Run Tilo in a virtual machine

The published Tilo installer is a compressed raw disk image, not a prepared VirtualBox appliance or UTM bundle. The same verified medium can boot a physical computer or a virtual machine.

Prepare the installer disk

1. After the download page marks a public release available, use Tilo Imager to download and authenticate the installer matching the guest architecture. For a manual download, verify the adjacent .sha256 value against the catalog embedded in a signed Imager. Do not use unsigned CI artifacts before publication.
2. Keep the verified compressed image and its checksum together.
3. Expand it with zstd -d tilo-installer-linux-ARCH.img.zst.
4. Keep the expanded image read-only and attach it as the VM’s first disk.
5. Add a new blank disk of at least 40 GB as the installation destination.

Do not attach a host physical disk, shared folder, clipboard, USB device or host filesystem. Use ordinary NAT networking.

Linux with virt-manager

Create a VM for the matching architecture, import the expanded installer image as its first storage device, and add a new blank virtual disk. Choose UEFI firmware and at least 4 GB of memory. Start the VM, select only the blank disk in Tilo Installer, and complete installation normally.

After shutdown, detach the installer image and boot the installed virtual disk. The introduction opens on the first desktop start.

Other hosts

VirtualBox and UTM can create a VM around the same raw installer and a blank destination disk, but Tilo does not publish host-specific appliance bundles. Use each application’s custom-VM flow, choose UEFI, disable host integration, and verify the destination by size before installation.

Remove it

Shut down from inside Tilo, then delete the VM and its virtual destination disk. The installer image and any exported workspace remain ordinary host files.