=============================================================================== ZETA RAYS OS 2.5 A free, minimal operating system with local AI and security tools. https://zetarays.org . info@zetarays.org =============================================================================== 1. Which file to download 8. Network and Wi-Fi 2. Verify your download 9. Troubleshooting 3. Philosophy 10. Known limitations 4. Requirements 11. License and credits 5. Trying it and installing it 12. Privacy 6. What is inside 13. Contact 7. ZETA, the AI 1. WHICH FILE TO DOWNLOAD ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- zetarays-2.5-amd64.iso Intel and AMD PCs. This is the right file for almost every desktop and laptop. 7,384,301,568 bytes (7.38 GB) zetarays-2.5-arm64.iso 64-bit ARM machines and Apple Silicon Macs (with UTM or QEMU). 7,387,635,712 bytes (7.39 GB) zetarays-2.5-amd64.ova Ready-made VirtualBox machine for Intel and AMD PCs. Import it and start it, nothing to install. 7,642,716,672 bytes (7.64 GB) zetarays-2.5-arm64.ova Ready-made VirtualBox machine for Apple Silicon Macs (VirtualBox 7.2 or later). 7,698,246,656 bytes (7.70 GB) Use an ISO to install ZETA RAYS on a computer, or to try it from a USB stick without touching your disk. Use an OVA to try it inside a window, leaving your computer exactly as it is. The system starts in English, with a US keyboard layout. The installer lets you choose your language, keyboard layout and time zone, and the installed system then uses them everywhere (see "Language and keyboard" in section 6). 2. VERIFY YOUR DOWNLOAD ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Always check that the file arrived intact. The SHA-256 checksum must match exactly. arm64.iso 0751b1fcb28776b6a713dbda8dcf14becce84ff508ad7aa5aab29ca20aa97784 arm64.ova 77772018fc29f49e36b3a11eaa66b401b5e41dd0bf21d87d25c9a15557f10a4a amd64.iso e65d22a7c72004f8a7679fd3b230eac4888cc5b7b22cde438eb1b36c45f061d7 amd64.ova e7d946a49352d0cff6fb9a7fc209bd46fe362f02171a8b07227617066c8cd6da The same checksums are in the SHA256SUMS file, next to the images. How to check: Windows (PowerShell) Get-FileHash .\zetarays-2.5-amd64.iso -Algorithm SHA256 macOS (Terminal) shasum -a 256 zetarays-2.5-arm64.iso Linux (Terminal) sha256sum zetarays-2.5-amd64.iso All files at once, with SHA256SUMS in the same folder: sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS (Linux) shasum -a 256 -c SHA256SUMS (macOS) If the checksum does not match, the file is incomplete or corrupted: download it again. Never install an image that fails verification. 3. PHILOSOPHY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Few things, done well. A black, quiet desktop where every piece belongs to the same design. An assistant that runs on your own computer, does what you ask and checks that it really happened before saying "done". Tools for security work, ready to use. Nothing that phones home, nothing that runs without a reason, and no feature that only works in a demo. 4. REQUIREMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Minimum Recommended Processor 64-bit (x86-64 or ARM64) 4 cores or more Memory 8 GB 16 GB Disk 15 GB free 20 GB free or more Firmware UEFI or BIOS (amd64) UEFI with Secure Boot Processor 64-bit is required. On a 32-bit processor or virtual machine the boot stops with an error. Memory The system and the local AI run with 8 GB: the AI model (about 3.7 GB when loaded) is loaded when you ask something and released after a few minutes. With 16 GB or more it is loaded in advance, at login, and answers start sooner. With 4 GB the desktop works, but ZETA needs a smaller model (Settings > AI). Disk The installed system takes about 8 GB. Firmware The images use the signed shim: Secure Boot can stay on. The amd64 image also boots in BIOS/Legacy mode. 5. TRYING IT AND INSTALLING IT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From a USB stick (ISO) 1. Write the ISO to a stick of at least 8 GB with Rufus (Windows), balenaEtcher (Windows, macOS, Linux) or dd (Linux, macOS). The image is hybrid: write it as it is, no conversion needed. 2. Boot your computer from the stick. The boot menu offers: Try ZETA RAYS OS the live desktop (starts by itself after 5 seconds) Install ZETA RAYS OS opens the installer at once Try ZETA RAYS OS (safe graphics) for difficult graphics cards Tools UEFI firmware settings, check the boot media 3. The ZETA RAYS desktop comes up, fully working: you can try it without changing anything on your computer. 