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Privacy-Hardened Islamic Linux Distribution
بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيمِ
Hidayah OS Logo — Islamic Linux Distribution

Hidayah OS — Privacy-Hardened Islamic LinuxYour OS is Privacy

The Nur 1.0.0 Release — Beautiful, Stable, and Purposed

1.0.0 (Nur)Current Version
2Desktop Editions
4Islamic Apps
Debian 13
Base Image
6
Shield Layers
4 Custom
Islamic Apps
2
Desktop Flavors
0
Telemetry
Editions

Choose Your Flavor.

Important: Both editions include the Calamares installer for permanent disk installation. Boot the Live session and click "Install Hidayah OS" to install.

RECOMMENDED

XFCE Edition

4.3 GB
Debian 13 Packages
Desktop Environment

Xfce (Debian 13)

Best For

Daily drivers and older hardware; users who want a lightweight desktop out of the box

Key Highlights
Whisker Menu launcher
LightDM login screen
Lightweight Xfce session
Sovereign Shield DNS filter
Lighter on RAM (2GB min)
Prayer, Hijri & Quran daemons
Calamares installer included
Get XFCE Edition
MODERN & POLISHED

KDE Plasma Edition

4.7 GB
Debian 13 Packages
Desktop Environment

KDE Plasma 6 (Debian 13)

Best For

Users who want a modern, visually polished desktop with animations

Key Highlights
SDDM breeze-dark greeter
X11-pinned session
HidayahEmeraldGold color scheme
KDE System Monitor
Kate text editor
Breeze GTK/Qt theme
Firefox ESR
Calamares installer included
Get KDE Edition

What Ships On Every ISO

The XFCE edition is our Recommended Download for older hardware. Both editions share the same Hidayah toolset — built from the official Debian 13 live images with the Sovereign Shield and faith tools on top.

Shield

  • Sovereign Shield DNS filter
  • Hagezi blocklist (daily refresh)
  • Offline seed list
  • Focus mode

Islamic

  • Prayer times daemon
  • Hijri calendar daemon
  • Current Ayah viewer
  • Khal calendar

Desktop

  • Dashboard data feeds (~/.cache/hidayah)
  • SDDM breeze-dark greeter
  • Emerald & Gold theming
  • Hidayah night wallpapers

Installer

  • Calamares with Hidayah branding
  • Live autologin as hidayah
  • BIOS + UEFI boot
  • Hardening sysctls
Faith Integration

Islamic Integration.

Custom-built tools designed to keep you connected to your faith, seamlessly integrated into your daily workflow.

Four Custom Hidayah Apps

Hidayah Prayer Times

Real astronomical prayer times (praytimes.org algorithm; MWL, Karachi, ISNA, Egypt and Makkah methods). Ships preconfigured for Lahore (editable via /etc/hidayah/prayer-config.json), with desktop notifications before and at each prayer, a gentle athan chime, and data feeds for desktop widgets and status bars.

Hidayah Current Ayah Viewer

A curated set of 20 ayahs (Arabic + English translation) rotates on your desktop via notifications. The ayah of the moment is served from ~/.cache/hidayah/quran-ayah.txt for widgets and status bars — fully offline out of the box.

Hidayah Khal Wrapper

Terminal-based Hijri/Gregorian calendar system. Displays dual calendars with custom Hidayah branding (Gold/Green). Accessible directly from the application menu for non-technical users.

Dashboard Data Feeds

Prayer times, the Hijri date and the current Quran ayah are written to ~/.cache/hidayah every session (refreshed when older than 12h) — ready to drop into Conky, i3bar, or any panel you like.

System-wide Features

Emerald & Gold Theming

HidayahEmeraldGold Plasma color scheme, HidayahNur Konsole colorscheme, and generated geometric wallpapers ship in the image.

Prayer-Time Focus Mode

During prayer times the Shield can block the optional social-media blocklist, then restore access — reversible and protected by polkit.

X11-Pinned Session

The session is pinned to X11 (SDDM DisplayServer=x11) with a breeze-dark greeter, so X11-only desktop tooling works flawlessly.

Live Autologin

The live session autologins as user 'hidayah' via live-config boot parameters — try the OS with zero setup.

Active Protection

6-Layer Islamic Shield.

Hidayah OS implements a multi-layered security stack to ensure your browsing remains clean and private.

1

Layer 1 — Sovereign Shield DNS

ACTIVE

Local DNS filter on 127.0.0.1:53 blocks domains from the community-maintained Hagezi blocklist (NXDOMAIN answers). Upstreams: Quad9, DNSSEC-validating.

