Where it stands
Status
Zen Linux runs every day on its maintainer’s desktops and servers, and has for years. For anyone else it’s early: here is what works, what to know before you try it, and what comes next.
As of 11 November 2026.
What works
- A rolling distribution with more than 2,200 packages in zen/core, each built from source.
- KDE Plasma, with Zen’s own theme. GNOME and COSMIC are packaged as well, but the installation image uses Plasma.
- NVIDIA’s driver, for its own edition of the desktop.
- One installation image: a live Plasma session with the installer open, for a desktop, a desktop with NVIDIA’s driver or a server. It installs without a network.
- zenpac, which manages every newly installed system.
- Every build goes through zen/test before it reaches zen/core (see How it’s built).
Know before you try
- A recent x86_64 PC with UEFI. The packages are built for x86-64-v3, and other architectures aren’t supported. The download page says what a machine needs.
- One maintainer. Updates follow upstream closely, but there’s no team behind them.
- Unsigned repositories. zenpac checks every package against the SHA-256 in the repository’s database, which comes over HTTPS, but neither is signed yet.
- zenpac is young. It’s at 0.9. pacman is still installed alongside it until zenpac 1.0 replaces it: use zenpac.
What comes next
- A handbook, from the download to an installed system and its first steps.
- An installation image built every day.
- A page for every package, with how its version compares to upstream.
- zenpac 1.0, which replaces pacman.
- Recipes in a format of Zen’s own, read by zenbuild, which builds every package already.
- Later: repositories of users next to the official ones, and signed repositories.