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Breaking Change: Secure Boot - now with optional Microsoft key enrollment

systemd-boot menu

From the beginning, AstrOS has shipped its own custom Secure Boot keys.

Until now, every device that wanted Secure Boot was required to enroll only our custom keys in the firmware. This prevented the use of Secure Boot on devices whose option ROMs were signed by Microsoft. As a result, many devices were unable to use Secure Boot with AstrOS at all. This has changed.

We now ship two prepared key sets under /boot/loader/keys/.

astros: just as before, containing only our certificates and nothing else.

astros+microsoft: containing our certificate plus Microsoft’s certificates added to KEK and db alongside ours.

Note that this doesn’t mean our boot chain is now signed by Microsoft. It only allows the firmware to boot Microsoft-signed software / option ROMs.

The user can choose which to enroll when booting from Setup Mode.

Learn more on our Secure Boot page.

We now have a blog site

We now have a blog site! To make sure you don’t miss the latest AstrOS news, subscribe to our RSS feed.

Note: I’ve ported over the most important blogs from Reddit.

We are now in beta 🎉

AstrOS

Beta announcement video

It is an immutable, secure-by-default Linux distribution based on Arch Linux and the COSMIC desktop environment. It uses similar tooling as GNOME OS and KDE Linux.

What makes AstrOS special is its immutable base, which is shipped as a hashed and signed /usr image that is booted by signed uki images. This combination protects your system from outside modification.

AstrOS base can be extended with currently four extensions (or your own). Including a steam gaming extension with the steamos gamescope session.

  • Built using mkosi

  • Uses systemd-sysupdate (rollbacks too!)

  • Read-only /usr with signed dm-verity

  • Full disk encryption is enforced (tpm required)

  • Systemd-sysexts and confexts (system extensions)

  • Highly opinionated

Anyone who wants a secure system out of the box without having to configure anything. It’s a system that just works, and you don’t have to worry about it.

  • Restructured the codebase into mkosi subimages.

  • Four new system extensions (NVIDIA, gaming mode, virtualization, and Firewalld).

  • Migration to systemd-confext for /etc

  • Installer improvements (TPM2 check etc).

  • Display keymap list during first boot instead of entering it manually

  • Our own theme: Orbital

  • Many bug fixes

  • Safe mode uki profile

  • Package additions

  • Compressed images and a new download infrastructure

  • We moved from GitHub to Forgejo.

  • Our docs/homepage: https://astros-linux.org

  • And way more!