AETHER-OS
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Install and first launch

The builds are not notarized by Apple or signed with a paid code-signing certificate yet, so macOS and Windows stop the first start once. The steps below get you past it; after that AETHER-OS opens like any other app. The first start then shows a short setup wizard — vault, AI model, semantic search and a six-card tour of the key shortcuts. Every step can be skipped and re-run later from the launcher (⌘K → “Help: run setup again”). The full guide, with troubleshooting and how to check the app's signature before you allow it, is docs/INSTALL.md.

macOS

macOS 12 or later · one universal app for Apple Silicon and Intel
  1. Open the downloaded .dmg and drag AETHER-OS onto Applications. Eject the disk image.
  2. Start AETHER-OS from Applications, Launchpad or Spotlight. The first start is blocked once: the app is signed ad hoc but not notarized (that needs a paid Apple Developer ID), so macOS says it “could not verify AETHER-OS is free of malware”.
  3. Allow it once:
    • macOS 15 Sequoia and later: click Done, open System Settings → Privacy & Security, scroll to Security and click Open Anyway next to “AETHER-OS was blocked…” (the button stays there for about an hour after the blocked start). Confirm the dialog that follows with Open Anyway and your password or Touch ID.
    • macOS 12–14: right-click (Control-click) AETHER-OS in Applications → Open → Open.
    • Terminal alternative (any version): remove the quarantine flag once, then open the app normally. 
      xattr -cr /Applications/AETHER-OS.app
  • macOS remembers the decision for this copy of the app. A new version you download is quarantined again, so after each update you allow it once more.
  • “AETHER-OS is damaged and can't be opened”? The quarantine flag is stuck: run the xattr -cr command above, then open it again.
  • Privacy prompts: when the setup wizard looks for existing vaults, or you open a vault or project in Documents, Desktop or Downloads, macOS asks once whether AETHER-OS may access that folder — allow it for the folders your notes and projects live in. Calendar reminders ask for permission to show notifications.

Windows

Windows 10 or 11 · x64
  1. Run the AETHER-OS_…_x64-setup.exe installer.
  2. If SmartScreen shows “Windows protected your PC”, click More info → Run anyway. The installer is not signed with a paid code-signing certificate, so SmartScreen does not know it yet.
  3. The installer puts the app into %LOCALAPPDATA%\AETHER-OS — no admin rights needed — adds a Start menu entry and offers a desktop shortcut on the last page.
  • AETHER-OS renders its UI with Microsoft Edge WebView2, which Windows 11 and current Windows 10 already include. If it is missing, the installer downloads and installs it silently — this one step needs an internet connection.
  • Prefer a per-machine install (for all users, in Program Files)? Use the .msi instead; it needs administrator rights.

Linux

x86_64 · AppImage, .deb or .rpm
  1. AppImage (any distribution): make it executable and run it. 
    chmod +x AETHER-OS_*_amd64.AppImage
./AETHER-OS_*_amd64.AppImage

    AppImages need FUSE 2, which Ubuntu 22.04 and later do not install by default:

    Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12

    sudo apt install libfuse2

    Ubuntu 24.04 and later

    sudo apt install libfuse2t64

    Without FUSE you can still start it with --appimage-extract-and-run. For a menu entry, use a helper such as AppImageLauncher or Gear Lever, or install the .deb / .rpm instead.

  2. Debian, Ubuntu and derivatives (.deb): apt pulls in WebKitGTK 4.1 and the other libraries the app needs. 
    sudo apt install ./AETHER-OS_*_amd64.deb

    Start AETHER-OS from the application menu (the command is aether-core).

  3. Fedora and openSUSE (.rpm):

    Fedora

    sudo dnf install ./AETHER-OS-*.x86_64.rpm

    openSUSE

    sudo zypper install ./AETHER-OS-*.x86_64.rpm
  • Blank window? WebKitGTK's DMA-BUF renderer can show an empty window, mostly with the proprietary NVIDIA driver on Wayland. AETHER-OS turns that renderer off by itself when the NVIDIA driver is loaded; on other GPUs with the same symptom, start it once with WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 aether-core (or the AppImage path).
  • System-wide launcher shortcut: the global shortcut (default Alt+Space) uses X11 key grabs, so on a pure Wayland session it may not fire outside the app. Ctrl+K inside the app always works, and the shortcut can be changed or switched off in Settings → Search.

Local AI with Ollama optional

AETHER-OS works without any AI: notes, search, the IDE, terminal, calendar and tasks need no model. For the local agent, chat with your notes and semantic search, install Ollama — or use a cloud model through an OpenRouter key.

  1. Install Ollama: on macOS the app from ollama.com or brew install ollama; on Windows the installer from the same page; on Linux: 
    curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh
  2. Start Ollama — the desktop app, or ollama serve. AETHER-OS talks to it only at http://localhost:11434.
  3. Let the setup wizard (or Settings → AI Providers) do the rest: it recommends a chat model for your memory size and downloads it with a progress bar — llama3.2:1b under 8 GB, llama3.2:3b for 8–16 GB, qwen2.5:7b for 16–32 GB, qwen2.5:14b for 32 GB and more — then fetches the nomic-embed-text embedding model (about 0.27 GB) and indexes your vault for semantic search. By hand: 
    ollama pull llama3.2:3b
ollama pull nomic-embed-text
  4. Prefer a cloud model? Paste an OpenRouter key in the wizard or in Settings → AI Providers. It is stored in the app data folder on this machine, never in the webview or the vault.

Verify the download

Every release ships a SHA256SUMS.txt, and GitHub records a SHA-256 digest for each file — the list above shows it. Put SHA256SUMS.txt next to the downloaded file and run, in that folder:

macOS

shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS.txt --ignore-missing

Linux

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS.txt --ignore-missing

Windows (PowerShell)

Get-FileHash .\AETHER-OS_*_x64-setup.exe

On macOS and Linux the line for your file must end in OK; on Windows the printed hash must match the file's line in SHA256SUMS.txt.

System requirements

macOS
macOS 12 Monterey or later, Apple Silicon or Intel — one universal app.
Windows
Windows 10 or 11, x64, with WebView2 — installed automatically when missing.
Linux
x86_64 with glibc 2.35 or newer: Ubuntu 22.04+, Debian 12+, Mint 21+; Fedora and openSUSE with WebKitGTK 4.1 from the distribution. RHEL 9 and its rebuilds ship glibc 2.34 and are not supported.
ARM
No ARM builds for Windows or Linux yet — build from source there.
Local AI
Optional. Ollama plus a model that fits your memory (the wizard picks one).

Build from source

The source is on GitHub. You need Rust (stable), Node.js 20 or newer and your platform's Tauri prerequisites.

Rust, if you do not have it

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh

macOS

xcode-select --install

Debian / Ubuntu

sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config libssl-dev libxdo-dev \
  libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev patchelf

Windows

Microsoft C++ Build Tools (“Desktop development with C++”) and WebView2.

Then

git clone https://github.com/EkexDon/AETHER-OS.git
cd AETHER-OS
npm install
npx tauri icon src-tauri/icons/icon.svg   # once after a fresh clone
npm run app                               # tauri dev: Vite + the Rust shell

npm run app:build builds the installers into src-tauri/target/release/bundle/. Just want to look around? npm run dev:mock runs the whole interface in a browser at http://127.0.0.1:1420 against a mock backend with a demo vault — no Rust, no Ollama.

Update and uninstall

Updating: Settings → Updates checks GitHub for a newer published release and links to it. Download the new installer and install it over the old version — on macOS drag the new app into Applications and choose Replace. Your vault and app data are kept.

Uninstalling never touches your vault. App data (settings, indexes, memory, chats, calendar, tasks, clipboard, plugins, logs) stays in its own folders until you delete them:

macOS
Quit AETHER-OS and move /Applications/AETHER-OS.app to the Trash. Data: ~/Library/Application Support/com.ekin.aetheros, ~/Library/WebKit/com.ekin.aetheros and ~/Library/Caches/com.ekin.aetheros.
Windows
Settings → Apps → Installed apps → AETHER-OS → Uninstall; tick Delete the application data to also remove %APPDATA%\com.ekin.aetheros and %LOCALAPPDATA%\com.ekin.aetheros.
Linux
sudo apt remove aether-os (deb), sudo dnf remove aether-os (rpm), or delete the AppImage. Data: ~/.local/share/com.ekin.aetheros — it also holds the webview storage.

Settings → Data & Privacy shows these folders with their sizes, opens them, and can reset the app data — the folder is moved aside, never deleted, and the vault is never touched.

Site launcher

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