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SageOS v5.3

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@zackmsa777-a11y zackmsa777-a11y released this 12 Jul 19:50
v5.3
18c617b

SageOS v5.3

Two ISO editions this release

  • sageos-5.3.iso (326MB) — the standard lean base. XFCE is now available on-demand via sage-pkg install xfce.
  • sageos-5.3-xfce.iso (463MB) — same base, with XFCE + lightdm pre-installed and enabled. Boots straight to a graphical desktop login.

Default login: sage / sageos (or root / sageos).

Update (v5.3.1 patch, applied in-place): kernel panic safety net

A real-hardware boot panic was reported ("Attempted to kill init!", exitcode 0x0 — meaning whatever was PID 1 exited cleanly, not a crash). Not yet reproducible in QEMU (tested legacy BIOS, real UEFI/OVMF, and q35+AHCI — all boot clean to login). Root cause on real hardware is still under investigation.

Mitigated: initramfs/init now sets a trap ... EXIT at the top of the script — if anything causes the initramfs-stage script to terminate unexpectedly for any reason, it drops to an emergency shell instead of letting PID 1 actually die (which is what triggers the kernel panic). This does not cover a crash of the real init after switch_root hands off PID 1 — that's the scenario still being chased down. If you hit the panic again, a photo of the full screen (including anything scrolled above the panic trace) and the exact moment it happens (immediately at boot vs. after sitting at the login prompt for a while) would help a lot.

Major fix: OpenRC was never actually running

Discovered a real bug affecting every release since the OpenRC migration (v5.1-beta9+): /sbin/init was never actually created in the shipped rootfs, so the live-boot script's own fallback logic silently dropped into an old pre-OpenRC legacy bash init instead of running OpenRC. The system still booted to a usable shell, so this went unnoticed — but OpenRC's dependency-based service management (and anything depending on the default runlevel actually running) was never truly active.

Fixed: /sbin/init now correctly symlinks to openrc-init in every build. Verified via live QEMU boot — the system now reaches a proper sage-getty login prompt through OpenRC's default runlevel, and rc-status default shows real running services.

New: xfce mission pack

  • sage-pkg install xfce installs XFCE4 + Xorg + lightdm and enables the needed graphics driver service.
  • Added a bochs DRM/KMS kernel module + a new sage-gpu-modules OpenRC service that loads it before lightdm starts — required for XFCE to actually render inside QEMU/VirtualBox's emulated VGA adapter.
  • Also fixed: installing xfce/lightdm pulls in systemd-sysv as a dependency, which silently overwrites /sbin/init to point at systemd instead of OpenRC. sage-pkg's xfce install hook now automatically restores the correct OpenRC init symlink right after install, so this can't silently break your next boot.

Checksums

81aff083e21846025fe2b0d2c8446a44bf3ab927d40199fcb9c7cdad8f7f0223  sageos-5.3.iso
e1337a2f0fd1e835809eeeed24a48d3c12165d4a0e6066eff4a60debcf730d98  sageos-5.3-xfce.iso
9ce90afe7cd7ea46e775f8e8c9fabd075229352446cbc9cf459bd1d7e0546a4d  sageos-5.3-full-source.zip

(superseded by the v5.3.4 update below — this block is kept for history)

Magnet links

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:613e1850d927ee4328bd2e510faeefca8b687427&dn=sageos-5.3.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3.iso
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3f7b9d270391900732e49d906bee2e351759afac&dn=sageos-5.3-xfce.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3-xfce.iso

Full source (sageos-5.3-full-source.zip) includes rootfs/etc, rootfs/usr_local, initramfs/init (with the panic safety-net fix), boot-configs/, and MANIFEST.md documenting the full boot flow and all fixes above in detail.

Update (v5.3.2 patch, applied in-place): keyboard/mouse input in graphical sessions

A user reported the XFCE edition's lightdm greeter renders correctly (cursor blinking in the username field) but keyboard/mouse input never reaches it — can't type or tab between fields. Root cause: two separate real bugs.

  1. evdev.ko (and PS/2 mouse support) was never loaded. Without the generic input-event kernel module, no keyboard/mouse device — PS/2, virtio-input, or USB — can expose a /dev/input/eventX node, so libinput/X never see any input at all, on any hypervisor or real hardware. Fixed by loading serio_raw.ko, psmouse.ko, and evdev.ko in initramfs/init.
  2. udev silently fails to start under OpenRC. Debian's stock udev LSB init.d script doesn't reliably start under OpenRC — rc-status shows it stopped, no systemd-udevd process ever runs, so even with the modules loaded, new input devices never get tagged as keyboard/mouse (ID_INPUT_KEYBOARD). Fixed with a new sage-udev-fix OpenRC service that explicitly starts systemd-udevd and triggers+settles device tagging before lightdm starts.