4. To install it, choose "Install ZETA RAYS OS" in the welcome window, or "Install ZETA RAYS" from the app menu. Both ways give the same result, with or without a network: the boot loader is installed from the USB stick itself. The boot menu, the live desktop and the installer start in English, with a US keyboard layout. The first screen of the installer has a language menu at the bottom: choose your language there (Italiano, for example) and the rest of the installation continues in that language. The next screens set your time zone, regional formats and keyboard layout. The installed system starts with all of these choices. To change them later, use Settings > Language & Region. In VirtualBox (OVA) 1. VirtualBox, File > Import Appliance, pick the .ova file. 2. Start the machine. It logs in automatically. The machine comes preset with 8 GB of memory and 4 processors. In VirtualBox (ISO) When you create the machine, choose Type "Linux" and a 64-bit version. If you leave a 32-bit version, the boot stops with an error about the program format (i686 / x86-64). That is not a fault in the image: it is the virtual machine set to 32-bit. Alongside another system (dual boot) ZETA RAYS can be installed next to another Linux distribution or Windows. Its boot menu looks for the other systems and lists them, with five seconds to choose. It installs into its own EFI folder, /EFI/zetarays, so it never overwrites another system's boot files. Secure Boot keeps working after installation: you do not need to turn it off. Manual partitioning next to another system, step by step: 1. Leave the other system's EFI partition alone: the small one (100 to 500 MB), FAT32, with the "boot" / "esp" flags. Do not delete it and do not format it. Do not add other flags (not "bios_grub"). 2. Select the partition meant for ZETA RAYS, Edit: tick Format, file system ext4, mount point "/", no flags. 3. Select the existing EFI partition, Edit: mount point "/boot/efi", and leave Format UNTICKED. This is the step people miss: without it there is nowhere to put the boot loader. 4. Swap is optional. An existing swap partition can be shared with the other system: mount point "swap", without formatting. 5. Only on older computers started in BIOS (Legacy) mode, there is a "Boot loader location" field at the bottom: leave the whole disk selected (for example /dev/sda), not a single partition. Before pressing Install, the summary must show "Format" only once, on the ZETA RAYS partition. If step 3 is skipped, the installer warns "No EFI system partition configured": go back and do step 3. If you continue anyway, the installer stops at the end and says so, instead of finishing "successfully" and leaving a machine that cannot boot. If you format a partition that the other system used as swap, that system may wait about a minute and a half for it at boot. To fix it, start the other system and remove the swap line from its /etc/fstab. Logging in User zeta Password zeta The computer is named zetarays, so the terminal shows zeta@zetarays. The OVAs log in automatically. When you install, you choose your own user name and password. 6. WHAT IS INSIDE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A complete desktop, written for ZETA RAYS: bar, Dock, app launcher, Control Center, Files, Terminal, Monitor, Security, Settings, file search. Technical base: Debian 13 (trixie), Linux kernel 6.12.113, Hyprland 0.55 with the official fix for a crash with open menus. Security and analysis tools, for professional and educational use, with a Security app that lists them and installs the missing ones. 144 file types have a program that opens them, and every one of those programs is actually installed: PDF, EPUB, images (including WEBP, HEIC, AVIF), video, audio, archives, fonts, text and code. Language and keyboard The USB stick and the live session start in English, with the US keyboard layout. The installer asks for your language, keyboard layout and time zone, and the installed system uses them everywhere: login screen, desktop, apps and terminal. Settings > Language & Region changes them later: the language, the regional formats (dates, times, numbers, currency), the keyboards (see "Keyboards" below) and an input method for Chinese, Japanese and Korean (Fcitx 5: Mozc for Japanese, Pinyin for Simplified Chinese, Chewing for Traditional Chinese, Hangul for Korean; Ctrl + Space switches between the keyboard and the input method). A new language applies after you log out and back in; keyboards apply at once. Languages: English (United States and United Kingdom), Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese (Portugal and Brazil), Dutch, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Romanian, Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish, Swedish, Norwegian Bokmal, Danish, Finnish, Croatian, Slovenian, Serbian, Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, Hindi, Bengali, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. The ZETA RAYS apps themselves (desktop, bar, Settings, ZETA and the other ZETA RAYS tools) are translated into English and Italian. With any other language, the system, Firefox, Thunderbird, the installer and the GTK and Qt apps use that language, while