DCENT_OS Documentation

Welcome to the DCENT_OS Documentation Portal — the single home for everything you need to install, configure, tune, recover and build against DCENT_OS, D-Central’s open-source (GPL-3.0) firmware for Antminer hardware. Everything here is written for the public beta and updated as the firmware matures.

Status, honestly: DCENT_OS is experimental, not a production product. It is in public beta: the first downloadable images shipped on 9 July 2026 for the Antminer S9 (Zynq/XIL control board) and the Antminer S19j Pro (Zynq/XIL control board), at /downloads/dcent-os/beta-20260709/. Every other model and board still reads “Support incoming.” Flashing custom firmware can brick a miner and void the manufacturer warranty — only flash a miner you can recover. The always-current state of play lives on the beta-status page — that page is the source of truth; this portal organizes the documentation around it.

DCENT_OS stands on the shoulders of the people who made open Bitcoin mining firmware possible: the CGMiner / BMMiner lineage that every ASIC miner descends from, Braiins for proving that open firmware and runtime autotuning could ship on real Antminers (and for authoring Stratum V2), Luxor, and the wider open-source mining community. We are one more layer trying to make mining a little more decentralized, and we are doing it in public.

Start here

• New to the beta? Read the beta-welcome & expectations page, then the hardware-readiness & recovery checklist before you flash anything.
• Recovery first. Before the install guide, read the rollback & UART recovery guide. Knowing how to get back to stock before you flash is the difference between an experiment and a brick.
• Download. Beta images for the S9 XIL and S19j Pro XIL boards, with SHA256 checksums, live at the beta download directory. Verify the checksum before you flash. Packages are Ed25519-signed.

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About DCENT_OS

DCENT_OS is an open-source firmware project for Bitmain Antminer hardware, built by D-Central — a Quebec repair bench that has been fixing ASIC miners since 2016. The design goals: a 0% mandatory dev-fee target (user-configurable donation), recovery built in from day one, honest behavior (no hidden processes — trust should be verifiable), and a Heat Mode that treats an old miner as the space heater it physically is. It is GPL-3.0 so anyone can read, audit, fork and improve it.

• License: GPL-3.0 — source public on GitHub.
• Source: github.com/DCentralTech/DCENT_OS; the install/management CLI lives at github.com/DCentralTech/DCENT_Toolbox. Two newer public repos round out the suite: DCENT_Raven (a LoRa/Meshtastic mesh accessory for the Bitaxe — design-stage, no hardware yet) and DCENT_ExpansionPack (an ESP32-C6 Wi-Fi bridge board for DCENT_OS miners — v0.1 fab-ready design, no boards built yet).
• Where it fits on the firmware map: see the vendor-neutral firmware comparison matrix. DCENT_OS is not on the production feature chart yet — it is beta software — and we say so there too.

Quick start (public beta)

The two control boards with public beta images today are the Antminer S9 Zynq/XIL board (Xilinx Zynq-7010, dual-core Cortex-A9 at 667 MHz with an Artix-7 FPGA) and the Antminer S19j Pro Zynq/XIL board. The S9 boots from an SD card when the boot jumper is set, which is exactly why it was the safest family to start the beta on: install and recovery both run from removable media, not a one-way NAND flash. The .tar packages install through an A/B sysupgrade path — flash the inactive slot, verify, then flip.

1. Get your hardware ready. Follow the readiness & recovery checklist: a miner you can take offline, a tested recovery SD card, and a 3.3 V UART/serial adapter (115200 8-N-1) so you always have a console.
2. Read recovery first. Roll back to stock & recover a failed flash (SD + UART).
3. Download and verify. Get your board’s image from the beta download directory and check it against SHA256SUMS.txt.
4. Install. Either flash the S9 SD image with balenaEtcher (S9 SD-card install guide; on BraiinsOS set fw_setenv sd_boot yes, or use the control-board SD-boot jumper — jumper position varies by board revision, verify yours first), or install a .tar package over the network with DCENT_Toolbox: dcent install <MINER_IP> -f <file>.tar (the DCENT_OS web updater works too).
5. Configure & tune. Point it at your pool, then choose a profile (see Configure and Tune below).

