Create a live disk.
A USB stick that boots any spare box into pipeOS. Three steps, one line.
1. Plug a USB stick into this computer.
8 GB or larger. Everything on it will be erased.
2. Write the image — macOS or Linux.
One line does it all: lists your removable disks, asks which one, fetches the latest released image, verifies it, and writes it — your OS asks for your password once. Click to copy, paste in a terminal:
$ curl -sSf https://pipe.online/flash.sh | sh
Prefer to do each step yourself? The image, its digest and the dd line are on downloads.
2. Write the image — Windows.
Use Rufus, the standard free image writer — it reads the compressed image as-is:
| get | the image: pipeos-usb.img.xz, and Rufus from rufus.ie |
| pick | your USB stick under Device, then SELECT and choose the downloaded pipeos-usb.img.xz |
| write | START, and wait for the bar — everything on the stick is erased |
2. Write the image — from a pipeOS box.
A Machine you already run can make its own replacement stick: plug the spare stick into the box and, from its terminal,
$ pipeos flash apply --to /dev/sdX
It fetches the latest release, verifies it, and writes the image and that box's identity onto the spare, so the new stick boots as the same Machine. It is not how a stick for a different box is made; that is the lines above. Remove the old stick before booting the new one. Details in the live disk page.
3. Boot the box from it.
Move the stick to any spare x86_64 box, power on (Secure Boot off), and open http://pipeos.local/ from any device on the same network. Claiming it and connecting Claude takes about three minutes — the setup walkthrough.
Rather skip all this? A ready-made stick or box ships in 3 to 5 business days, 7 to 10 for a cluster.