2

Layer 2 — Daily Blocklist Refresh

ACTIVE

hidayah-update-blocklist.timer refreshes the blocklist every day. An offline seed list ships on the ISO, so the Shield works from first boot.

3

Layer 3 — DNS Hijack Prevention

ACTIVE

resolv.conf is pinned to 127.0.0.1:53 — NetworkManager dns=none and systemd-resolved masked — so all system DNS flows through the filter.

4

Layer 4 — Hardened Kernel Settings

ACTIVE

Hardening sysctls (99-hidayah-hardening.conf) and kernel module blacklists (hidayah-blacklist.conf) shipped in the image.

5

Layer 5 — Polkit-Protected Toggle

ACTIVE

Shield on/off/focus actions require administrator authentication via pkexec. Status checks read world-readable runtime files — no privileges needed.

6

Layer 6 — Prayer-Time Focus Mode

ACTIVE

One toggle (or scheduled during prayers) blocks the optional social-media blocklist, with an automatic off after 15 minutes.

Hardening

Privacy & Security.

Professional-grade privacy. Hidayah OS is pre-configured with industry-standard security policies and anonymity tools.

Sovereign Shield DNS filter on 127.0.0.1:53
Hagezi blocklist, refreshed daily (offline seed included)
Quad9 upstreams — DNSSEC-validating, no logs
resolv.conf pinned — NetworkManager dns=none, resolved masked
Hardening sysctls (99-hidayah-hardening.conf)
Kernel module blacklists (hidayah-blacklist.conf)
Polkit-protected Shield toggle (pkexec)
Prayer-time focus mode with auto-off
Firefox ESR web browser
Calamares installer with Hidayah branding
X11-pinned session (SDDM DisplayServer=x11)
No telemetry services added

Admin-Protected Shield

Administrator authentication (polkit / pkexec) protects every Shield change.

auth_admin_keep remembers the approval for 10 minutes, so prayer-time switches never nag twice.

  • Required to switch the Shield on or off
  • Required to toggle focus mode
  • Status checks need no privileges
  • Blocklist updates logged and scripted
Status: Hardened
Get Hidayah OS

Download Release.

Installer Included

Both editions include the Calamares installer for permanent disk installation. Boot the Live ISO, then click "Install Hidayah OS" on the desktop to begin installation.

RECOMMENDED

XFCE Edition

4.3 GB amd64
CPU64-bit Dual Core
RAM2 GB
Disk8 GB (Live Mode)
SHA-256 Checksum (XFCE Edition)
7f03f2c5c4d9798c114e05514b465cda217dd5446a0827a32c92c78488af4d58

Filename: HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-XFCE-amd64.iso

KDE Plasma Edition

4.7 GB amd64
CPU64-bit Dual Core
RAM4 GB
Disk8 GB (Live Mode)
SHA-256 Checksum (KDE Plasma Edition)
4c6e9b6d5ee68a6b81513406078e5192df45ac60d7e71d0f481ddf3d458bf40d

Filename: HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-KDE-amd64.iso

Verify Your Download

Always verify the integrity of your ISO file before booting. Open your terminal and run the following command to check the SHA256 hash.

Linux & macOS
sha256sum HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-XFCE-amd64.iso
Windows (PowerShell)
Get-FileHash HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-XFCE-amd64.iso -Algorithm SHA256
Official SHA-256 Checksums — v1.0.0 “Nur”
XFCE Edition — HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-XFCE-amd64.iso
7f03f2c5c4d9798c114e05514b465cda217dd5446a0827a32c92c78488af4d58
KDE Edition — HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-KDE-amd64.iso
4c6e9b6d5ee68a6b81513406078e5192df45ac60d7e71d0f481ddf3d458bf40d

Both editions ship fully de-branded (Hidayah OS 1.0.0 (Nur) identity, boot menu and splash) with the Hidayah night wallpaper forced by default. Verify your download against the checksums above before writing to USB.

Hidayah OS 1.0 “Nur” ISOs built on free Kaggle notebook compute
Compute Partner

Built on free Kaggle compute.

Powered by Kaggle

Both Hidayah OS 1.0 “Nur” ISOs — 8.9 GBacross KDE and XFCE variants — were built end-to-end on Kaggle’s free notebook compute, from live-build to squashfs to xorriso.

