Select your keyboard layout:

Disk partitioning. This guide assumes that your disk is blank. Choose automatic partitioning (Erase disk option), the installer will automatically partition your disk. Type-in the password you wish to use for the full disk encryption. Leave it out if you do NOT want disk encryption:

Note

Make sure to select proper device to install to! See the options encircled in red. Ignore if you only have one disk installed.

Create a user:

Review install instructions:

…and confirm the installation:

Wait for few minutes:

And restart after it is done.

Advanced installation¶

Follow steps 1-4 from Simple installation.

Select Manual partitioning:

Click New Partition Table to create new partition table:

…and select GPT (click OK to accept):

Now click on free space and click Create to create first partition:

Since we selected a GPT partition table, we need to create a partition with special flag. It can be of minimum size, so set the 1 MB size (installer might increase this value to something like 8 MB, ignore this), set File System to unformatted and select bios-grub flag (this is important). Click OK afterwards:

Click on Free Space and then the Create button to create next partition:

In this example, swap partition is created next. Swap is needed for proper hibernation, and since the system has 8 GB of RAM, the size here is set to 7168 MB (7 GB). If your system has more RAM, make this partition larger. Choose linuxswap as the filesystem:

Next, create root partition (place where your system is going to be installed). In the example here the size is set to 20 GB. You can set it larger if you plan to install a lot of sotware. Choose ext4 as filesystem, as it is the most stable and most tested. Do not use btrfs on your production builds! Set / for mount point: