DCENT_OS: The Road to Public Beta

Watch Us Build It

This is the build-in-public log for DCENT_OS — D-Central’s open-source (GPL-3.0 target) firmware for Bitmain Antminer hardware. We are not going to hand you a polished launch and pretend it appeared overnight. Instead, this page tracks the honest road from where we are today to a public beta: the milestones we have hit, the ones still ahead, and dated notes on what actually changed.

DCENT_OS reached public beta on 9 July 2026: downloadable images for the Antminer S9 (Zynq/XIL control board) and the Antminer S19j Pro (Zynq/XIL) live at /downloads/dcent-os/beta-20260709/. It is still experimental firmware: a bad flash, a wrong control-board image, or an interrupted write can brick your miner — keep SD and serial recovery ready and do not flash production miners. Every other model and board is support-incoming, with no dates promised. We will never take a pre-order. If a milestone slips, this log is where you will read about it first.

For the live snapshot of what is flashable today versus planned, see the DCENT_OS beta-status page. For the full project story, start at the DCENT_OS overview.

Milestone Tracker

The road to public beta, one validated step at a time. Status is honest: “Done” means proven on real S9 hardware, “In progress” means actively being worked on now, and “Planned” means scheduled but not started or not yet shipped. Targets are estimates that can move as hardware validation exposes real-world issues.

Milestone	Target	Status
First accepted shares on S9 (real hardware)	March 2026	Done
Selected tester validation	Q1 2026	Done
Recovery-first documentation (install, rollback/UART, heat mode)	Q2 2026	Done
Closed beta testing on the S9 family	2026	Done
Public beta — first downloadable images (S9 XIL SD + sysupgrade, S19j Pro XIL sysupgrade)	2026-07-09	Done
Witnessed live-hardware boot-and-mine capstone (A/B NAND path)	2026	In progress
Remaining S19 boards / S21 family bring-up	Rolling	In active development
GitHub source repository public (GPL-3.0)	June 2026	Done
pyasic-compatible fleet API hardening	After public beta	Planned

DCENT_OS does not exist in a vacuum. We are standing on the shoulders of the firmware and hardware work that came before us — BraiinsOS+, VNish and LuxOS on the firmware side, and skot9000’s Bitaxe and the Open Source Miners United (OSMU) community on the open-source hardware side. We are one more layer in a stack other people started, and we do not claim to beat the work that paved the way.

Dev Log

Newest entries first. Each entry is a dated, honest note on what changed — progress, setbacks, and decisions.

2026-07-09 — Public beta: first downloadable images

The milestone this page was named for: the first public DCENT_OS images are downloadable at /downloads/dcent-os/beta-20260709/. Three files, plus SHA256SUMS.txt: DCENTOS_XIL1_S9_beta20260709.tar (Antminer S9, Zynq/XIL board, BM1387 — A/B sysupgrade), DCENTOS_XIL1_S9_SD_beta20260709.img (S9 bootable SD image, 64 MB), and DCENTOS_XIL3_S19jPro_beta20260709.tar (Antminer S19j Pro, Zynq/XIL board, BM1362 — A/B sysupgrade). Packages are Ed25519-signed. Install the .tar packages with DCENT_Toolbox (dcent install <MINER_IP> -f <file>.tar) or the web updater; flash the SD image with balenaEtcher.

Honest engineering note, because a changelog that only lists wins is marketing: the A/B NAND install path is offline-proven — the write path was exercised against simulated NAND with pre-flip readback verified — but the witnessed live-hardware boot-and-mine capstone is still in progress. Beta means beta. Keep SD and serial recovery ready, verify checksums, and do not flash production miners. Everything that is not the S9 XIL or S19j Pro XIL board remains support-incoming, with no dates promised.

2026-06-13 — Closed beta on the S9, docs in place, road published

Where things stand as this log opens: DCENT_OS is in active closed beta on the Antminer S9 family. On real S9 hardware the firmware enumerates the BM1387 chip chain over UART, holds stable Stratum V1 pool connections, submits shares, negotiates AsicBoost (version rolling), and serves its own web dashboard. The adaptive binary-search autotuner converges per chip, and a basic Heat Mode targets a room temperature by trading hashrate for quieter, steadier heat.

What is intentionally not here yet: there are no public image downloads. The S9 image goes to accepted closed-beta testers only, with a checksum to verify before writing. The S17 / S19 / S21 families are in active development, not shipping — there is no image for them, so do not try to flash one. The source repository is public now on GitHub under GPL-3.0 — read, audit and build it yourself at github.com/DCentralTech/DCENT_OS. The public beta of downloadable, flashable images is still planned for summer 2026 (an estimate).

Shipped recently: a recovery-first documentation set so testers can always get a board back — the S9 SD-card install guide, the rollback & UART recovery guide, and the Heat Mode first-boot walkthrough. Read the recovery guide before you flash anything. That is the whole philosophy: never put experimental code on a board you cannot get back.

Next on the bench: long-term 24/7 stability burn-in across multiple S9 units, per-chip health monitoring and dead-chip bypass, profile persistence across reboots, and tighter power metering. Those have to be solid before the beta widens. We will post the next entry when there is something real to report — not on a schedule.

Run the Public Beta

The beta is public now — there is nothing to buy and nothing to wait for if your board is supported. You should be comfortable identifying control boards, flashing SD cards, reading logs, and recovering hardware when things break. If that is not you yet, follow the dev log above and check back as the beta matures. Start with the readiness & recovery checklist, then grab an image.

Download the DCENT_OS public beta →

More development discussion happens in real time on the D-Central Discord. DCENT_OS is being built in the open, with the community, for the plebs.

Related products, repair, and setup paths

Last reviewed July 10, 2026.