AerynOS 2025.08 was released today, five months after the release of AerynOS 2025.03, as the latest ISO snapshot of this independent GNU/Linux distribution created by ex-Solus maker Ikey Doherty.
While still in alpha stage, AerynOS 2025.08 brings some updated components, including the latest GNOME 48.4 desktop environment, which is still the default for the live ISO. If you don’t like GNOME, you can install AerynOS with the latest KDE Plasma 6.4 desktop environment or with System76’s Cosmic Alpha 7.
Also new in AerynOS 2025.08 is virtual machine and hardware enablement, the adoption of a package set model, usability improvements to the installer, scx_flash as the default scheduler, a console-only installation option for advanced users, as well as CDN support for the software repository and ISO downloads.
Unfortunately, this ISO is powered by the Linux 6.15 kernel series, which is marked as EOL (End of Life) on the kernel.org website. However, it ships with the latest and greatest Mesa 25.2 graphics stack.
Other updated components include Sway 1.11, LLVM 20.1.8, sudo-rs 0.2.8, uutils-coreutils 0.1.0, FFmpeg 7.1.1, fastfetch 2.51.1 (supports AerynOS logo), Waydroid 1.5.4, OpenVPN 2.6.14, Protontricks 1.13.0, and Winetricks 20250102.
“In addition, we fixed a subtle issue with our PATH configuration that mostly affected our console logins. With this fix, we have made our login experience fully stateless. We have also enabled sulogin for a single-user root shell to diagnose and repair boot failures,” said the devs in a blog announcement.
As previously mentioned, AerynOS devs are still working on features like automating package updates, easier management of rollbacks, disk handling with Rust, fractional scaling enabled by default, a revamped system installer with support for full disk wipe and dynamic disk partitioning schemes, and more.
If you want to take AerynOS for a test drive on your personal computer, you can download the AerynOS 2025.08 release right now from the official website. However, please try to keep in mind that AerynOS is currently considered of alpha quality, so don’t install or use it in a production environment.