Fixed in both ISOs: baked into the XFCE-preinstalled edition directly, and sage-pkg install xfce's hook now sets this up automatically when installing the XFCE mission pack onto the lean base ISO.

Verified end-to-end on a cold, fully automatic QEMU boot: typed characters now correctly land in the lightdm greeter's username field.

All assets below (ISOs, torrents, checksums, full-source zip) have been updated in place to include this fix.

Update (v5.3.3 patch, applied in-place): new official logo

A new official SageOS logo (created by a friend of the maintainer) has replaced the placeholder logo in the fastfetch banner — a circular blue/magenta "SAGE" emblem. Converted to a 3-color block-art logo for the fastfetch splash on login. All assets below have been re-uploaded with this update baked in.

Magnet links

sageos-5.3.iso:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:e9d6a704317c5b244b4e282992ece4e5329f22bd&dn=sageos-5.3.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3.iso

sageos-5.3-xfce.iso:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:3ad78066e76f81d427d396440e20012f9f58d513&dn=sageos-5.3-xfce.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3-xfce.iso

Update (v5.3.4 patch, applied in-place): logo shrunk, wordmark dropped

The v5.3.3 logo update was too big for a terminal splash and the separate block-letter "SAGE OS" wordmark under the circle emblem was cluttered. Regenerated the circle art at a smaller scale (~13 lines instead of 25+) and dropped the wordmark entirely — just the circle now. Verified visually against an actual screen capture from a live boot before shipping (not just OCR text extraction).

Also fixed a repo-tracking gap: the initramfs/init file committed to the repo was slightly behind what's actually baked into the shipped ISO (missing the v5.3.2 PS/2/evdev module lines) — synced so the source tree matches deployed reality.

Current checksums:

81aff083e21846025fe2b0d2c8446a44bf3ab927d40199fcb9c7cdad8f7f0223  sageos-5.3.iso
e1337a2f0fd1e835809eeeed24a48d3c12165d4a0e6066eff4a60debcf730d98  sageos-5.3-xfce.iso
9ce90afe7cd7ea46e775f8e8c9fabd075229352446cbc9cf459bd1d7e0546a4d  sageos-5.3-full-source.zip

Current magnet links:

sageos-5.3.iso:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:d07cff81906d329a969ba5e87e7a080525c52982&dn=sageos-5.3.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3.iso

sageos-5.3-xfce.iso:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:13282bb688d037e2b91ca4d5636648f45b728418&dn=sageos-5.3-xfce.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3-xfce.iso

Update (v5.3.5 patch, applied in-place): bigger, flatter logo — Fedora/Ubuntu style

Ramos's feedback on v5.3.4: too small, and the photo-gradient look was noisy — wanted it closer to how Fedora/Ubuntu's ASCII logos look in fastfetch (bigger, and flat solid color regions instead of a per-pixel gradient).

  • Resized to 44x22 characters (up from ~13x13).
  • Quantized the source artwork down to 5 flat colors before converting to block art, so it reads as clean solid shapes instead of a noisy photographic gradient.
  • Verified with a live QEMU boot: fastfetch renders the new logo cleanly, no errors, boot unaffected.

Current checksums:

918a607986e4f677a992abfd00b4e6cef0a806e2c2792e2319863226d430cea9  sageos-5.3.iso
26e703bf657d1002a2130628467e2a5a6a3c705d83aa8faca70419f4306d904b  sageos-5.3-xfce.iso
f488da906306450ebe5fd6296e5a45430e8f03d1b7a8c5f988f5ff5a28ee315a  sageos-5.3-full-source.zip

Current magnet links:

sageos-5.3.iso:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:567ed6ee7fc8d973b6ffb10b436110f02d99cc6d&dn=sageos-5.3.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3.iso

sageos-5.3-xfce.iso:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:34de431742bc261d7abb7ab6f89cd5b04576a10d&dn=sageos-5.3-xfce.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3-xfce.iso

Update (v5.3.2 patch, applied in-place): real-hardware USB/NVMe boot fix

This is likely the actual cause of the real-hardware boot panic/failure reports above. Found a real bug: initramfs/init loaded zero USB-host-controller or NVMe kernel modules — only SATA (ata_piix/sd_mod) and virtio. Every QEMU test used -cdrom, which emulates a virtual SATA/IDE optical drive and never exercises the USB code path — so this was invisible in testing even though most real installs boot from a USB flash drive. On real hardware, the kernel had no way to even see the USB stick as a block device, so the boot-media probe loop found nothing to boot from.

