Ethernet required for install?

[Mathew Wescott]

I was under the impression from the documentation instructions that the installer worked completely offline. Yet every install I've tried to run on my machine has had an unknown error with the same message appearing to imply that it needs an Internet connection. Maybe the installation instructions are misleading?

[Andrew David Wong]

On 9/2/25 12:25 PM, Mathew Wescott wrote:
> I was under the impression from the documentation instructions that the installer worked completely offline. Yet every install I've tried to run on my machine has had an unknown error with the same message appearing to imply that it needs an Internet connection. Maybe the installation instructions are misleading?
>

The documentation is correct about the installer being completely offline. I believe the reason the installer mentions "downloading" packages is because Qubes OS uses a modified version of the Fedora installer, which, unlike Qubes OS, can download packages over the Internet during installation, and this "downloading" text was not changed, even though the Qubes installer is completely offline. In the Qubes OS installer, the packages are actually just being "downloaded" from your flash drive (or whichever installation medium you wrote your Qubes ISO to). I don't believe that your error actually has anything to do with your machine lacking network access.

[Andrew David Wong]

Please feel free to open a bug report for this:

https://doc.qubes-os.org/en/latest/introduction/issue-tracking.html#how-to-open-a-new-issue

I've also opened an issue for changing or removing the misleading installer text:

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/10199

[Tobias Killer]

Am 02.09.25 um 21:25 schrieb Mathew Wescott:

> I was under the impression from the documentation instructions that the installer worked completely offline. Yet every install I've tried to run on my machine has had an unknown error with the same message appearing to imply that it needs an Internet connection. Maybe the installation instructions are misleading?
>

Did you re-verify installation media after writing?

https://www.qubes-os.org/security/verifying-signatures/#how-to-re-verify-installation-media-after-writing

Sometimes, strange behavior during installation can be explained by
corrupted installation media.