the ZETA RAYS apps stay in English. Fonts for all these scripts are included, and text recognition (OCR) reads the system language. Keyboards Settings > Language & Region > Keyboards holds up to four layouts (for example Italian, English US and English UK). The first one is the default; Alt + Shift or a click on the indicator in the bar (IT, US, GB...) switches between them, and changes apply at once. Fonts Settings > Fonts shows every font of the computer in its own typeface, with a sample text you can change and a search. "Add Fonts..." (or dropping .ttf, .otf, .ttc or .woff files on the page) installs new fonts for your user, ready at once in every app; fonts you added can be removed (they go to the Trash). Account Settings > Account shows your name and user and lets you choose your picture: a .jpg or .png photo (cut to a circle from the centre, sharp at every size) or a plain circle in one of the four system colors (blue, red, green, white). By default the circle has the accent color and changes with it. It appears in the account and power menu (click it to open Settings > Account), on the lock screen and at login. Displays Settings > Displays lists every connected display: resolution (the native one is marked), refresh rate, scale (only the values that fit the resolution and leave a usable desktop), orientation, and for a built-in laptop panel the brightness. With two or more displays: drag them on the map to match your desk, join them, mirror them or use only one, and choose the main display (the first workspace opens there). "Identify Displays" shows each number on its screen. Nothing changes until Apply; then the real state is checked and a dialog asks to keep the new settings: without an answer the previous ones come back after 15 seconds. Kept settings are remembered for each display (make, model and serial number), also when it is unplugged and plugged in again. zeta-displays list prints the state in a terminal. Windows always within reach A window can never stay where you cannot grab it: if a program moves its window off the screen or opens it larger than the screen, or a display is unplugged or its resolution or scale changes, the window comes back with its title bar and buttons inside the screen, above the bar. SUPER + SHIFT + W (or zeta-windows recover) brings every window back at once. Menus of the bar always open inside the screen. Instant menus The menus of the bar (the ZETA RAYS logo, search, network, sound, clock, power) stay ready in memory: a click opens them at once, with fresh data, and a second click or Esc closes them. Each shows only its own things: the network icon Wi-Fi, available networks, Ethernet, Internet status, VPN and Network Settings; the sound icon volume, output devices, microphone, input devices and Sound Settings; the clock and the battery the Control Center (quick toggles, brightness, battery). There is always exactly one bar: if Waybar ever duplicates it (after the screen wakes up or a monitor is reconnected), the extra copies are removed within seconds. Firefox start page With internet, Firefox opens zetarays.org. Without internet it opens a copy of the same site stored on the computer (links disabled), never an error page. You can choose another start page in Firefox's settings. Look and feel Light and dark theme, with SUPER + T or from the Control Center. An accent color of your choice, which retints the bar, borders, launcher, wallpaper and terminal together. The default wallpaper is the ZETA RAYS logo in the accent color. Eight ZETA RAYS wallpapers (blue waves, green circuits, red waves, terminal, and the logo in blue, green, red and white) are one click away in Settings > Appearance > Wallpaper. The lock screen is always plain black, on every display, also when waking from sleep (sleep waits until the lock is on screen); the wallpaper comes back after unlocking. The text editor can have a white or a black page (Settings > Appearance > Text Editor) while its window follows the theme of the desktop. Folder colors Right-click a folder, on the Desktop or in Files, and choose Folder Color: red, white, green, blue or purple, like on a Mac. On the Desktop the whole folder takes the color; in Files a colored dot marks it. Default brings the standard folder back. The color is kept after a restart and nothing inside the folder changes (zeta-folder-color does the same from a terminal). ZETA RAYS Monitor Twelve real-time sections: overview, traffic, map, network, VPN and proxy, firewall, connections, users, security, processes, services and system. Services shows each one as running, completed, stopped, not applicable (skipped because it is not needed on this computer, such as Bluetooth without an adapter), needing attention (a periodic job that failed and will run again) or failed. Only a failed service turns the status at the top red. Desktop