Install (per control board)

DCENT_OS images are organized by control-board / platform family, not by individual SKU, because the firmware that boots a board is what differs. Install paths open one validated family at a time.

Control-board family	Representative models	Status	Install path
S9, Zynq/XIL board (Zynq-7010)	S9	Public beta image live (beta-20260709) — SD image + A/B sysupgrade .tar	S9 SD-card install guide · download
S19j Pro, Zynq/XIL board	S19j Pro (BM1362)	Public beta image live (beta-20260709) — A/B sysupgrade .tar	Install via DCENT_Toolbox · download
S9 on BB / CV / AML boards	S9, S9i, S9j (non-Zynq boards)	Support incoming — no public image yet	Planned
S17 / T17 family	S17, S17 Pro, T17, S17+, T17e…	In active development; no public image yet	Planned
Rest of S19 family	S19, S19 Pro, S19 XP…	In active development; one validated control board at a time	Planned
S21 family	S21, S21 Pro, T21…	In active development; ships last in the staged rollout	Planned

The S9 family shipped first deliberately: its Zynq control board boots and recovers from an SD card, so a bad flash is reversible by swapping a card rather than re-soldering NAND. Later families move at the pace of validated, recoverable bring-up — we do not flip a family to “install now” until there is a published image and a tested recovery path for it. (Verb discipline: until a family has a live image, the honest word is “in active development,” never “runs on.”)

Configure

Once DCENT_OS boots and you reach the web interface, configuration is the familiar set of mining basics — with recovery and honesty layered in:

• Pool / Stratum. Add your pool URL, worker and password. DCENT_OS speaks the Stratum V1 the whole ecosystem runs on today. Stratum V2 was authored by Braiins and, as of mid-2026, ships natively in BraiinsOS+ on industrial Antminers and in AxeOS/ESP-Miner on the Bitaxe; if and when DCENT_OS adds it, that will be documented here, not implied before it is real.
• Network & access. Set a static IP or DHCP reservation so you can always find the miner, and so your recovery SD card and UART console map to a known device.
• Identity & honesty. DCENT_OS does not run hidden processes; what the firmware is doing should be inspectable. The dev-fee target is 0% with a user-configurable donation — you choose, and you can see it.

For background on the configuration vocabulary (per-domain voltage vs per-chip frequency, V/F curves, thermal derating), the mining glossary defines every term as a citable entry.

Tune

Tuning DCENT_OS is autotuning, not preset-picking. The firmware derives frequency and voltage at runtime from your target and the board’s measured behavior — it does not load a fixed table of “presets.” This is the same idea Braiins proved on Antminers; DCENT_OS implements it openly.

• Voltage is per DOMAIN, not per chip. On a hashboard, groups of chips share a DC-DC converter (a voltage domain); you cannot set a single chip’s voltage independently. The firmware tunes per domain and clocks per chip.
• Efficiency over heroics. On eight-year-old S9 silicon, tuning down for J/TH is safer and more useful than chasing peak hashrate. The S9’s BM1387 runs ~75 GH/s per chip at ~98 J/TH stock; there is far more value in quiet, efficient heat than in a fragile overclock.
• Heat Mode. The S9’s signature beta feature — hit a target temperature, stay quiet, hash with the headroom. See DCENT_OS Heat Mode first boot.
• Reference tuning data. The ASIC power-profiles database shows the realistic efficiency envelope across models so you tune toward a number that exists, not a fantasy.

OpenAPI & data reference

DCENT_OS is built by the same team that publishes D-Central’s open mining data layer, and it is designed to be machine-legible. While the firmware’s own local API is documented per build in the changelog, the public, keyless data services you can build against today are:

• D-Central Mining API (/dc/v1/) — free, keyless JSON: miners, power profiles, hashprice, reliability, price index, error codes and Bitaxe benchmarks.
• Open Mining Data hub (/data/) — every dataset as CSV + JSON under CC-BY-4.0, with a documented methodology & provenance page.

