Supported platforms¶
Eight.ly OS is one product, installed one way: boot the installer image onto the machine and it becomes the whole box, the way Unraid, TrueNAS, or Proxmox do. There's no package install, no Docker-container version of Eight.ly OS, and no native macOS or Windows build.
Find your machine¶
| You have | What to do |
|---|---|
| A dedicated x86-64 server, NAS, or mini PC | Boot the installer ISO — Install Eight.ly OS |
| An arm64 board or server | An arm64 installer image exists — check the download page for the current state of that build before committing hardware to it |
| A Mac (Apple Silicon or Intel) | Run Eight.ly OS in a virtual machine — Try Eight.ly OS in a VM on your Mac |
| A Windows PC | Not supported as a host for Eight.ly OS itself. Run it in a VM (Hyper-V, VirtualBox, or similar), or dedicate the machine to it via the installer |
Eight.ly OS¶
A full appliance operating system for x86-64 bare metal or a VM, installed from a bootable image — USB stick, network boot, or iDRAC/IPMI virtual media. It takes over the whole machine.
Eight.ly OS also runs on arm64 hardware. Ask your own box's dashboard (footer, or Settings) for what it's running, and check the download page for which architectures currently have a build available — this page won't try to guess a status that changes between releases.
→ Install Eight.ly OS · Hardware compatibility
What Nova needs¶
Nova, the built-in assistant, needs 8 GB of memory or a supported GPU. On a machine with less than that and no GPU, Nova's models are not offered for install, and Nova's page says so. A box that already has Nova installed keeps it working.
Macs¶
There's no native Eight.ly OS build for macOS, and none is planned — it's a Linux appliance. The supported way to run it on a Mac is inside a virtual machine: your Mac keeps running macOS, and Eight.ly OS runs in a VM window you can start, stop, or throw away. See Try Eight.ly OS in a VM on your Mac for the full walkthrough, and Eight.ly OS on your Mac for the bigger picture of what that setup is (and isn't) good for.
What we could not verify for this page¶
- The exact current state of the arm64 installer image (whether it's still validated only in virtual machines, or has real-hardware coverage now) — check the download page and Hardware compatibility rather than trusting a status written here.
- Windows-as-a-host was never a supported path and isn't being tested here; this page states only that it isn't supported, without further detail.