6.1.3 USB Stick and DVD Installation

An ISO-9660 installation image that can be written to a USB stick or burnt to a DVD can be downloaded from ‘ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guixsd-install-0.14.0.system.iso.xz’, where system is one of:

x86_64-linux

for a GNU/Linux system on Intel/AMD-compatible 64-bit CPUs;

i686-linux

for a 32-bit GNU/Linux system on Intel-compatible CPUs.

Make sure to download the associated .sig file and to verify the authenticity of the image against it, along these lines:

$ wget ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/guix/guixsd-install-0.14.0.system.iso.xz.sig
$ gpg --verify guixsd-install-0.14.0.system.iso.xz.sig

If that command fails because you do not have the required public key, then run this command to import it:

$ gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys 3CE464558A84FDC69DB40CFB090B11993D9AEBB5

and rerun the gpg --verify command.

This image contains the tools necessary for an installation. It is meant to be copied as is to a large-enough USB stick or DVD.

Copying to a USB Stick

To copy the image to a USB stick, follow these steps:

1. Decompress the image using the xz command:

   xz -d guixsd-install-0.14.0.system.iso.xz
   

2. Insert a USB stick of 1 GiB or more into your machine, and determine its device name. Assuming that the USB stick is known as /dev/sdX, copy the image with:

   dd if=guixsd-install-0.14.0.x86_64-linux.iso of=/dev/sdX
   sync
   

   Access to /dev/sdX usually requires root privileges.

Burning on a DVD

To copy the image to a DVD, follow these steps:

1. Decompress the image using the xz command:

   xz -d guixsd-install-0.14.0.system.iso.xz
   

2. Insert a blank DVD into your machine, and determine its device name. Assuming that the DVD drive is known as /dev/srX, copy the image with:

   growisofs -dvd-compat -Z /dev/srX=guixsd-install-0.14.0.x86_64.iso
   

   Access to /dev/srX usually requires root privileges.

Booting

Once this is done, you should be able to reboot the system and boot from the USB stick or DVD. The latter usually requires you to get in the BIOS or UEFI boot menu, where you can choose to boot from the USB stick.

See Installing GuixSD in a VM, if, instead, you would like to install GuixSD in a virtual machine (VM).