Installation

Installing Prism is designed to be a streamlined experience, moving from a live environment to a fully configured NixOS system in minutes.

Prerequisites

  • A USB drive (minimum 8GB).
  • An active internet connection (Ethernet is recommended, though Wi-Fi is supported).
  • Backup your data: The default installation path will erase the target disk.

Prepare the Media

Download the latest Prism ISO from the official GitHub repository:

Download link

You can download the minimal ISO from the GitHub latest release page

Flash the ISO to your USB drive using dd, BalenaEtcher, or Raspberry Pi Imager.

# Example using dd
sudo dd if=prism-os.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

Booting & Partitioning

Boot your machine from the USB drive. You will land in the Prism Live TUI environment.

Disk Setup

Before running the installer, you must decide how to handle your partitions:

  • Automatic (Wipe): The installer can handle this for you, but it will erase the entire disk.
  • Manual (GParted): If you need a specific partition layout (Dual boot, separate /home), launch GParted from the terminal:
gparted

Running the Installer

Once your partitions are ready (or if you've decided to wipe the disk), launch the interactive Prism installation wizard:

prism-installer

The Wizard Workflow:

  1. Network Check: Ensures you are connected to the internet to fetch the latest Nix flakes.
  2. Hardware Detection: Scans for NVIDIA/AMD GPUs and optimizes kernel modules.
  3. User Creation: Sets up your primary Prism user and initial password.
  4. Profile Selection: Choose your "Persona" (Developer, Gamer, Creator, etc.) to pre-install specific toolchains.
  5. Installation: The system will fetch the latest prism flake and build your environment.

First boot

Once the installer finishes, remove the USB drive and reboot your system:

reboot

Upon logging in, Prism will run its Scaffolding Script. This is normal! It is steamrolling the default themes, wallpapers, and configurations into your $HOME directory to ensure you land in a pixel-perfect environment.

Post-Installation

If you used the latest ISO, your system should be up to date. But to ensure it you can run the following command.

prism-update