Quick start

The shortest path to a running DeskOS machine: take an image the pipeline already built, scanned and booted, write a disk from it, and boot the disk. No resources, no compiler, no build.

You need: Linux x86_64 with rootful Podman and QEMU, about 20 GB free, and KVM for the virtual machine.

1. Pick the image

Platform	Image
CentOS Stream 10	quay.io/deskos/deskos-core-centos-stream-10:latest
Fedora 45	quay.io/deskos/deskos-core-fedora-45:latest

:latest is the newest image that passed the weekly build; :candidate is the digest that build published and signed. Outside a lab, pin the digest you verified (install.md).

2. Write a QCOW2

mkdir -p output
sudo podman run --rm -it --privileged --pull=missing \
  --security-opt label=type:unconfined_t \
  -v "$PWD/output:/output" \
  -v /var/lib/containers/storage:/var/lib/containers/storage \
  quay.io/centos-bootc/bootc-image-builder:latest \
  build --type qcow2 --rootfs xfs \
  quay.io/deskos/deskos-core-centos-stream-10:latest

The disk lands at output/qcow2/disk.qcow2. Fedora's root filesystem is btrfs: pass --rootfs btrfs and the Fedora image (Fedora 45).

3. Boot it

sudo qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -m 4096 -smp 2 \
  -drive file=output/qcow2/disk.qcow2,if=virtio,format=qcow2 \
  -nic user,model=virtio-net-pci

Or hand the disk to virt-manager/virt-install if you prefer.

What you see

Plymouth's DeskOS splash, then GNOME Initial Setup, because the image ships no user account: the wizard creates the first one, and that account is the administrator. The desktop is the DeskOS one: the dock, the tray and the applications the workstation declares.

Where to go next

• Install on a machine, or build an ISO from the same image: install.md and installer-iso.md.
• Build your own image from resources instead of taking ours: development.md.
• Understand what you booted: architecture.md and the resource reference.