There are two ways in. Take the first one unless you have a reason not to.

1. The ISO (recommended)

Download vinos-1.4.0-x86_64.iso from the releases page, verify it against the published sha256sums.txt, and write it to any 8 GB+ stick:

# Linux: replace sdX with your actual USB device, and check it twice
sudo dd if=vinos-1.4.0-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync

Etcher and Rufus work fine too. Boot the stick, pick Install vinOS to disk from the menu, and answer the prompts. The installer partitions, pacstraps, installs the bootloader, creates your user, and reboots you into the installed system.

On an Apple T2 Mac

Nothing extra to do. The installer detects Apple hardware and installs the linux-t2 kernel to disk alongside the stock one, wires the Broadcom Wi-Fi quirks and the apple-bce early-boot modules, enables fan control and the Touch Bar daemon, and makes the T2 kernel the boot default.

Two things worth knowing:

• Before you boot the stick: on the Mac, disable Secure Boot and allow booting from external media in Startup Security Utility (hold ⌘R at power-on → Utilities → Startup Security Utility). Apple ships both locked down.
• If the installer cannot reach the T2 package mirror, it says so and finishes on the stock kernel instead of failing. That system boots to a readable console, deliberately unsplashed, with the internal keyboard and Wi-Fi still dead. Attach a USB keyboard and a wired connection, then run vinos-t2-enable to finish the job.

Known T2 limits: suspend is unreliable upstream, and Touch ID does not work under Linux. Everything else does.

2. Layer it onto an Arch install you already have

If you have a working Arch box you do not want to reinstall, vinOS can go on top of it. It is additive and does not modify base packages.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vinpatel/vinos/main/boot.sh | bash

That installs git if missing, clones the repo to ~/.local/share/vinos, and runs install.sh, which orchestrates the numbered scripts (01-base through 06-hardware). Every step is idempotent, so it is safe to re-run. If one fails, resume past it:

cd ~/.local/share/vinos && ./install.sh --skip NN

This path does not set up the T2 kernel for you the way the ISO installer does. Run vinos-t2-enable afterwards on Apple hardware.

First moves

• Super + K: the keybindings cheat sheet.
• Super + Ctrl + O: vinOS menu (bundles, wifi, theme, doctor, lock).
• Super + Ctrl + W: wifi via impala.
• Super + A: AI chat (install first with vinos-install-ai).

Bundles

The base install is deliberately small. Add what you actually use:

vinos-install-ai            # ollama + claude-code + torch + aichat
vinos-install-dev           # postgres + redis + k8s + rust + go + docker + mise
vinos-install-media         # mpv + kdenlive + obs + spotify + evince
vinos-install-office        # libreoffice + thunderbird
vinos-install-gaming        # steam + lutris + gamemode
vinos-install-productivity  # obsidian + notion + typora + 1password
vinos-install-comms         # signal + localsend
vinos-install-browser       # chromium + firefox

Full catalog: Bundles.

Uninstall

For the layered install, vinOS is additive, with no base package modifications:

sudo pacman -Rns hyprland waybar foot mako walker ...  # and any bundle
rm -rf ~/.config/{hypr,waybar,foot,mako,walker} ~/.local/share/vinos
sudo mv /etc/os-release.arch.bak /etc/os-release

Full source: github.com/vinpatel/vinos