MiniOS Installer 3.0.1

GTK3 wizard and command-line backend for installing MiniOS from a live session.

Installation Modes

• Live copies the selected MiniOS module stack and boot assets while keeping the modular live-system layout.
• Native deploys the module stack into a conventional Linux root filesystem, configures the target, installs required packages, generates initramfs, and installs the supported bootloader.

Placement choices are erase-all, existing free space, alongside a supported final partition, and GUI manual partitioning for native installations.

Features

• Module selection with required lower layers included automatically
• Required-space calculation from selected data, boot assets, persistence, and a 25 percent filesystem reserve
• Automatic, BIOS/MBR, UEFI/MBR, and UEFI/GPT boot-layout choices
• Security profiles (convenient, balanced, strict) with independent SSH and XRDP service controls
• Hostname and wired DHCP or static IPv4 configuration; Wi-Fi profiles are left unchanged
• Locale, timezone, keyboard, user, password, service, and boot-menu setup
• Native, DynFileFS, raw-image, or LUKS live-session persistence
• Stable device identity, exact geometry previews, package preflight, and final destructive confirmation

Live layouts support ext2, ext4, btrfs, FAT32, and NTFS when their tools are installed. Native roots support ext2, ext4, and btrfs. Ext3 filesystems may be reused or shrunk where supported but are not offered as a new-format choice.

Manual Partitioning

Manual partitioning is available only for native GUI installations on eligible direct disks. All changes are staged until final confirmation. Supported actions are create, delete, end-only ext2/ext3/ext4 or NTFS shrink, format, reuse, mount-point assignment, ESP assignment, swap assignment, undo, and reset.

Manual mode supports GPT with UEFI and primary MBR with UEFI or BIOS. BIOS on GPT is rejected because there is no bios_grub installation path. Extended or logical MBR partitions, LVM, RAID, LUKS, mapped/nested storage, bcache, ZFS, and Btrfs subvolume editing are unsupported. LUKS persistence is a live-session container feature, not native root encryption.

Alongside Installation

Alongside mode can shrink an eligible unmounted final ext2/ext3/ext4 or NTFS partition. Filesystem checks and shrink complete before the partition boundary is changed. Missing resize tools are installed only after explicit consent. Unsupported, mounted, nested, dirty, ambiguous, or unsafe layouts are refused.

Session Persistence

Live installations support native directories, expandable DynFileFS storage, fixed-size raw images, and encrypted LUKS images. The initrd creates the selected storage on first boot. Container modes default to 4000 MiB. Raw and LUKS are limited to 4000 MiB on FAT32; DynFileFS is not subject to that single-file limit. Native persistence is offered only on POSIX-compatible target filesystems.

LUKS is offered only when the running initrd advertises /run/initramfs/etc/minios-initramfs-crypt; every copied source initrd is verified again before disk changes. The initrd creates changes.luks and asks for the passphrase on boot; the installer never receives or stores it.

Usage

minios-installer
minios-deploy list-disks
minios-deploy plan /dev/sdb --mode native --placement free_space

See minios-installer(1) and minios-deploy(1) for complete behavior and limitations.

Build

make build
sudo make install

Runtime dependencies and operation-specific recommendations are defined in debian/control. Native and alongside installations may require APT access to stage GRUB, EFI, initramfs, os-prober, and resize packages before disk changes.

License

GPL-3.0+