DCENT_OS Beta Status: What’s Live, What’s Planned

Last updated: 10 July 2026. This is the single honest source of truth for where DCENT_OS actually is. Dates here are estimates, not guarantees — we ship an image when it is safe for your hardware, not before. If a timeline slips, this page says so first.

Status in one line

DCENT_OS is in public beta. The first downloadable images shipped on 9 July 2026: the Antminer S9 (Zynq/XIL control board) and the Antminer S19j Pro (Zynq/XIL). All other models and control boards still read “Support incoming.” Everything is experimental beta software and can brick hardware — flash only a miner you can recover.

Public beta downloads (2026-07-09)

The current beta images live at /downloads/dcent-os/beta-20260709/:

• DCENTOS_XIL1_S9_beta20260709.tar — Antminer S9, Zynq/XIL control board (BM1387). A/B sysupgrade package.
• DCENTOS_XIL1_S9_SD_beta20260709.img — Antminer S9 bootable SD card image (64 MB).
• DCENTOS_XIL3_S19jPro_beta20260709.tar — Antminer S19j Pro, Zynq/XIL control board (BM1362). A/B sysupgrade package.
• SHA256SUMS.txt — verify your download before flashing. Packages are Ed25519-signed.

Install the .tar packages with DCENT_Toolbox (dcent install <MINER_IP> -f <file>.tar) or through the DCENT_OS web updater. Flash the SD image with balenaEtcher; on an S9 running BraiinsOS set fw_setenv sd_boot yes, or use the control-board SD-boot jumper — jumper position varies by board revision, so verify yours first.

What “public beta” means (staged)

We did not flip a single switch. Public beta opens in stages so nobody bricks a miner on day one:

1. Stage 1 — Antminer S9, Zynq/XIL board. Shipped 2026-07-09. SD card image plus A/B sysupgrade package.
2. Stage 2 — S19 family. The S19j Pro Zynq/XIL image shipped alongside Stage 1. Other S19-family models and boards (S19, S19 Pro, and the BB / CV / AML control boards) follow once bench validation and a proven recovery path exist for each board — no dates promised.
3. Stage 3 — S21 family. S21 support is in development and ships last.

If your exact miner and control board still reads “Support incoming” in the beta download area, there is no public image for it yet. Do not flash it.

What works in the beta today

• Mode-first control: Space Heater (a thermostat, not a spreadsheet), Mining (the full dashboard with chip-level telemetry), and the Companion (local-AI control via the built-in MCP server) — with low-level hacker access for users who accept beta risk.
• A mining daemon written in Rust, a memory-safe systems language.
• A 0% mandatory dev-fee target, with an optional contribution setting for people who choose to fund development.
• Ed25519-signed packages with an A/B sysupgrade install path (flash the inactive slot, verify, then flip).

Honest engineering note: the A/B NAND install path is offline-proven — the write path and pre-flip readback were verified against simulated NAND — but our witnessed live-hardware boot-and-mine capstone is still in progress. Beta means beta. That is exactly why the SD card image and serial recovery instructions exist: keep a recovery path ready before you flash anything.

What is planned, not shipped

To keep the promise honest: the GPL-3.0 source for the full firmware stack is public on GitHub — read, audit and build it yourself at github.com/DCentralTech/DCENT_OS — and beta images for two boards are downloadable today. Everything else — additional models, additional control boards, additional features — is a target, not a shipped guarantee, and nothing here is production-ready. We treat firmware the way we treat hardware lead times: an honest estimate, never a promise of speed.

Honest risk note

DCENT_OS is experimental firmware, not a production product. Flashing custom firmware can brick your miner, cause downtime, and void the manufacturer warranty. Only flash a miner you are prepared to recover — keep SD card and serial (UART) recovery ready, and do not flash production miners. Read the full brick-risk warning before you do anything.

How to follow along (no email broadcasts)

We do not send newsletters. The live channels are:

• Download and test — grab an image from the beta download directory, work the hardware-readiness & recovery checklist first, and report what breaks.
• GitHub — watch github.com/DCentralTech/DCENT_OS for commits and releases. A GitHub release is how we announce each build.
• Discord — join the community for build notes and tester chat.
• Build log — we publish beta build logs on the blog: what testers broke and what we fixed.

Running the Bitaxe side instead? The DCENT_axe firmware flashes straight from your browser with the web flasher — that is a separate tool from the Antminer images above.

Shoulders we stand on

DCENT_OS stands on real, prior work: the CGMiner / BMMiner lineage, Braiins’ open-source firmware and Stratum V2 protocol work, Luxor’s tooling for the mining community, and the open-ASIC community — skot9000 and the ESP-Miner / AxeOS project — around the Bitaxe. DCENT_OS is one more layer of a stack other people started; the goal is simply one more layer decentralized.

FAQ

Is DCENT_OS in public beta?

Yes. The public beta opened on 9 July 2026 with downloadable images for the Antminer S9 (Zynq/XIL board) and Antminer S19j Pro (Zynq/XIL board). It is experimental beta software — not production-ready.

Can I download DCENT_OS now?

Yes, for two boards: the S9 XIL and S19j Pro XIL images are at /downloads/dcent-os/beta-20260709/, with SHA256 checksums. Every other slot in the download area still reads “Support incoming” — do not flash an unsupported board.

Which miners are supported first?

The Antminer S9 (Zynq/XIL control board) and Antminer S19j Pro (Zynq/XIL) have public beta images today. Other S19-family boards and the S21 family follow in later stages, one validated control board at a time — estimates, not promises.

Is DCENT_OS free and open source?

The source is GPL-3.0 and public on GitHub (github.com/DCentralTech/DCENT_OS) — read, audit and build it yourself — with a 0% mandatory dev-fee target and an optional contribution setting. It is experimental beta software today, not a finished product.