# Obtaining NixOS {#sec-obtaining}

NixOS ISO images can be downloaded from the [NixOS download
page](https://nixos.org/download.html#nixos-iso). Follow the instructions in
[](#sec-booting-from-usb) to create a bootable USB flash drive.

If you have a very old system that can't boot from USB, you can burn the image
to an empty CD. NixOS might not work very well on such systems.

As an alternative to installing NixOS yourself, you can get a running
NixOS system through several other means:

-   Using virtual appliances in Open Virtualization Format (OVF) that
    can be imported into VirtualBox. These are available from the [NixOS
    download page](https://nixos.org/download.html#nixos-virtualbox).

-   Using AMIs for Amazon's EC2. To find one for your region, please refer
    to the [download page](https://nixos.org/download.html#nixos-amazon).

-   Using NixOps, the NixOS-based cloud deployment tool, which allows
    you to provision VirtualBox and EC2 NixOS instances from declarative
    specifications. Check out the [NixOps
    homepage](https://nixos.org/nixops) for details.