How to Install Lingmo OS without CD or USB: A Step-by-Step Guide

This article is a guide for installing Lingmo OS without CD and USB.
Before following any of these steps, download the ISO image from https://lingmo.org/index.php/download-lingmo-os.

1 Preparation

1.1 Check the boot mode

1. Press Win+R keys to start the Run dialog
2. In the Run dialog type powershell "start cmd -Verb runAs" and press Enter to open an elevated command prompt
3. Type bcdedit /enum | find "winload" and then press Enter.
4. If it shows winload.efi, then the boot mode is UEFI.
   
   If it shows winload.exe, then the boot mode is BIOS.
   

1.2 Create the disk partition

1. Press Win+R keys to start the Run dialog
2. In the Run dialog type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter to open disk management.
3. Right click the partition you want to shrink, and then select Shrink Volume.

Note:If the file system isn't NTFS, you can't shrink the partition.
If there is some virtual memory on the partition, the Shrink Volume may still be greyed out.

4. Enter the size you want to shrink(at least 14336MB), and then click Shrink.
5. Right click the unallocated region on your hard disk, and then select New Simple Volume.
6. Change the simple volume size to 4096MB, and then click Next.
7. Accept the default drive letter, and then click Next.
8. In the Format Partition dialog box, change the file system to FAT32.
9. Review your choices, and then select Finish.
   

2 Create the live environment

2.1 Copy the contents

Use 7-Zip to open the ISO image and extract all the files and folders to the newly created partition.

2.2 Install GRUB2(For UEFI)

1. Download GRUB 2.06.

Note:GRUB 2.12 won't work properly on Windows.

2. Extract the grub-2.06-for-windows folder in grub-2.06-for-windows.zip to the newly created partition.
3. Open an elevated command prompt using steps in 1.1.
4. Use these commands to install GRUB2.

Replace E: with the newly created partition in the following commands.

For UEFI:

cd /d E:\grub-2.06-for-windows
grub-install --target=x86_64-efi --efi-directory=E: --boot-directory=E:\boot

For BIOS:

cd /d E:\grub-2.06-for-windows
grub-install --target=i386-pc --boot-directory=E:\boot \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0

3 Install Lingmo OS

3.1 Pre-installation

1. Restart the computer.
   
2. In the Login Screen type live and click Login.
3. Click the Install Lingmo shortcut icon from applications list(click the Launcher icon on the dock to show applications list)

3.2 Installation

1. The first few pages in the installer will ask you to select language, choose your location, and select a keyboard layout.
2. Once done first 3 steps, it goes into Partitions, and then choose Manual partitioning.
3. Click on the free space, and click Create button. EXT4 filesystem is recommended.
4. Change the mount point to / and click OK.
5. For UEFI, click on the first partition and click Edit, and change the mount point to /boot/efi.
6. Click Next.
7. Create a user, set password and hostname(computer name).
8. Finally, it will show a summary overview of what you did. If everything is OK, click Install.
9. The installation process can take a few minutes. When it is done successfully, you can restart your computer to the newly installed Lingmo OS.