LevitateOS

Documentation

Installation Tools Overview

Command-line tools for manual LevitateOS installation, equivalent to Arch Linux's pacstrap, genfstab, and arch-chroot.

Section

Overview

LevitateOS provides three installation tools that mirror Arch Linux's manual installation workflow. These tools give you complete control over the installation process.

WARNING

Default update model: A/B immutable (slot updates + rollback). Mutable mode is an explicit opt-in for daredevils, and is unsafe if you let an LLM author recipes without review.
LevitateOS Arch Linux Purpose
recstrap pacstrap Extract base system to target directory
recfstab genfstab Generate fstab from mounted filesystems
recchroot arch-chroot Enter chroot with proper bind mounts

Scope note: this page documents the installer trio only. The repo also ships broader rec* tooling for build/test/runtime workflows. In canonical order: recab, recart, recguard, recinit, reciso, recpart, recqemu, recuki.

Section

Installation Workflow

The three tools are used in sequence during installation. This workflow assumes you have already prepared your disks.

Complete installation workflow:

STEP 01
mount /dev/sda2 /mnt Mount system slot A (system-a)
STEP 02
mount --mkdir /dev/sda1 /mnt/boot Mount EFI System Partition
STEP 03
mount --mkdir /dev/sda4 /mnt/var Mount persistent state partition (/var)
STEP 04
recstrap /mnt Extract the base system
STEP 05
recfstab /mnt >> /mnt/etc/fstab Generate fstab entries
STEP 06
mkdir -p /mnt/boot/EFI/Linux && cp /run/live-media/boot/uki/levitateos-system-a.efi /mnt/boot/EFI/Linux/ && cp /run/live-media/boot/uki/levitateos-system-b.efi /mnt/boot/EFI/Linux/ Copy A/B boot images (UKIs)
STEP 07
recchroot /mnt Enter the new system
STEP 08
passwd root Set root password (inside chroot)
STEP 09
bootctl install Install bootloader (inside chroot)
STEP 10
exit Exit chroot
STEP 11
reboot Reboot into installed system

Section

Design Philosophy

Each tool does one thing and does it well:

  • recstrap only extracts files. It does not partition, format, mount, configure, or install bootloaders.
  • recfstab only generates fstab. It outputs to stdout; you redirect to a file.
  • recchroot only enters chroot. It sets up mounts, runs your command, and cleans up.

This separation means you understand exactly what each step does. If something goes wrong, you know which tool to debug.

Section

Error Codes

All three tools use consistent error code formatting. Error messages include a code like E001, E002, etc. These codes are unique per tool and documented in each tool's reference page.

Command
bash 
# Example error output
recstrap: E001: target directory '/mnt' does not exist
recfstab: E006: no filesystems found under '/mnt'
recchroot: E007: must run as root

Section

See Also