CICADA.OS
● LIVE · —

Install

Product path
Live USB forgets. cicada-install is how Cicada becomes a full OS: LUKS, login, Files, wallpaper, Work UID. First login runs an optional setup wizard (skipped on live).

0 · Get the ISO on a stick

PREREQ

Follow Download. Boot the target laptop from USB (Option/⌥ on Intel Macs). Pick the default Cicada live entry unless you need amnesic copy-to-RAM.

1 · Live session

DEMO
  1. You are cicada Empty password on live. Overlay is RAM.
  2. Wi‑Fi Click WIFI on the bar — telemetry stays off.
  3. Desktop Left dock, tiling windows, Helium for web, Files for pcmanfm-qt.
  4. Do not Enroll duress or TPM on the live stick — there is no LUKS yet.

2 · Install to disk

DAILY DRIVER

Easiest path is the Etch Cicada icon on the live desktop. It asks for your keyboard layout, timezone and language first — the keyboard matters, see below — then the disk, then the passphrases.

No network needed. Cicada installs by copying the system you are already running, so it works offline and gives you exactly the image that was tested. (That also means a laptop whose Wi-Fi does not work yet can still be installed.) 

sudo cicada-install --list
sudo cicada-install --target /dev/sdX                 # external, whole disk
sudo cicada-install --target /dev/nvme0n1 --internal  # Framework-class only

# non-US keyboard? set it here, not afterwards:
sudo cicada-install --target /dev/sdX --keymap de --timezone Europe/Berlin --locale de_DE.UTF-8

Apple internal disks are refused. You set a LUKS passphrase (disk) and a user password for cicada (login). Root is locked — use sudo.

2b · Keeping Windows or macOS

DUAL BOOT

Cicada can install into one partition and leave the rest of the disk — including the other operating system and its EFI partition — untouched.

  1. Shrink the existing volume with its own tool Disk Management on Windows, Disk Utility on macOS. Cicada deliberately does not resize other filesystems — that is where dual-boot installers destroy data, and the vendor tool knows things about the filesystem that an outside resizer does not.
  2. Create a partition in the free space At least 16 GiB. Note its path and the path of the existing EFI partition.
  3. Install into it 
    sudo cicada-install --partition /dev/nvme0n1p5 --esp /dev/nvme0n1p1
    Only that partition is written. The partition table is not touched, the ESP is not reformatted, and the existing EFI fallback loader is backed up as BOOTX64.EFI.precicada before Cicada's is installed beside it.

Cicada refuses the combinations that would destroy the other OS: an --esp that is not actually a FAT EFI partition, a whole disk passed where a partition belongs, or a partition that is currently mounted.

Set your keyboard layout BEFORE the passphrase

NO RECOVERY

The layout decides which characters your keys actually produce. If a passphrase is composed under one layout and the boot prompt asks for it under another, the disk cannot be opened — by you or by anyone — and there is no recovery, because the whole design is that no recovery exists. The installer therefore asks for the layout first and applies it immediately, so the passphrase you choose is typed on the same layout that will unlock it. If it cannot load the layout you picked, it stops rather than continue.

3 · First hour on the install

OPTIONAL
sudo passwd cicada-work       # Work UID created at firstboot
sudo cicada-duress-enroll     # second LUKS passphrase
sudo cicada-tpm-enroll        # skip / exit 2 on Apple EFI
sudo cicada-sbctl-enroll      # Setup Mode only
cicada-attest                 # pin device.pub on a phone you trust

Settings → Camera & microphone for the software AV kill. Settings → App permissions for per-app scopes. Full sheet: docs/USER.md in the repo.

Stuck?

SUPPORT

Open an issue on GitHub. Say what machine, which boot entry, and the exact command that failed.