Bare-metal install

First-boot guide

Two ways to boot Vulos on bare metal for the first time. Method 1 (phone USB tethering) is the fastest — no USB stick required, and UEFI never needs WiFi credentials.

Method 01
Recommended

Phone USB tethering

Plug an Android (or iPhone) into the laptop via USB and enable USB tethering. UEFI detects the phone as a wired ethernet adapter via RNDIS — it gets an IP address and boots over the network without any WiFi password entry in the BIOS. Works on most modern UEFI firmware. You only need the phone, a USB cable, and a data connection (WiFi or 4G).

  1. 01
    Plug your Android phone into the laptop via USB

    Any USB-A or USB-C cable works. You do not need a special cable.

  2. 02
    Enable USB tethering on the phone

    Settings → Network & Internet → Hotspot & tethering → USB tethering. Toggle it on.

    iPhone? Use Settings → Personal Hotspot → Allow Others to Join, then connect via USB.
  3. 03
    Reboot your laptop into the UEFI/BIOS boot menu

    Typically F12, F2, Del, or Esc at power-on. Select the network (PXE) boot option.

    UEFI sees the phone as a wired ethernet adapter (RNDIS). No WiFi credentials required.
  4. 04
    UEFI requests an IP and fetches the boot image

    The phone acts as a DHCP server + gateway. UEFI sends an HTTP request to boot.vulos.org.

    The first-hop is plain HTTP, but every image is Ed25519-signed — see the security note below.
  5. 05
    Follow the on-screen installer

    Select your target disk, confirm, and Vulos installs. Remove the phone cable when done.

LAPTOPUSBRNDISUEFI sees ethernetWiFi / 4GinternetHTTPboot.vulos.org
laptop ← usb → phone (rndis) ← wifi/4g → boot.vulos.org
Method 02

USB stick (fallback)

If phone tethering is not available, flash the ~1 MB iPXE stick image to any USB drive. The stick contains only the iPXE bootloader, which fetches the installer from boot.vulos.org over any wired or wireless connection.

Download vulos-ipxe.img

~1 MB · iPXE · raw disk image · SHA-256 checksum in release manifest

  1. 01
    Download the iPXE USB stick image

    A ~1 MB raw disk image that contains only the iPXE bootloader pointing at boot.vulos.org.

  2. 02
    Flash it to a USB stick

    Use dd if=vulos-ipxe.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress on Linux/macOS, or Rufus / balenaEtcher on Windows. Replace /dev/sdX with your USB device.

  3. 03
    Boot from the USB stick

    Insert the stick, enter the BIOS boot menu (F12, F2, Del, or Esc), and select the USB device.

  4. 04
    Make sure you have internet connectivity

    iPXE will use any available wired ethernet or — on boards with integrated WiFi drivers — wireless. Phone tethering also works here.

  5. 05
    Follow the on-screen installer

    Same as Method 1 once the image loads.

Security model
Plain HTTP first-hop is safe

The initial iPXE fetch is over plain HTTP, but every boot image and installer artefact is signed with an Ed25519 key pinned to the Vulos release infrastructure. iPXE verifies the signature before executing anything — a MITM can delay or block the boot, but cannot inject malicious code. Read the full boot security model →