When DCENT_OS exposes its own local control API, the OpenAPI specification will be published here and versioned alongside the changelog — documented before it is recommended, never the other way round.

Changelog (versioned, honest)

DCENT_OS is pre-1.0 beta software. We version honestly, including known regressions — a changelog that only lists wins is marketing, not documentation.

Build	Phase	Notes
beta-20260709	Public beta (live)	First public downloads (2026-07-09): S9 Zynq/XIL SD image + A/B sysupgrade .tar, and S19j Pro Zynq/XIL A/B sysupgrade .tar, with SHA256SUMS and Ed25519-signed packages. The A/B NAND install path is offline-proven (simulated-NAND write path with pre-flip readback verified); the witnessed live-hardware boot-and-mine capstone is still in progress. Known limitation: S9 XIL and S19j Pro XIL boards only — no other images yet. Beta means beta.
2026.06-dev	Closed beta (S9 family)	S9 SD-card install path documented and testable. Heat Mode (target-temperature, quiet) and rollback/UART recovery in active testing. Access was waitlist-gated.

Per-build release notes — including the inevitable “this build broke X, here is the workaround” entries — are tracked on the beta-status page and in the GitHub repository as the project matures.

Recovery & unbrick

Recovery is a first-class part of DCENT_OS, not an afterthought. The S9 family was chosen first because it recovers cleanly: it can boot from an SD card via the boot jumper, and it exposes a UART console you can reach with a 3.3 V serial adapter at 115200 8-N-1. On the Zynq, the BootROM is hardcoded in silicon and reads boot-mode pins, and the FPGA bitstream in mtd0 is RSA-verified and not user-replaceable — but mtd1 (the ramdisk) is SHA-256-verified and replaceable, which is the seam custom firmware lives in.

• Roll back to stock & recover a failed flash (SD + UART) — the document to read before you install.
• Generic SD-card recovery background: SD-card firmware recovery guide and firmware update failed: how to fix.
• Hardware-level recovery (UART/serial, damaged NAND, board-level) is also a paid service at the D-Central repair bench — separate from the firmware, and not a warranty.

FAQ

Is DCENT_OS available to download now?

Yes — the public beta opened on 9 July 2026. Images for the Antminer S9 (Zynq/XIL board) and Antminer S19j Pro (Zynq/XIL board) are at /downloads/dcent-os/beta-20260709/, with SHA256 checksums. No other boards have public images yet.

Which miners can run DCENT_OS today?

The Antminer S9 (Zynq/XIL control board) and the Antminer S19j Pro (Zynq/XIL control board) have public beta images. Everything else — other S19-family boards, the S9’s BB/CV/AML boards, S17/T17 and S21 families — is in active development with no public image yet. We do not say a firmware “runs on” a board until there is a published, recoverable image for it.

Will the beta cost me anything?

No. The downloads are free and the source is GPL-3.0. There is no charge, no pre-order, and no obligation.

Can flashing DCENT_OS brick my miner or void my warranty?

Yes — it is experimental beta firmware. Flashing custom firmware can brick a miner and voids the manufacturer warranty. That is why recovery comes first: read the rollback & UART recovery guide and the beta safety & warranty note before you flash. Do not flash hardware you cannot afford to take offline — and do not flash production miners.

What does DCENT_OS cost, and what is the dev fee?

The firmware is GPL-3.0 open source with a 0% mandatory dev-fee target and a user-configurable donation. You choose, and you can see it.

Where do I get help or report a bug?

Reporting bugs is the whole point of a public beta. Join the DCENT community on Discord (the only real-time channel — email is capture-only, no broadcasts), watch the GitHub repository, and check the beta-status page for the current build.

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Last reviewed July 2026. DCENT_OS is experimental, public-beta, GPL-3.0 firmware — images live for the Antminer S9 (Zynq/XIL) and S19j Pro (Zynq/XIL) boards only. Never a pre-order. D-Central, Laval, Quebec — a repair bench making Bitcoin mining one more layer decentralized, on the shoulders of the open-firmware community before us.