nixpkgs/nixos/doc/manual/installation/obtaining.xml

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         xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"
         xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XInclude"
         version="5.0"
         xml:id="sec-obtaining">
 <title>Obtaining NixOS</title>
 <para>
  NixOS ISO images can be downloaded from the <link
xlink:href="http://nixos.org/nixos/download.html">NixOS download page</link>. There are a number of installation options. If you happen to have an optical drive and a spare CD, burning the image to CD and booting from that is probably the easiest option. Most people will need to prepare a USB stick to boot from. <xref linkend="sec-booting-from-usb"/> describes the preferred method to prepare a USB stick. A number of alternative methods are presented in the <link
xlink:href="https://nixos.wiki/wiki/NixOS_Installation_Guide#Making_the_installation_media">NixOS Wiki</link>.
 </para>
 <para>
  As an alternative to installing NixOS yourself, you can get a running NixOS system through several other means:
  <itemizedlist>
   <listitem>
    <para>
     Using virtual appliances in Open Virtualization Format (OVF) that can be imported into VirtualBox. These are available from the <link xlink:href="http://nixos.org/nixos/download.html">NixOS download page</link>.
    </para>
   </listitem>
   <listitem>
    <para>
     Using AMIs for Amazon’s EC2. To find one for your region and instance type, please refer to the <link
    xlink:href="https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/nixos/modules/virtualisation/ec2-amis.nix">list of most recent AMIs</link>.
    </para>
   </listitem>
   <listitem>
    <para>
     Using NixOps, the NixOS-based cloud deployment tool, which allows you to provision VirtualBox and EC2 NixOS instances from declarative specifications. Check out the <link
    xlink:href="https://nixos.org/nixops">NixOps homepage</link> for details.
    </para>
   </listitem>
  </itemizedlist>
 </para>
</chapter>