Kernora OS 1 "Ember" (development build)

Old build! Grab dev build 6 instead. Installs from this one dont get updates.

First test build of Kernora OS 🎉 It boots as a live system from a USB stick and you can install it from there.

Heads up, it's a dev build. Stuff will change and the packages are signed with a dev key for now, not a proper release key.

What's inside

• Debian 13.6 (snapshot from 2026-09-01), Linux 6.12, KDE Plasma 6.3.6, Qt 6.8
• my own shell on top of Plasma: launcher, quick settings, notifications, lock screen, Alt+Tab and the power menu. You can switch the whole look between Material 1, 2 and 3 in Settings
• Kernora apps instead of the KDE ones: Settings, Files, Text Editor, Photos, Media Player, Calculator, Screenshot, Terminal and Welcome
• live wallpapers: Shapes, Tower, Rhythm and Marble Run
• Kernora cursors, LibreWolf as the browser
• reskinned Calamares installer
• English and Russian

Check the download

Put kernora-1-ember-live-amd64.iso and kernora-1-ember-live-amd64.iso.sha256 in the same folder and run:

sha256sum -c kernora-1-ember-live-amd64.iso.sha256

SHA-256: 2a6c00b823676a57d5f929d901701b00ae8d92f1bbf3e7047700bc190b3fc923

Running it

Flash it to a USB stick (GNOME Disks or balenaEtcher work fine) and boot from it. BIOS and UEFI both work, Secure Boot doesn't yet. The live session logs in by itself. To install, open the launcher and hit Install Kernora.