Try Luft with Meet Luft

Meet Luft is a small app for Windows and Linux. It checks your computer, puts Luft next to the system you already have, and restarts into Luft once. From there you can try the desktop, install Luft, or on Linux let it take the old system’s place. Until you decide in the installer, your computer keeps starting the way it always has.

	Download
Windows 10 or 11	meet-luft.exe (checksum)
Linux	meet-luft.AppImage (checksum)

Meet Luft isn’t code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen asks before it first starts: choose More info, then Run anyway.

Meet Luft downloads only the Luft your computer needs: the image with NVIDIA’s driver when it has an NVIDIA graphics card, hybrid laptops included, and the standard image otherwise. The size it shows is the real size of that download. If you already have a Luft ISO, Use an ISO I already have skips the download.

On Windows

1. It checks the PC. Luft needs a 64-bit Intel or AMD processor, UEFI and a GPT drive. Meet Luft also looks at Secure Boot, the TPM, BitLocker, Fast Startup, free space, the graphics card and the Wi-Fi chip, and says what each means for you. When Secure Boot is off, it explains where to turn it on for your PC’s maker and can restart straight into the firmware settings. Start entries left behind by systems you removed long ago, such as an old Ubuntu, can be tidied away here too.
2. It makes room. Windows makes its own partition smaller, the same way Disk Management does, so this works with BitLocker on. Then Meet Luft downloads Luft, checks it against its checksum, and unpacks it as it arrives.
3. It restarts into Luft. Luft starts through Fedora’s signed boot loader, so Secure Boot can stay on. The restart after that goes back to Windows.
   • Try Luft opens the desktop. Nothing is installed.
   • Install Luft opens the installer with Alongside Windows already chosen, in the room Meet Luft made. Nothing on the drive changes until you confirm there.
4. It packs a moving box, if you like: folders from your Windows account, your wallpaper, your name and account picture, time zone, keyboard and language, Bluetooth devices, and Wi-Fi networks with their passwords (only when you tick that). The installer fills in your name and regional settings from it and unpacks the rest into your new account.

Before restarting, Meet Luft offers to keep the clock right in both systems and, when you install, to turn off Fast Startup. It changes both in Windows itself, so they work with BitLocker on. Installing alongside Windows explains why they matter.

Meet Luft asks Windows for administrator rights once, when it first looks at the drive. It needs an internet connection unless you pick an ISO.

On Linux

Meet Luft for Linux repartitions nothing. It keeps Luft as files in a folder, /home/.luft-meet on the drive with your home folder, and adds a small start entry called Meet Luft next to your system’s own boot files. The folder has to be on ext4, btrfs or XFS on a plain partition: Luft can’t start from an encrypted drive, LVM or RAID yet, and Meet Luft tells you when that’s the case.

It asks for your password once, when it first looks at the computer. When Luft is ready, there are three ways in:

• Try Luft opens the desktop.
• Replace opens the installer with your current system chosen, explains what stays and what changes, and does nothing until you confirm. See Replacing another Linux.
• Install Luft opens the installer to put Luft on another drive or in free space.

Getting a newer Luft

When a newer build is out than the one Meet Luft copied, it offers Get the newest Luft next to Try Luft. It replaces the old build and keeps your room, your moving box and the logs from earlier tries.

Meet Luft follows releases. To try the nightly builds instead, start it with --nightly or press Ctrl+Shift+N; press it again to go back.

Making a USB stick

Make a USB stick puts Luft on a stick, on Windows and on Linux. It lists only removable USB drives, with each one’s name, size and what’s on it, and finds a stick you plug in later by itself.

• By default the stick gets the universal image, which installs on any computer.
• For this PC writes the smaller image built for this computer’s graphics.
• Use an ISO I already have writes that ISO, checked against a .sha256 file next to it when there is one.

Meet Luft names the stick and asks before erasing it. After writing, it reads everything back and compares it with the ISO before ejecting the stick. Downloads are kept, so the next stick doesn’t download again.

Ventoy sticks

If your stick was made with Ventoy, Meet Luft recognises it and asks whether to add Luft next to your other ISOs or to erase the stick and make it a Luft stick. Adding checks the free space first, asks before replacing an older Luft ISO, and verifies the copy before ejecting.

Luft starts from Ventoy’s normal mode with nothing to configure. With Secure Boot on, Ventoy asks once, on its own blue screen, to enroll its key.

Logs from Try Luft

When Luft runs from Meet Luft, it saves its logs where Meet Luft keeps it, so a problem on your hardware can be looked at afterwards. Ctrl+Shift+L in Meet Luft copies the newest logs to your desktop as a zip. Logs and reporting problems has the details.

Taking it back out

Remove Luft from this PC deletes everything Meet Luft added and gives Windows its space back. On Linux, Remove Luft from this computer deletes the folder and the start entry. Once Luft is installed and you sign in for the first time, it removes Meet Luft’s leftovers itself and grows into their space.