TenebraOS V1.0 · by Ameona

Darkness, compiled.

A hardened, independent Hyprland distribution — under ten seconds from power button to desktop, locked down before you ever log in.

v1.0.0 · sha256 1082dd4a1769ee88…

Overview

Why TenebraOS

Sub-10s Boot

zstd-compressed initramfs, masked networkd stack, zram with zstd compression. Arch speed without the manual setup.

Security-First Defaults

nftables firewall enabled, kernel hardening sysctls, full-disk LUKS encryption, signed package repo.

Noctalia + Hyprland

Wayland-native shell with a fully configured Hyprland environment, hyprlock, grimblast, and Floorp browser pre-configured.

The Desktop

Dark by design

A TenebraOS desktop: the Noctalia bar over a near-black wallpaper, workspaces and system status in the top corners
Noctalia + Hyprland, themed from the wallpaper — this is a stock install.

Features

What ships in the box

Wallpaper Engine via Steam

Steam comes pre-installed. To use Wallpaper Engine, own and install it through Steam. Once running, animated wallpapers are controlled straight from the bar via Noctalia's Wallpaper Engine extension. No extra configuration.

Pre-installed Notes

Joplin and Obsidian come pre-installed. Both store notes locally by default, with no account or cloud required. Joplin supports optional self-hosted sync via Joplin Server. Obsidian vaults live wherever you put them.

Floorp Browser

Firefox-based and privacy-respecting, shipped as the default browser. Strong tracking protection and a flexible, customizable UI with vertical tabs, all without feeding the Chromium monoculture. No account required, sync only if you choose it.

LocalSend

Peer-to-peer local file transfer via the custom [tenebra] repo. No cloud, no account.

zram + zstd

Memory compression for faster swap performance. Sized at half available RAM automatically.

Signed Custom Repo

The [tenebra] repository is GPG-signed. Every package is verified before install.

nftables Firewall

Deny-inbound firewall policy active on first boot. No manual setup required.

Kernel Hardening

kptr_restrict, ptrace_scope, dmesg_restrict, and BPF hardening shipped in /etc/sysctl.d/99-tenebra.conf.

Limine Bootloader

Fast, minimal bootloader with Snapper snapshot entries baked in.

Built For

Who this is for

The ricer

You know what you want your machine to look like. TenebraOS starts where most rices end.

The pragmatist

You want Arch without spending a weekend configuring it. Everything is opinionated so you don't have to be.

The security-minded

Security defaults that most distros leave as an exercise for the reader. Hardened before you log in.

Pure Arch underneath — built from the ground up with its own opinions. The installer draws from Omarchy's approach, but TenebraOS is its own distro: btrfs with Snapper rollbacks in the boot menu, sane defaults everywhere, without starting from scratch.

Release

TenebraOS V1.0

Download ISO tenebra-1.0.0-x86_64.iso · x86_64 UEFI

sha2561082dd4a1769ee88b49d3e9b43ca44a46b8682395d5ce02cc02ed3376493d640

System requirements

  • x86_64 · UEFI firmware
  • 4 GB RAM minimum / 8 GB recommended
  • 128 GB disk recommended
  • whole-disk install — no dual boot
Verify your download

Check the SHA256 sum against the published checksum file:

sha256sum -c tenebra-1.0.0-x86_64.iso.sha256

Then verify the GPG signature against the TenebraOS signing key:

gpg --verify tenebra-1.0.0-x86_64.iso.asc tenebra-1.0.0-x86_64.iso

The signing key fingerprint is 12EB EDBE CF16 FEBA 7793 CF1D 6126 981E 362E 2446 — confirm it matches before trusting the signature.