Hey guys! So this is subject to change, and I expect we'll update it frequently.

Current Status: Updated August 2024

If you just want to test a VM with Serpent OS and moss, have a look at the How to install Serpent OS guide.

If you want to test moss/boulder on a Linux distribution other than Serpent OS, this guide is for you.

Firstly, visit the moss repo and follow the instructions in the README.

You'll eventually end up with moss and a boulder binaries in ~/.local/bin and I'm giving @ermo permission to ghost-edit my instructions later 🙂

Assuming you've now got moss:

user@host:~/repos/moss
$ cd ..
$ git clone https://github.com/serpent-os/img-tests
$ pushd img-tests && ./create-sosroot.sh

This will give you a fairly minimal root - with fat packages. Right now upgrade paths are not supported until announced otherwise.

Expect everything to be super rough

Boot it:

./boot-systemd-nspawn-container.sh

You'll be prompted to hit a button, enter locales and root password before you can log in:

Welcome to your new installation of Serpent OS 0.1.0 (fstx #1)!

Please configure your system!

-- Press any key to proceed --[  OK  ] Finished Flush Journal to Persistent Storage.
[  OK  ] Finished Rebuild Hardware Database.

‣ Please enter system locale name or number (empty to skip, "list" to list options): 3
Selected 'en_GB.UTF-8'.
‣ Please enter system message locale name or number (empty to skip, "list" to list options): 3
Selected 'en_GB.UTF-8'.
/etc/locale.conf written.

🔐 ‣ Please enter a new root password (empty to skip): ***************
🔐 ‣ Please enter new root password again: ***************
/etc/passwd written
/etc/shadow written.
[  OK  ] Finished First Boot Wizard.
(... lots of output ...)
[  OK  ] Finished Commit a transient machine-id on disk.

sosroot login: root
Password: 
root@sosroot # ~

Some quick commands:

# neofetch
# moss repo list
# moss repo update
# moss sync
# moss list installed
# moss list available
# moss help

To shut down a booted systemd-nspawn container, issue a poweroff command as root.

Good luck!

Known issues:

Impossible to login into the nspawn container
login: PAM failure, aborting: Critical error - immediate abort
Both with passwordless root and with password.

~~Fixed setup instructions. Running moss remote add and moss install with sudo when setting up the nspawn container will produce the error above.~~