Carpathian OS

Your first look

A small step.
A new perspective.

Explore the Carpathian OS development installer
in a virtual machine, at your own pace.

Get the preview Back to the desktop
Experimental · x86_64

This preview is for disposable VM evaluation. Rendering, hardware support, recovery and the installer interface are still being tested. Keep your existing system and important files separate.

01 · The development preview

Start with the image.

Download the ISO and its checksum file from the same release. This is an x86_64 installer image, approximately 1.65 GiB. The boot environment still uses the earlier Carpatic name.

Download the ISO Download SHA256SUMS
Read the release notes
Release
v0.1.0-dev.20261010 · experimental prerelease
Image
carpathian-os-development-20261010-r1-x86_64.iso

02 · Check the download

A quick check,
before you boot.

A SHA-256 checksum checks that your downloaded image matches the published file. Keep the ISO and SHA256SUMS in the same folder. Open a terminal in that folder and use the command for your system.

Linux
sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS

The image should report OK. If it reports a mismatch, download the files again before continuing.

macOS
shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS

The image should report OK.

Windows · PowerShell
Get-FileHash -Algorithm SHA256 .\carpathian-os-development-20261010-r1-x86_64.iso
Get-Content .\SHA256SUMS

Compare the hash returned by the first command with the checksum in the second. Every character must match; uppercase and lowercase letters are equivalent.

Published SHA-256 · this release

7e846779161d5186d99781c762db3e33eeb31c91c52ca144994305ff9b380bda

03 · A separate place to explore

Give it a fresh
virtual machine.

Use a disposable x86_64 VM with its own new virtual disk. A fresh installation through the installer engine, installed-system boot and first desktop login have been verified in an isolated VM using legacy BIOS firmware. The graphical setup questions and UEFI boot still need qualification.

  1. Create an isolated VM.

    Select Linux and x86_64 in your virtualization software. Choose legacy BIOS firmware for the tested boot path. Our verified test used 2 virtual CPUs, 2 GiB of RAM and a new 32 GiB virtual disk. Minimum hardware requirements are still being measured.

  2. Attach the ISO as a virtual optical disc.

    Use the verified download as the VM’s CD/DVD image and put the optical drive first in its boot order. Keep host disks and shared folders disconnected.

  3. Boot the installer environment.

    The development image has been verified to boot to the BIOS installer environment. Its legacy Carpatic branding is expected. An installation attempt should use only the new disposable virtual disk.

  4. Restart into the installed system.

    After a completed installation, remove the ISO from the virtual optical drive and restart the VM. Sign in with the account created during setup. This path has been tested with BIOS, an unencrypted ext4 disk and the default desktop profile.

Physical GPU, wireless, Bluetooth, audio, suspend/resume, encryption and recovery still need qualification.

On an ARM computer?

This image targets x86_64. An ARM host, including Apple Silicon, requires an emulator capable of running that architecture. ARM guest support and host-specific VM instructions are not qualified for this release.

04 · Help shape what comes next

Your experience
helps us improve.

Share what you tried, what you expected and what happened. Include the release tag, virtualization software, firmware mode and assigned resources. For a visual problem, a screenshot or short recording can help.

Remove personal information before sharing files or logs.

Share feedback Explore the source