pyrox.dev
1<section xmlns="http://docbook.org/ns/docbook"
2 xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
3 xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
4 version="5.0"
5 xml:id="sec-booting-from-usb">
6
7<title>Booting from a USB Drive</title>
8
9<para>For systems without CD drive, the NixOS live CD can be booted from
10a USB stick. You can use the <command>dd</command> utility to write the image:
11<command>dd if=<replaceable>path-to-image</replaceable>
12of=<replaceable>/dev/sdb</replaceable></command>. Be careful about specifying the
13correct drive; you can use the <command>lsblk</command> command to get a list of
14block devices.</para>
15
16<para>On macOS:
17<programlisting>
18$ diskutil list
19[..]
20/dev/diskN (external, physical):
21 #: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER
22[..]
23$ diskutil unmountDisk diskN
24Unmount of all volumes on diskN was successful
25$ sudo dd bs=1m if=nix.iso of=/dev/rdiskN
26</programlisting>
27Using the 'raw' <command>rdiskN</command> device instead of <command>diskN</command>
28completes in minutes instead of hours. After <command>dd</command> completes, a GUI
29dialog "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer" will pop up, which
30can be ignored.</para>
31
32<para>The <command>dd</command> utility will write the image verbatim to the drive,
33making it the recommended option for both UEFI and non-UEFI installations. For
34non-UEFI installations, you can alternatively use
35<link xlink:href="http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/">unetbootin</link>. If you
36cannot use <command>dd</command> for a UEFI installation, you can also mount the
37ISO, copy its contents verbatim to your drive, then either:
38
39<itemizedlist>
40 <listitem>
41 <para>Change the label of the disk partition to the label of the ISO
42 (visible with the blkid command), or</para>
43 </listitem>
44 <listitem>
45 <para>Edit <filename>loader/entries/nixos-livecd.conf</filename> on the drive
46 and change the <literal>root=</literal> field in the <literal>options</literal>
47 line to point to your drive (see the documentation on <literal>root=</literal>
48 in <link xlink:href="https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/admin-guide/kernel-parameters.txt">
49 the kernel documentation</link> for more details).</para>
50 </listitem>
51 <listitem>
52 <para>If you want to load the contents of the ISO to ram after bootin
53 (So you can remove the stick after bootup) you can append the parameter
54 <literal>copytoram</literal>to the <literal>options</literal> field.</para>
55 </listitem>
56</itemizedlist>
57</para>
58
59</section>