Arrange the icons your way: Home and Trash move like every other icon. Right-click the Desktop > View: "Align to Grid" (on by default) or free placement anywhere, icons arranged from the left (like Windows) or from the right (like macOS), small, medium or large icons. "Clean Up Icons" snaps them to the nearest free cells keeping your layout; "Sort By" puts them in order. Drag a program (an AppImage, or an entry of the app menu) from Files onto the Desktop and it becomes a shortcut, never a copy of the program; New > App Shortcut... lists every app, AppImages included. Programs unpacked by hand (Blender from blender.org in /opt or in Downloads): their desktop entry or the program itself dropped on the Desktop becomes a working shortcut with full paths, which can be moved, copied and pasted freely; programs in /opt appear in the app menu by themselves. Blender from blender.org starts like the packaged one, at the right size for your screen. Thumbnails of images, SVG, PDF and video on the Desktop and in Files. Drop an image or a file from Firefox or Chromium onto the Desktop and it is saved there as a real file, with its original name; a link becomes a shortcut to the page. A file with the same name is never overwritten. Minimized windows appear in the bar as live previews. The Dock can be reordered in Settings > Dock and keeps its order after a restart. Text out of pictures (OCR, done on your computer) SUPER + SHIFT + T and drag over any part of the screen: the text goes straight to the clipboard. For files, right-click an image or a PDF and choose "Copy Text from Image". Text is read in the system language and in English. Never stuck Ctrl + Alt + Esc turns the pointer into a red crosshair: click the window that stopped responding and it is closed with every process it started, first politely, then by force. Ctrl + Shift + Esc closes the active window. Ctrl + Alt + Delete opens the emergency panel: task manager, terminal, restore the desktop, lock, log out, restart, shut down. When memory is about to run out, the heaviest program is closed before the computer freezes, and a notification says which one. If the desktop ever crashes, it comes back by itself in a few seconds, with your settings. ZETA Share Send files to phones and computers nearby (Android, iPhone, Windows, macOS, Linux) with LocalSend: right-click a file in Files and choose "Share with ZETA Share". Files go directly over the local network, never through the internet. Apps Firefox, Thunderbird, a text editor, a media player, an image viewer, a PDF viewer, a terminal with tabs, splits, bash, zsh and fish. Settings > Default Apps chooses the default for each role, and every program follows the choice. Printers Settings > Printers finds Wi-Fi, wired and USB printers by itself and adds them with one click, without drivers (IPP Everywhere) or with the right driver (HP, Epson, Brother, Gutenprint for older Canon and others). There is a "Test page" button, and a printer can also be added by its IP address. Search The magnifying glass in the bar finds apps, settings, your files and the text inside your documents. Your own files come first, even ones you created a second ago, each with the icon of its type; then external disks, /opt and /etc. Internal system files are left out. Files and system folders In Files, right-click inside a system folder such as /opt: "Paste Here as Administrator" pastes the copied files after asking for your password, "Open as Administrator" opens the folder with full rights. "Send To > Desktop (Create Link)" puts a working shortcut to any program on the Desktop. Installing and managing programs Right-click any app in the app menu or in search: open it, open its file location, add it to the Desktop or the Dock, "Get info" (where it comes from: APT, Flatpak, AppImage, /opt; its version and paths), remove it from the menu or uninstall it. System apps cannot be removed by mistake. Double-click a .deb file or a .flatpakref (the "Install" button on flathub.org) to install it. AppImages placed in ~/Applications (or found in Downloads, on the Desktop, in ~/.local/bin or in /opt) join the menu by themselves, with their own name and icon; the Italian folders of earlier installations (Applicazioni, Scaricati, Scrivania) still work. An AppImage keeps the same identity when you move, rename or update the file: one menu entry, one Desktop icon, and the Desktop shortcuts and the Dock follow the file. An AppImage file on the Desktop shows its app's name and icon. "Change icon..." gives an app a new icon everywhere (menu, Dock, search, Desktop); "Restore icon" puts the original back. Where is a program? In the terminal, zeta-app find NAME (or zeta-app where NAME) tells where a program is and how to start it: every installation (APT, Flatpak, AppImage, /opt...), the launch command, the executable, the desktop entry, the