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SageOS v5.1-beta5

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@zackmsa777-a11y zackmsa777-a11y released this 10 Jul 18:18
v5.1-beta5
f3a1bb6

SageOS v5.1-beta5

Security-focused Linux distro (Debian bookworm base) with categorical "mission packs" — networking, web, password, wireless, sniffing, forensics, AD — installable/removable via sage-pkg and a friendly sage-security whiptail menu.

The real bug, finally found

Every previous "stuck at boot" report (iPhone/UTM, VirtualBox, and even QEMU on the tester's own machine) was hitting the same symptom for a completely different reason than beta3/beta4 assumed:

The kernel boot line shipped as console=tty0 console=ttyS0. Per Linux console semantics, when multiple console= are given, the last one listed becomes the "preferred" console bound to /dev/console — that's the device our boot script's own output, the welcome banner, fastfetch, and ultimately the login shell all write to. With ttyS0 (serial) listed last, all of that only ever went to the serial port — never to the screen (VGA/framebuffer) that anyone testing in VirtualBox, QEMU's GUI, or UTM is actually looking at. The system was booting successfully the entire time; it just had nothing to show on the display being watched. Screen goes dark right after the last early kernel message and never recovers, looking exactly like a hang, for as long as you wait.

This also explains why my own testing never caught it — I always test via -serial stdio, which is exactly the channel that gets everything.

Fix: swapped the console order to console=ttyS0 console=tty0, so the screen (tty0) is now the primary console. Verified this time by capturing the actual VGA framebuffer output (not just serial) — confirmed the full boot banner, logo, and a working shell prompt now render on-screen.

Same rootfs/tools and RAM-copy-to-tmpfs squashfs fix as beta4 — this release only touches the kernel command line.

x86_64 only — QEMU (Linux) and VirtualBox are the supported/tested targets.

Download

  • ISO (503MB): see assets below
  • Torrent: sageos-5.1-beta5.iso.torrent (HTTP webseed enabled)
  • Magnet: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:d351b750690f0264d584172e767b6a2985f0d01b&dn=sageos-5.1-beta5.iso&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.opentrackr.org%3A1337%2Fannounce&ws=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fzackmsa777-a11y%2Fsageos%2Freleases%2Fdownload%2Fv5.1-beta5%2Fsageos-5.1-beta5.iso

Still labeled beta5 — pending your confirmation before promoting to stable.

Assets 4
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