Download

Install images for solnix — Nix on illumos. Each image below lists its checksum; verify it before writing.

First release: v2026.08.07 (unstable edition). A bootable x86_64 ISO and a raw ZFS-root disk image are available below — this is an early, preview-grade release (a flag planted on a known-good state, not a polished 1.0), so expect rough edges. The binary cache and package search are live too. Follow the architecture roadmap for what's next.

Desktop is coming. The COSMIC desktop now runs on solnix — proving the graphical stack works on illumos: Rust, Wayland, GTK4, and GPU acceleration via Mesa RADV + Vulkan. A graphical install ISO/DVD is in the works; see the coming soon card below.

Images

Checking for published images…

Coming soon

Graphical install ISO/DVD — coming soon

arch x86_64-solarisdesktopCOSMIC

A live graphical installer with the COSMIC desktop. The desktop stack already runs on solnix — Rust ✓, Wayland ✓, GTK4 ✓, fonts/toolkit ✓, and GPU acceleration via Mesa RADV + Vulkan ✓ (libadwaita is one wave away). What's left is packaging it into a bootable graphical install image. No download yet; this card will turn into a real image when it lands.

What works today

Use the binary cache

A Nix user on illumos can point at the solnix cache and stop recompiling — signed, verifiable, edge-cached. Two lines in /etc/nix/nix.conf:

# /etc/nix/nix.conf
substituters = https://cache.solnix.io https://cache.nixos.org
trusted-public-keys = cache.solnix.io-1:8UNrVAOSOrI9PGHc8/pD2Yqp265ZeYb3OId+gv4+wm8=

Full details in the binary cache chapter.

Search packages

Full-text search across everything in the cache, per architecture.

Search packages →

Install instructions (for when images land)

1 · Verify the checksum

Every image ships a .sha256. Confirm your download is intact before writing it.

# download the ISO and its .sha256 into the same directory, then:
sha256sum -c solnix-<arch>-<release>.iso.sha256
# or compare by hand against the sha256 shown above:
sha256sum solnix-<arch>-<release>.iso

On illumos/macOS use shasum -a 256 if sha256sum is absent. The hash must match exactly — if it doesn't, re-download; do not boot a corrupted image.

2 · Write to a USB stick

Write the raw image to the whole disk (not a partition). This erases the target device.

DANGER: dd to the wrong device destroys data. Identify the USB stick first (lsblk on Linux, diskutil list on macOS, diskinfo / rmformat -l on illumos) and double-check the device node.

# Linux:  of=/dev/sdX   macOS: of=/dev/rdiskN   illumos: of=/dev/rdsk/cNtNdNp0
sudo dd if=solnix-<arch>-<release>.iso of=/dev/rdiskN bs=4M conv=fsync status=progress
sync

Replace /dev/rdiskN with your actual device. Disk images (.raw/.img) are written the same way. Cloud images (.qcow2/.vmdk) are imported into your hypervisor instead.

3 · Boot it

The x86_64 image will be UEFI + legacy BIOS bootable. Boot from the USB stick (use your firmware's boot menu — often F12/F2/Esc/Del), then follow the installer. See the getting-started guide for the walkthrough.