package and its version, and whether a command is in your PATH (and which one runs when you type its name). It also lists system services with that name. --json gives the same answer for scripts. zeta-app --help lists the other commands: launch, info, locate, desktop, dock, undock, set-icon, reset-icon, hide, show, hidden, uninstall, install, appimage, maintenance and list. Servers and shared folders "Connect to Server" (app menu, search, or "Connect to a server" in Settings > Wi-Fi & Network) opens shared folders of Windows PCs, Macs and NAS drives (SMB), SSH servers (SFTP), FTP, WebDAV (Nextcloud), NFS and older Macs (AFP). Servers on the local network are listed by themselves. Favorites also appear in Files, and the password can be remembered. Terminal tools ip, ifconfig, route, ss, ping, traceroute, tracepath, mtr, dig, host, nslookup, ethtool, iw, nmcli, rfkill, nc (netcat), socat, telnet, ssh, scp, sftp, sshfs, autossh, ssh-import-id, curl, wget, git and python3 all work for the normal user. With sudo: nft, iptables and ip6tables (nftables backend), ufw, conntrack, tcpdump, nmap, arp. 7. ZETA, THE AI ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ZETA is the assistant of ZETA RAYS. Open it from the Dock, or from the launcher (SUPER + SPACE, then ZETA). You can write or speak to it, in English or in Italian, whatever the system language. What it does It really drives the system: 58 actions on apps, windows, files and folders, settings, volume, brightness, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, the Dock, processes and software. After every action it checks the real state of the system, and it only says "done" when the check agrees. Deleting, installing or removing software, restarting and shutting down always ask for your consent first, showing exactly what will be touched. "Close" asks the app to close, so it can ask you to save; only "force close" ends it, and asks first. ZETA never gets free root access and cannot run arbitrary commands. Every action is written to ~/.local/share/zeta/actions.log, with passwords hidden. Some things to say or type open firefox close firefox open downloads find the file invoice create a folder trips on the desktop and then open it move note.txt to documents delete note.txt from the desktop how much ram am i using which processes are using the most cpu set the volume to 60% brightness to 50% connect to the wifi network HomeNet turn off wifi set the wallpaper to red waves light theme open sound settings lock the computer The same requests work in Italian ("apri firefox", "spegni il wifi"). Finding programs ZETA also answers questions about the software on the computer: "where is blender?", "which command launches firefox?", "which package provides git?", "find my appimages". The answer comes from the same search as zeta-app find. When the same app is installed more than once (for example from APT and from Flatpak), ZETA lists the installations and asks which one you mean: "open blender flatpak". Voice ZETA reads its answers aloud by default, with a natural female voice computed on your computer, starting with the first sentence while the rest is still being written: Sara (Kokoro) in Italian, with Serena and Paola (Piper) as alternatives, and Lessac (Piper) in English, chosen by the language of your question; other languages use espeak-ng. The speaker button next to the input field (or Settings > AI > Voice) turns it off; Settings > AI > Voice also chooses the voice, the speed and the volume. ZETA also understands spoken commands (Vosk, Italian and English, also on your computer). Nothing you say or hear leaves the computer. Local AI only ZETA answers only with AI models that run on your computer, through Ollama: no account, no API key, no online AI service, nothing you write or say is sent anywhere. It also works without internet. The image includes two models: Granite 4.0 Micro (fast and light: low-power Intel N100/N150 mini PCs and 8 GB computers) and Qwen3 4B Instruct (the best Italian: 16 GB computers). ZETA picks the one that suits the computer and Settings > AI shows the choice, offers the model recommended for this computer when it is not installed yet (you decide whether to download it) and manages the installed models. When there is not enough free memory for the usual model, a smaller installed model answers that question and ZETA says so. Simple commands are understood in a fraction of a second without the model; the model answers questions and free-form requests. It is loaded into memory when you ask something (when you open ZETA with 12 GB or more, at login with 16 GB or more) and released when not needed. Memory ZETA follows the conversation, and remembers for the long term only what you ask: "remember that I prefer short answers", "forget my address", "what do you know about me?". Each question gets only the memories