ComputeKaggle notebooks · 2×4 vCPU sessions
Artifacts8.9 GB ISOs produced
Pipelinev5.2-nurfix gates — builds fail if branding or QA assets are missing
Boot QAEvery ISO boot-tested in QEMU with the hidayah-doctor self-test
Learn more about Kaggle
REAL BOOT EVIDENCE

See Hidayah OS 1.0.0 Nur boot for real.

XFCE desktop after live autologin in Hidayah OS 1.0.0 Nur, showing the Hidayah night mosque wallpaper and the Install Hidayah OS shortcut
First boot — XFCE desktop · Hidayah night wallpaper · live autologin as “hidayah” · captured in QEMU 1280×800
Hidayah OS boot splash showing the golden-dome mosque artwork at 640x480
Boot splash — BIOS/UEFI
Early Linux kernel console output scrolling during the Hidayah OS 1.0.0 live boot
Kernel console — live boot
XFCE terminal opened on the Hidayah night wallpaper with the hidayah@hidayah live prompt
Terminal — hidayah@hidayah
hidayah-doctor self-test output inside the live session showing PASS=31 FAIL=0 and HIDAYAH_DOCTOR_ALL_OK
hidayah-doctor — 31/0 ALL OK
Sovereign Shield status output showing the DNS filter daemon active with a 132-domain seed blocklist
Sovereign Shield — dnsd active
XFCE applications menu open over the Hidayah night wallpaper
Applications menu
KDE Plasma desktop with the Hidayah night wallpaper, Emerald & Gold theming and Install Hidayah OS shortcuts
KDE Plasma — Hidayah night
KDE Plasma Welcome Center greeter branded for Hidayah OS with a link to hidayah-os.org
KDE Welcome Center — branded
Konsole terminal with hidayah@hidayah prompt on the Hidayah night wallpaper, KDE edition
Konsole terminal

Unretouched QEMU monitor screendumps of the v1.0.0-nur XFCE and KDE ISOs (TCG emulation) taken during release QA boots. The Hidayah night wallpaper, branded boot splash, live identity (user “hidayah”), Sovereign Shield DNS (active at boot with a 132-domain seed blocklist) and the hidayah-doctor self-test — PASS=31, FAIL=0 on the release build — are exactly what the ISOs ship. Nothing was mocked up.

Pre-installed

Everything
included.

No need to hunt for software. Hidayah OS is built from the official Debian 13 live images (KDE Plasma / Xfce) with a curated set of custom Hidayah tools on top.

Firefox ESR

Browser

LibreOffice

Office

Dolphin

Files

Konsole

Terminal

Okular

PDF

Ark

Archive

Spectacle

Screenshots

KCalc

Calculator

Sovereign Shield

Islamic

Current Ayah Viewer

Islamic

Prayer Times

Islamic

Khal Calendar

Islamic
2

desktop editions

0

proprietary software

100%

open source

Compatibility

Works On Your Hardware.

Extensive driver support included out of the box for laptops, desktops, and older machines.

Intel WiFi (iwlwifi firmware)
Realtek NIC firmware
Broadcom WiFi firmware
Intel GPU (i915 firmware)
AMD Graphics firmware
BIOS + UEFI boot support
Works on hardware from 2008 onwards
Specifications

Technical Specs.

ParameterSpecification
Version1.0.0 (Nur)
BaseDebian 13 "Trixie"
Kernel6.12 (Debian 13)
DesktopKDE Plasma 6 / Xfce
BootBIOS + UEFI
Base imageOfficial Debian live ISOs
ISO Size4.7 GB (KDE) / 4.3 GB (XFCE)
LicenseGPL-3.0
CostFree Forever
System Requirements

Minimum & Recommended.

Live mode runs entirely from the USB/DVD — nothing touches your disk unless you launch the Calamares installer. The KDE Plasma edition simply benefits from the higher end of these ranges.

Minimum

  • CPU64-bit (amd64) dual-core, 1.6 GHz
  • RAM2 GB (XFCE) · 4 GB (KDE Plasma)
  • Storage8 GB USB/DVD for live · 15 GB disk to install
  • FirmwareBoots BIOS or 64-bit UEFI

Recommended

  • CPU64-bit quad-core, 2 GHz or faster
  • RAM4 GB (XFCE) · 8 GB (KDE Plasma)
  • Storage25 GB+ SSD for install · USB 3.x 8 GB+ media
  • ExtrasIntel / AMD / NVIDIA firmware included on the ISO
Installation

Free. Forever.
Open Source.

