Aero7 Weekly Devlog — August 9, 2026

[memegeko]

Aero7 Weekly Devlog — August 9, 2026

Period: August 3–9, 2026

This week Aero7 moved beyond VM-only installation, gained guarded physical-drive and advanced partitioning support, refreshed its desktop experience and documentation, and produced a verified August 9 Beta 1 image.

Highlights

• Added guarded installation support for physical SATA, NVMe, MMC, and VirtIO disks.
• Added guided advanced partitioning actions for creating, formatting, shrinking, deleting, and extending partitions.
• Successfully installed Aero7 on a Dell Latitude 3310 and reached a working Plasma desktop.
• Rebranded the Plymouth boot animation using Aero7-owned artwork.
• Regenerated the complete installer, OOBE, desktop, and application screenshot collection.
• Made beta the canonical repository and Aero7 Shell branch.
• Completed the public source-tree and licensing review and removed the obsolete release hold.

Installer improvements

• Added guarded physical-disk installation with disk identity checks before destructive operations.
• Added Ventoy live-media detection.
• Added support for loading storage drivers during disk setup.
• Improved installation progress reporting, including measured pacstrap download progress.
• Preserved installation and hardware diagnostics when failures occur.
• Fixed live-installer DNS before disk setup begins.
• Fixed the installed-system lock screen.
• Branded the installed operating system consistently as Aero7.
• Allowed the required libplasma package replacement during installation.
• Forced a complete repaint between installer pages to prevent stale visual content.
• Restored user ownership after ISO assembly.

Desktop and application changes

• Added a focused set of desktop applications:

  • QTerminal as Command Prompt
  • VLC as Media Player
  • Spectacle as Snipping Tool
  • KCalc as Calculator
  • FeatherPad as Notepad

• Added Print Screen and Meta+Shift+S screenshot shortcuts.

• Preseeded the Aero7 light glass desktop configuration.

• Fixed first-login Kvantum theme selection.

• Pinned menu-decoration, startup, popup, wallpaper, application-migration, sound-theme, and Fastfetch branding updates.

• Replaced the installer’s desktop preview with the Aero7 background.

Boot and branding changes

• Rebuilt the Plymouth animation around Aero7 logos and reveal frames.
• Anchored the Plymouth logo animation to stop unwanted movement.
• Removed remaining legacy Microsoft-branded Plymouth assets.
• Refreshed installer, SDDM, desktop, and documentation branding.
• Consolidated third-party licensing information.

Documentation

A complete screenshot gallery was generated with current captures for:

• Every installer and OOBE step
• Desktop overview, Start menu, taskbar, clock, volume, networking, and lock screen
• File Explorer, Photo Viewer, Command Prompt, Media Player, Notepad, Calculator, Paint, Task Manager, Control Panel, Device Manager, and other Aero7 applications

Installation documentation now covers Ventoy, Rufus, direct-write media, QEMU/KVM, physical hardware, advanced partitioning, storage-controller requirements, and disk-safety precautions.

Release and validation status

A new Beta 1 image was built and verified:

• ISO: aero7-beta1-2026.08.09-x86_64.iso
• Size: 1,401,708,544 bytes
• SHA-256: 107d044c41f4bba8e8c308e11b7986858ff46a525937e8f0508181d0c9c6c710
• ISO label: AERO7B1_20260809

The image passed scripts/verify-release.sh, including checks for:

• Hybrid ISO, GPT, and UEFI boot structure
• Embedded SquashFS readability
• Source locks and package manifests
• Disk-operation safety gates
• Aero7 identity, desktop layout, applications, and branding
• Plymouth, SDDM, lock-screen, and first-login assets

The source also passed Python, Bash, Qt/C++, QML, CMake, Ninja, and multi-resolution render-smoke validation. The latest Source checks workflow completed successfully.

A whole-disk installation on a Dell Latitude 3310 reached a working Plasma desktop with no failed systemd units. Formal hardware support still requires another candidate test because the installer log was not retained after reboot and the journal contained non-fatal AeroShell widget warnings.

No new GitHub release was published during this reporting period; the August 9 image is a verified candidate.

Known limitations

• Only x86-64 UEFI systems are supported, with Secure Boot disabled.
• Intel RST/RAID On storage is unsupported; disks must be exposed through AHCI.
• Encryption, unrestricted manual partitioning, legacy BIOS, and offline installation are unavailable.
• Advanced mode creates its own Aero7 EFI System Partition.
• Hardware compatibility testing remains limited.
• Installation requires internet access.
• Language and regional selections remain limited.

Development activity

• 47 commits
• 249 files changed
• 4,407 lines added
• 1,430 lines removed
• No merged pull requests
• No closed issues
• No newly published releases

Most development was pushed directly to the canonical beta branch.

Notable changes:

• Enable guarded physical-disk installation
• Add guarded advanced partitioning
• Complete the guarded drive actions
• Record the verified August 9 Beta 1 image
• Remove the obsolete public-release hold

Development was contributed by @memegeko, with an automated Actions checkout update from Dependabot.