A calm, complete Linux desktop. One installer, six desktop environments, and an updater that handles both everyday packages and full system releases — delivered straight from us to you.
Zen OS is currently in beta — you may hit bugs, virtual machines especially. Even so, we'd love you to test it: on your own PC or in a VM, and tell us what you find.
Feature Updates refresh everyday packages through apt. System Updates deliver a whole new system image over the air (OTA), verified by checksum before anything touches your disk.
Pick KDE Plasma, GNOME, XFCE, Cinnamon, MATE or LXQt during install. Zen OS adapts — the updater and installer work the same on all of them.
One window for everything: package upgrades, full system releases with a release card (banner, name, version), and a confirmed, non-destructive install plan.
A graphical installer with language selection, a 3-second-confirmation safety step for storage, and Zen Writer for Windows, Linux and macOS so you can flash the ISO without touching a terminal.
A "distribution" is Linux plus everything around it: packages, installer, desktop. Zen OS is a distro built on Debian — like a finished house built on a very solid foundation.
"Over-the-air" means the whole system image travels from our server to your machine, like a phone update. We sign and checksum it, so what you install is exactly what we published.
Debian's package manager. It installs and upgrades individual programs. Zen Update wraps it in a friendly window so you never have to memorise commands.
Yes. The beta ISO costs nothing to download and use, and the whole project goes open-source soon — then you'll be able to read, build and shape every line of it.
Never without asking. The installer shows you the storage plan and makes you hold a 3-second confirmation before anything is written. You can also try Zen OS in a virtual machine or install it alongside your current system.
Any 64-bit (amd64) machine that can run Debian 13. The image ships non-free firmware, so most Wi-Fi cards and graphics chips work out of the box. 4 GB of RAM and 20 GB of disk is a comfortable start.
No. The installer is graphical, the desktop is a normal desktop (you pick one of six), and Zen Update puts every update behind one friendly window. The terminal stays optional.
Two channels. Feature Updates refresh everyday packages through apt. System Updates deliver a whole new system image over the air — checksummed and confirmed before anything touches your disk.
A 14-year-old founder called Zen, with AI helping along the way — and soon a whole open-source community. The full story is in the About section below.
Not fully stable yet — that's what beta means. Bugs can show up anywhere, and virtual machines are the most likely to trip it up (graphics, drivers and networking are the usual suspects). That's exactly why we encourage testing: install it on your own PC or spin it up in a VM, and tell us what goes wrong. Every report makes the next build better.
Your email address and report are sent to franekimko123@gmail.com via Web3Forms. Please do not include passwords or other sensitive information.
Hi — I'm Zen (not my real name). I'm 14 years old and the founder of Zen OS. I'm not some advanced programmer, and I can honestly admit that AI helped me build this. If that bothers you, I understand.
But the project will be open-source soon — the full source code will appear on our GitHub. So maybe I started it — but we will finish it together.
Beta software — expect a few rough edges, virtual machines especially. Two steps: get the system image, then put it on a USB stick.
Step 1 — the system image. Hosted on MEGA. Download it first; you'll write it to a USB stick next, using Zen Writer or your system's own tools.
Step 2 — the USB writer. One app, now for all three systems. Windows: just run the
.exe — Windows may show a SmartScreen warning, choose "More info" → "Run anyway" (it isn't
code-signed yet, that's all). Linux: extract, then run bash ZenOS-Writer.sh.
macOS: extract, then double-click ZenOS-Writer.command. It protects your
system disk automatically — no terminal skills needed.
Zen Writer is the easiest path on any system — but if you'd rather use the tools already on your machine, both Linux and macOS can write the ISO themselves. The idea is the same everywhere: find the device name of your stick, then copy the image straight onto it. Be careful with the device name — writing to the wrong one erases that disk, so double-check before you press Enter.
LINUXPlug in your USB stick and list your drives. A 16 GB stick shows up as something like
/dev/sdb — its size is the easiest way to recognise it.
lsblk
Now write the image. if= is the ISO you downloaded, of= is your
stick. status=progress shows how far along it is, and oflag=sync
makes sure everything is flushed to the stick before the command finishes:
sudo dd if=zen-os.iso of=/dev/sdb bs=4M status=progress oflag=sync
Prefer a mouse? Right-click the ISO and open it with GNOME Disks → "Restore Disk Image…", or use balenaEtcher — same result, no terminal at all.
MACOSOpen Terminal and list your disks. Your stick is usually the last one, something like
/dev/disk4.
diskutil list
Unmount it (this isn't ejecting — the stick stays plugged in), then write the image. Note
rdisk instead of disk: that's the raw device, and it's several
times faster.
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk4 sudo dd if=zen-os.iso of=/dev/rdisk4 bs=4m
macOS's dd shows no progress bar — it just works in silence for a few minutes. Press
Ctrl+T in the Terminal to print how far it's gotten. When it finishes, you're
ready to boot. balenaEtcher does the same job with a friendly window if you'd rather.
Either way: when the write finishes, safely eject the stick, plug it into the target PC and boot from it. That's your Zen OS installer running.