Installation requirements

Hard requirements

Requirement	Why
Working network	The ISO carries only the installer. Everything else — toolchain, kernel, init, libc, tools — is fetched and compiled during install. No network, no install.
A machine that runs Linux	Keru is a Linux distribution. The installer boots on x86 (and other archs as they're proven).
A target disk/filesystem	The system is written to the filesystem you choose during install.
Some patience	Everything is built from source on your machine. A from-scratch toolchain + system takes time. The compiler, not the package manager, is the bottleneck.
A willingness to choose	Keru's only ask is that you form an opinion about init, libc, filesystem, kernel, and tooling. Defaults exist; the decisions are still yours.

Not requirements

No pre-existing Linux. You don't need an OS to install from — the ISO + installer handles everything.
No manual source builds. The installer drives the whole from-scratch build for you.
No binary packages. Nothing precompiled to download. You build what you run.
No telemetry or accounts. Nothing phone-home, nothing to sign up for to install.

The network, concretely

At the first installable release (0.1), the network path is straightforward: wired Ethernet via DHCP, or wireless via nmtui, both handled from inside the installer. See the network setup flow.

What "from the network" means

The installer reaches source tarballs (via a mirror such as mirror.keru.org, with upstream as fallback), pulls recipes from the recipe repository, and builds. The heavy lifting is the compiler on your CPU — which is exactly the point of a source-only, from-scratch distribution.

If you want fast and prebaked, a binary distro is right there. If you want your machine — built from source to your exact selection — Keru is the one.

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