install guide

INSTALL GUIDE

Three ways to install. MAKE SURE YOU DOWNLOAD THE RIGHT FILE, the .ISO and .IMG FILES HAVE DIFFRENCES IN THE INITIAL RAM DISK AND ARE NOT INTERCHANGABLE. THIS IS NOT OTHER LIVE CDs(where you can do this).

1. .ISO file, make a DVD

download the .iso file and burn it to a CD/DVD using burner of choice. Easy.

Using optical media is not reccomended for general use. They are slow, bulky, fragile, read only, and the drives consume lots of power. Its also far easier than anything else. The install scripts to make the USB version come preloaded. Only use this if you have to.

NOTE: As of yet, the CD is over 800mb and won't fit on a CD, you need a DVD. Unlikely to ever fit on a CD

Please note that as of Mid-2013, this is no longer supported, as ,iso file builds refuse to yield working bugs. fixing this is somewhat low prority, because opitcal drives are being used less and less, and our usage models revolve around using

2. Make a USB stick. Download the .zip bundle.(Recommended)

As of 0.6.x we now have install scripts. you can still copy with UNIX dd (boot sector goes to the boot sector, and the main .img file goes to partition 1, which needs to be 1GB in size.

As of 0.7.x we now ship the forge scripts with Ninja OS in a .zip file as the preffered method.

As of 0.9.0, partition size is 1.2GB and cannot be directly upgraded from versions older than 0.9.0. Copy all data off data partitions and reforge.

As of 0.10.0 parition size is 2GB.

If your running linux, or other UNIX system that includes the BASH shell, you should download the "USBStick Bundle" file thats the recommended download, and then either use ninjaforge.sh for new installs or makeninja.sh for upgrades to copy the binary .img's tot he flash stick. These are the same scripts behind ninja_forge and ninja_make. See [Clone and Forge] for more information.

Mac OSX uses BASH as the default shell, as well as runs a POSIX compliant enviroment, so it should run, but I have no idea how you'd find your USB stick names in OSX.

It also helps to have "pv" the pipe viewer installed, but its not neccary. the scripts will check if pv is installer, and will use it to make a nice text mode progress bar for file transfers.

If you are already running Ninja OS, you can use the built in [Clone and Forge] scripts to install Ninja OS on other USB sticks. to use versions other than the version running on the USB stick update the version /var/liveos_version.conf. Remember changes disapear at reboot. You can also copy liveos_version.conf</code to your local directory, as this will override the system settings.

As of 2016, Windows 10 now bundles BASH and GNU coreutils, so this should, work on windows 10. without extra tools.

If your running old versions of windows, this might work, but since I don't run windows I never tested it.
http://uranus.chrysocome.net/linux/rawwrite/dd.htm

Also recommended is m0n0wall's physdiskwrite:
http://m0n0.ch/wall/physdiskwrite.php

BASH for Windows. No guaruntees it will work.
http://win-bash.sourceforge.net/

There is also the "Linux Live USB Creator" too, that has a nice windows GUI for creating linux USB sticks. This will NOT partition the drive, but just copy the image.(you still need to copy the boot sector).
http://www.linuxliveusb.com/

MANUAL INSTALL:

Copy the the main 2GB ninjaosXXX.img to a partition on a disk. Flag it bootable. Copy the boot sector to the first 440 bytes of the drive(which is the MBR boot sector).

in the folder scripts/ there is a file name ninjaforge.sh that can setup Ninja OS partitions.

$ sudo ./ninjaforge.sh /dev/sdX<./code>

OR, if you already have Ninja OS installed, with a 2 GB parition you can

$ sudo ./ninjaforge.sh --upgrade /dev/sdX

see ./ninjaforge.sh --help for more information

2a. Hack to Get USB stick From a Non-UNIX/UNIX-like machine

OK, so we have some new install scripts. OK, so people use windows. This should be the most painless way to make a USB stick from a windows box. Or more importantly, with the least amount of miscellaneous software. This will assume the PC is a public computer

You need:
Computer you can burn DVDs/BluRays from, and boot alternate media from.
One writable DVD-R
One USB stick 2 GB or larger (8GB or more recommended).

1. format USB stick standard windows fat32 partitioning.
2. Download the .iso version to the USB stick, and burn it to a DVD
3. Boot the new Ninja OS DVD you just made,
4. Click applications->system-disks find the path of the USB stick under the "device" label.(make sure its still plugged in)
5. Open Terminal (ctrl-alt-t), now type ninjaforge --partonly (device path) and hit enter. wait for it to finish
6, Go back to the Disk utility and format the second parition(one on the right), as FAT.(click on it, click on the gear, then click on "Format...") Wait for it to be done, then hit the little "play" button to mount it. Take note where it mounts.
6. Now download the USB stick images to the USBStick location from step 6.
7. Navigate to the downloaded files, and right click next to them and select "Open Location in Terminal"
8. In Terminal Run: ninja_make (device path)
9. Now boot of the USB Stick and run integrity_check in terminal to verify everything copied ok.

3. Hard - Larch Profile

The equivelant of "source code". All the files used to build NinjaOS with the larch tool. This is a zip file, just extract it and follow instructions in the README file.

NOTE: to make NinjaOS with larch, you need to have larch installed. Its a python2 script for making live cds with Arch Linux. Its non necessary to have arch linux installed, but it IS necessary to have gnu/linux installed, along with python2.
http://larch.berlios.de