Download and flash

Grab the latest ISO, verify sha256, and write it to a USB drive with dd.

1. Download

Latest builds land on GitHub Releases and are mirrored to Archive.org. The Archive.org mirror is what the homepage links to because it’s free forever and torrentable.

GitHub Releases (current) — github.com/vinpatel/vinos/releases/latest
Archive.org (v1.1.0 archival only) — archive.org/details/vinos-1.1.0-x86_64 · permanent gold-copy mirror of the v1 line

Files you want:

vinos-2.0.5-x86_64.iso            ~4.4 GB
vinos-2.0.5-x86_64.iso.sha256     73 B
vinos-2.0.5-x86_64.iso.sig        (optional, GPG-signed sha256)

2. Verify

Never flash an unverified ISO. From the directory holding both files:

$ sha256sum -c vinos-2.0.5-x86_64.iso.sha256
vinos-2.0.5-x86_64.iso: OK

If you have the maintainer’s key (gpg --recv-keys 0xVINPATEL), verify the signature on the checksum file too:

$ gpg --verify vinos-2.0.5-x86_64.iso.sig vinos-2.0.5-x86_64.iso.sha256
gpg: Good signature from "Vin Patel <vin@mindtrades.com>"

3. Flash to USB

You need an 8 GB or larger USB stick. Its contents will be destroyed. Confirm the target device path before flashing — writing to the wrong disk will wipe your system.

Find the device:

$ lsblk -o NAME,SIZE,TYPE,MOUNTPOINTS
sda      500G  disk
├─sda1   512M  part /boot
└─sda2 499.5G  part /
sdb     14.6G  disk                    ← your USB stick

Flash it (this is Linux; macOS uses diskutil first to unmount, then sudo dd of=/dev/rdiskN):

$ sudo dd if=vinos-2.0.5-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync
4508876800 bytes (4.5 GB, 4.2 GiB) copied, 148 s, 30.5 MB/s
1075+1 records in
1075+1 records out

Eject cleanly:

$ sync && sudo eject /dev/sdb

Once you boot from the stick, the first thing you’ll see is the syslinux menu — pick “vinOS live” (highlighted by default) and press Return.

Screenshot pending: syslinux boot menu with "vinOS live" highlighted

Boot menu — see SCREENSHOTS_NEEDED.md #shot-04.

You’re ready for first boot.