Fixed: initramfs/init now loads (in order): usb-common, usbcore, ehci-hcd, ehci-pci, uhci-hcd, xhci-hcd, xhci-pci, usb-storage, nvme-core, nvme. Device-settle time was increased with a second rescan (USB enumeration is slower than virtio/SATA), and the boot-media/persistence-volume probe loops now also check for NVMe devices. The same modules were added to the installed rootfs (with depmod re-run) so hotplugging a USB drive after boot — e.g. for sage-persistence-setup — works too, not just at initial boot.

Verified in QEMU with a real qemu-xhci USB 3.0 controller + usb-storage-backed virtual USB drive attached: the kernel now creates /dev/sda for it, usb-storage/xhci_hcd bind correctly, and the system still boots clean to login with no panics. If you were hitting the earlier panic on a USB-booted machine, please try this build — that combination (USB stick + previously-missing xhci driver) matches the exact conditions that would produce a boot failure that never showed up in emulator testing.

ISOs, torrents, checksums, and the full-source zip have all been replaced in place with this fix (same v5.3 version, no re-release needed).

Update (v5.3.3 patch, applied in-place): XFCE session died instantly after login — fixed

This affected the XFCE edition only. The lightdm greeter rendered fine, keyboard/mouse worked, and login authenticated successfully — but the session exited (return code 1) almost instantly and bounced back to the greeter.

Root cause (two bugs, both required):

  1. dbus-x11 (provides dbus-launch, a hard requirement of xfce4-session) is only a Debian Recommends of xfce4/lightdm, not a hard dependency — and SageOS sets Install-Recommends "false" globally to stay lean, so it silently never got installed.
  2. /home/sage was owned by root:root instead of sage:sage. The sage user only had read+execute on his own home directory and couldn't write .Xauthority, .ICEauthority, .cache/, .config/ — everything XFCE's session needs to start.

Fixed: added dbus-x11 to the xfce mission pack's package list, and added a chown -R sage:sage /home/sage safety check to the xfce install hook (self-heals even if a future rootfs regenerates the ownership bug).

Verified: fresh QEMU boot, logged in through the lightdm greeter — session now reaches an actual XFCE desktop (panel with Applications menu, File System/Home desktop icons).

sageos-5.3-xfce.iso, its torrent, checksums, and the full-source zip have all been replaced in place with this fix (same v5.3 version, no re-release needed). New magnet link:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:b466000e05ea405239289b59c69d0d6b2d311474&dn=sageos-5.3-xfce.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3-xfce.iso

Updated checksums:

840b8a391f292df89e87822d8db3ea173c057c480b901c07cd760408604685f0  sageos-5.3-xfce.iso
a6675f441a426ab3adbb809a6ba1281913caf811d7dd4ffb8ef565d03d482de9  sageos-5.3-full-source.zip

(sageos-5.3.iso — the lean edition — is unaffected and unchanged.)

Update (v5.3.4 patch, applied in-place): XFCE terminal fell back to plain xterm, glitchy fastfetch logo — fixed

This affected the XFCE edition only, cosmetic only (not a boot/login blocker). Opening a terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T (or the Applications menu) launched plain xterm instead of xfce4-terminal. xterm's default core bitmap font couldn't cleanly render the dense 24-bit-truecolor block-art SageOS logo shown by fastfetch — it displayed as a scrambled, misaligned mess of colored blocks instead of a clean image.

Root cause: xfce4-terminal is only a Debian Recommends of the xfce4 metapackage, not a hard dependency — and SageOS disables Install-Recommends globally to stay lean, so it silently never got installed (same pattern as the earlier dbus-x11 bug).

Fixed: added xfce4-terminal (+ its libvte-2.91-0/libvte-2.91-common runtime deps) to the xfce mission pack's package list, and the xfce install hook now explicitly sets TerminalEmulator=xfce4-terminal in /etc/xdg/xfce4/helpers.rc.

Verified: fresh QEMU boot, logged into the XFCE desktop, opened a terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T (confirmed xfce4-terminal's window chrome), ran fastfetch — the SageOS logo now renders as a clean, coherent pixel-art image.

sageos-5.3-xfce.iso, its torrent, checksums, and the full-source zip have all been replaced in place with this fix (same v5.3 version). New magnet link:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:7e1814ca1d1d5f3d4160de163adc8f722f2a4d2b&dn=sageos-5.3-xfce.iso&tr=udp://tracker.opentrackr.org:1337/announce&tr=udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com:6969/announce&ws=https://github.com/zackmsa777-a11y/sageos/releases/download/v5.3/sageos-5.3-xfce.iso

Updated checksums:

e6203732e36f8288652500a684963f948cc3d77483f4a03ae8de2cc9d056e980  sageos-5.3-xfce.iso
88e547f0174a75cd646c470279294b9dea336164be8914c988daaa281b4e34a8  sageos-5.3-full-source.zip

(sageos-5.3.iso — the lean edition — is unaffected and unchanged.)

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