Installing as baremetal

The following section will guide you through the steps to install Athena OS as baremetal by covering all the possible choices you could set.

Pre-installation

In case you are installing Athena OS in dual boot with Windows, make sure that Fast Startup is disabled. For doing that on Windows, open Control Panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Power Options -> click on Choose what the power buttons do on the left side -> click on Change Settings that are currently unavailable on top (This will ask for administrator permissions) -> Unselect the Turn on fast startup option and click on Save Changes button.

Furthermore, you need to preserve the Microsoft bootloader files. We need to face the following scenario:

• Format the existing boot partition: save Microsoft bootloader folder somewhere, format the boot partitition, and move Microsoft bootloader folder inside it.

Save Microsoft bootloader

If you will format the boot partition, you need to save Microsoft bootloader files. Once you land on the Live Environment, open terminal and mount your existing boot partition (i.e., /dev/nvme0n1p1) containing Microsoft bootloader:

sudo mount /dev/nvme0n1p1 /mnt
cp -rf /mnt/EFI/Microsoft ~/
sudo umount /mnt

it will save Microsoft folder in the liveuser home folder. We will restore it just after the Athena OS installation ends as explained later.

Install Athena OS

Once prepared the setup as described in Baremetal installation prepare, and rebooted the system with your plugged USB drive containing the Athena OS installation media, you will see:

UEFI

Select Athena OS install medium.

BIOS/Legacy

Select Boot Athena OS (x86_64, BIOS, open source).

Once you land on the Live Environment, if you need to connect to Internet by WiFi, click on the network icon on the top bar:

Click on Available networks and select your WiFi network:

If the WiFi network is password-protected, type its password to connect to it:

Tip

In case your Internet connection is restricted, please use a VPN service. To set a VPN, click on the network icon on the top bar and select VPN Connections -> Add a VPN connection…:

Then, select the VPN you need to set:

Finally, follow the Aegis Installer documentation.