Disk Preparation

Installation steps 1-5: Boot the live environment and prepare your disk. See Installation for an overview.

1. Boot the Live Environment

Boot from the LevitateOS ISO (see Getting Started). You'll be dropped into a root shell.

Verify you booted in UEFI mode

ls /sys/firmware/efi/efivars

If /sys/firmware/efi/efivars doesn't exist, you booted in legacy BIOS mode. LevitateOS requires UEFI. Reboot and select UEFI boot in your firmware settings.

Set keyboard layout (optional, default is US)

loadkeys us

Sync system clock

timedatectl set-ntp true

WiFi Connection (Optional)

Installation is fully offline - no network required. Skip this if using Ethernet or don't need network access.

List wireless interfaces

iwctl device list

Scan and connect (replace wlan0 and YOUR_NETWORK)

iwctl station wlan0 connect YOUR_NETWORK

2. Identify Target Disk

List all disks and identify your installation target

lsblk -d -o NAME,SIZE,MODEL,TRAN

NAME      SIZE MODEL                     TRAN
nvme0n1     2T Samsung 990 PRO 2TB      nvme
nvme1n1     1T WD Black SN850X 1TB      nvme
sda       4.0T Seagate Barracuda        sata

This guide uses /dev/sda as an example. Replace with your actual device. Most modern systems use NVMe (/dev/nvme0n1) - partitions are named nvme0n1p1, nvme0n1p2, etc.

3. Partition the Disk

WARNING: This will erase all data on the disk. We'll create this layout:

Partition	Size	Type	Mount
/dev/sda1	1 GB	EFI System	/boot
/dev/sda2	Remainder	Linux filesystem	/

Start fdisk

fdisk /dev/sda

Inside fdisk, enter these commands:

g Create new GPT partition table

n New partition (EFI)

1 Partition number

Enter Default first sector

+1G Size (room for multiple kernels)

t Change partition type

1 EFI System

n New partition (root)

2 Partition number

Enter Default first sector

Enter Use remaining space

w Write changes and exit

Verify with lsblk /dev/sda. For NVMe drives, partitions are named /dev/nvme0n1p1, /dev/nvme0n1p2, etc.

4. Format Partitions

Format EFI partition

mkfs.fat -F32 -n EFI /dev/sda1

Format root partition (label MUST be 'root' for UKI boot)

mkfs.ext4 -L root /dev/sda2

5. Mount Filesystems

Mount root partition

mount /dev/sda2 /mnt

Create mount point and mount EFI

mkdir -p /mnt/boot
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot

Continue to Base System (steps 6-9).