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Sculpt OS version 25.10

(published in October 2025)

Sculpt is an open-source general-purpose OS. It combines Genode's microkernel architecture, capability-based security, sandboxed device drivers, and virtual machines in a novel operating system for commodity PC hardware and the PinePhone. Sculpt is used as day-to-day OS by the Genode developers.

The administrative user interface ("Leitzentrale"): The panel at the top gives access to a live view of the system structure (shown), a file browser, network connectivity, power control, and system update/rollback. The interactive graph at the center presents the running components with their relationships and allows the user to interactively add/remove components offered by Genode Labs and federated software providers.

Instructions

Sculpt 25.10 documentation (printable version)

Download disk image

sculpt-25-10.img (35 MiB) (signature, public key)

SHA256 082a7d9c03edffd463ccb64ff41c2f992e878aa64fabb3470dd2fa6cd939df8d

Evaluating the use of the human-readable data format (HRD)

The official version linked above readily accepts the new proposed human-readable configuration format in addition to the time-tested use of XML while relying on XML by default.

To evaluate the new format, a Sculpt OS variant using the new format by default is provided at https://depot.genode.org/nfeske/image/.

Please consider the evaluation image as experimental.

Download disk image using human-readable data by default

sculpt-pc-2025-10-30.img.xz (signature, public key)

SHA256 c51e8a229f7841ece2399f93119f0f73287abb648fb893a984e3bccf5e4ef391

This variant is also available via Sculpt's system-update dialog by installing version 2025-10-30 provided by nfeske. Both variants the one offered by genodelabs and the one offered by nfeske are largely interoperable. So one can switch between both variants by repeatedly (re-)installing the desired version in the system-update dialog.

Mobile-OS version

An experimental phone variant of Sculpt OS tailored for the PinePhone is available at https://depot.genode.org/genodelabs/image. Information about installing and using this variant are available in the form of a dedicated article at https://genodians.org.

MNT-Reform version

Sculpt OS is available for the i.MX8 variant for the MNT Reform laptop at https://depot.genode.org/skalk/image/ and at the system-update dialog when selecting skalk as provider.

Download disk image for the MNT-Reform laptop

sculpt-mnt_reform2-2025-10-30.img.xz (signature, public key)

SHA256 9da67d798b07f4503709e550b20087e9c5e3af3fc5452453c56c0edcb8a1c476

Preparing a bootable USB stick on Unix

On Unix-based systems, use the dd command to copy the disk image to a USB stick: 

 sudo dd if=sculpt-25-10.img of=/dev/sdx bs=1M conv=fsync

Here, /dev/sdx refers to the device node of your USB stick. To determine it, you may inspect the output of dmesg after plugging it in.

Preparing a bootable USB stick on MS Windows

Option 1: Rufus

  1. Download and run Rufus (alternative portable executable available)

  2. Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device"

  3. Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select it under "Boot selection"

  4. Write to the USB drive by clicking "START"

Option 2: Win32 Disk Imager

  1. Download, install, and run Win32 Disk Imager

  2. Download the Sculpt OS image linked above and select under "Image file"

  3. Plug in your USB thumb drive and select it under "Device"

  4. Write to the USB drive by clicking "Write"

Running Sculpt 25.10 in Qemu

You may take the following command line as starting point for experimenting with Sculpt 25.10 on the Qemu emulator. 

 qemu-system-x86_64 -display sdl -cpu Skylake-Client -machine q35 \
                    -m 1024 -drive format=raw,file=sculpt-25-10.img \
                    -netdev user,id=net0 -device e1000,netdev=net0

For better performance, you may also try the options -accel kvm -cpu host.

Previous versions

All previous releases are available at the dedicated Sculpt OS archive page.

© 2025 Genode Labs