Hidayah OS is completely free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license. Download, install, and run your own OS aligned with your values.

Which version should I choose?

  • KDE Edition (Emerald & Gold):

    Choose for Beauty & Modernity. Features the Emerald & Gold Plasma theming with premium UI polish.

  • XFCE Edition (The Workhorse):

    Choose for Productivity & Performance. Lightweight and fast, ideal for older hardware.

KDE Edition

Choose for Beauty & Modernity. Features the Emerald & Gold Plasma theming with premium UI polish.

Download KDE Edition
Filename: HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-KDE-amd64.iso
Size: 4.7 GB
SHA256: 4c6e9b6d5ee68a6b81513406078e5192df45ac60d7e71d0f481ddf3d458bf40d

XFCE Edition

Choose for Productivity & Performance. Lightweight and fast, ideal for older hardware.

Download XFCE Edition
Filename: HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-XFCE-amd64.iso
Size: 4.3 GB
SHA256: 7f03f2c5c4d9798c114e05514b465cda217dd5446a0827a32c92c78488af4d58

Verification Instructions

Verify on Linux/Mac:

sha256sum <filename>

Verify on Windows:

certutil -hashfile <filename> SHA256

System Requirements

Minimum RAM4GB
Recommended RAM8GB
Storage20GB minimum
CPU64-bit x86_64
GPUIntel / AMD / NVIDIA

What's Included

  • KDE Plasma or XFCE Desktop Environment
  • Islamic Shield (Content Filtering)
  • Athan Daemon with Prayer Integration
  • Hijri Calendar & Quran Ayah Display
  • Sovereign Shield DNS filtering (Hagezi blocklist, Quad9 upstreams)
  • Hardening sysctls & kernel module blacklists
  • Polkit-protected Shield toggle
  • Built from official Debian 13 live images

Core Values

  • No telemetry services added - Privacy by design
  • 100% Open Source - Audit the code
  • Islamic Principles - Built by Muslims
  • Privacy First - Your data is yours
  • No Proprietary Software - Freedom guaranteed
  • Community Driven - Crowdsourced development
  • GPL-3.0 Licensed - Libre forever
  • Transparent Security - Nothing to hide

Get Started in 3 Steps

Download the ISO, verify the checksum, write it to a USB, and boot. The Calamares installer will guide you through the rest.

Download KDE EditionDownload XFCE Edition
Installation

Download.Install.Align.

# Download Hidayah OS v1.0.0 (Nur)
# Example for KDE Edition:
$ wget "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/86580032/packages/generic/hidayah-os/1.0.0-nur/HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-KDE-amd64.iso"

# Verify SHA256
$ echo "4c6e9b6d5ee68a6b81513406078e5192df45ac60d7e71d0f481ddf3d458bf40d  HidayahOS-1.0.0-Nur-KDE-amd64.iso" | sha256sum -c
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Testimonials

Trusted by Muslims worldwide.

“
Finally an OS that doesn't require me to configure everything myself for Islamic use. It just works.
U

Ubaid

Founder

∞Islamic vision
Featured companies
Debian ProjectKDE CommunityF-DroidGNU Project
Contributing

Build with us.
For the Ummah.

Hidayah OS is built by the community, for the community. Whether you're a developer, designer, or just passionate about privacy and Islamic values, there's a way for you to contribute.

Fully Open Source

Audit every line of code. GPL-3.0 licensed. Nothing proprietary.

Easy to Contribute

Documentation, GitLab issues, and an active community ready to help.

Modular Design

Components are independent. Modify, fork, or extend with ease.

Active Development

New features released regularly. Your contributions welcome.

Contribute on GitLab

Join our Discord community for guidance and collaboration.

LIVE

Privacy
in real-time.

Shield Status

Real-time system protection metrics

🛡️
✓
Shield Status
PROTECTED ✓
🌐
DNS
Shield Filter Active
🔥
Blocklist
Hagezi (daily)
🔒
resolv.conf
Pinned
⛓️
Focus Mode
Ready
⚔️
Kernel
Hardened
🚫
Telemetry
Disabled
✨
Updates
Current
0
Custom Hidayah tools
prayer, Hijri, Quran & Shield
prayer, Hijri, Quran, DNS filter
System daemons & units
0
privacy by design
Telemetry connections
0

Your OS,
Your values.

Join Muslims worldwide switching to Hidayah OS. Reclaim your privacy, align with your values, and join a thriving Islamic tech community.

100% Free • Open Source • Privacy Hardened