that match it. Everything stays in one file only you can read; Settings > AI > Memory lists the memories, deletes them, exports them and chooses how long the conversation is kept (30 days unless you change it). zeta --learn FILE gives ZETA a text file of yours as reference, on the computer. Current facts A model only knows the world up to its training date. ZETA knows today's date, carries a small verified reference of facts that change (who holds some offices, with the date they were checked) and, for other questions about current facts, looks them up on Wikipedia (Settings > AI, on by default; only the question is sent). With the search off and nothing in the reference, ZETA says it cannot verify instead of giving an old answer. You always know what is happening Under the sphere, ZETA shows which AI and which model are answering, for example "Ollama . qwen3:4b-instruct . local". While it works it says whether it is loading the model or doing a command. Errors give the real reason in plain words: not enough memory, model not installed, Ollama stopped. Answers are written and read aloud at the same time; under the input field you can pause the voice, stop it or have the answer read again. 8. NETWORK AND WI-FI ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ethernet works as soon as the cable is in (DHCP, IPv4 and IPv6). Wi-Fi is in Settings > Wi-Fi & Network, in the Control Center, and through ZETA. Security WPA2, WPA3 and mixed WPA2/WPA3 networks (including WPA3 with the newer "hash-to-element" method), open networks. Bands 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz. Hidden "Hidden network" in Settings: type the name and the password. Passwords Spaces, symbols and accented letters are fine. Region The radio region is taken from the time zone you chose (Europe/Rome gives IT), so every channel allowed in your country, such as 12 and 13 on 2.4 GHz, can be used. Wrong password? ZETA RAYS says "Wrong password" only when the router has really refused it, and asks for it again at once: you are never stuck with a wrong password saved. If the connection fails for another reason (weak signal, a router that does not answer) it says so instead. A saved network whose password has changed can get the new one with the key button (Change password), or be forgotten with the bin button (Forget network). Also in Settings > Wi-Fi & Network: manual IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, DNS, VPN import (WireGuard, OpenVPN) and proxy. Remote access (SSH) The SSH client and server are installed (with scp, sftp, sshfs, autossh, ssh-import-id and netcat). Installed system the server is ON, reachable from your local network and from the internet (if your router forwards port 22), with the password you chose while installing. Live and OVA the server is OFF, because they use the well-known password "zeta". Turn it on or off in Settings > Wi-Fi & Network > Remote access, or in the terminal: sudo zeta-ssh on local network only sudo zeta-ssh remote on also from the internet sudo zeta-ssh remote off back to the local network only sudo zeta-ssh off off zeta-ssh status / zeta-ssh config / sudo zeta-ssh diagnose The choice stays after a restart and after a reload of the firewall, and repeating a command never adds duplicate rules: the zeta-ssh-sync service puts it back into the firewall sets after every start and every firewall reload (sudo zeta-ssh sync does the same by hand). From another computer on the same network: ssh yourname@
From the internet: on by default on an installed system, off in the live session and the OVAs (their password is known). Use the "Also from the internet" switch, or sudo zeta-ssh remote on / remote off. Check it with: sudo nft list set inet zeta remote_access (elements = { 22 }). Your router must also forward port 22 to this computer. Protections: root cannot log in, 4 attempts per connection, and more than 10 new connections a minute from the same address are dropped. A key is safer than a password: ssh-copy-id yourname@
. Passwords stay accepted until you decide otherwise, so you cannot lock yourself out. The server keys are created on first start, unique to each computer. Firewall: on by default, nftables, table "inet zeta". Every incoming service is in one of three classes: LAN ONLY local network only: name discovery (mDNS), ZETA Share, SSH when turned on REMOTE ENABLED also from the internet: SSH (on by default once installed, off in the live session and the OVAs) DISABLED everything else, dropped Replies to connections you started, ping, DHCP and IPv6 always work. Refused SSH attempts are logged (at most 3 a minute): journalctl -k -g zeta-fw. Diagnosis of the whole path, from the network card to sshd: sudo zeta-ssh diagnose. Do not add rules with "nft add rule": they are lost at the next restart. Extra rules go in a .nft file in /etc/nftables.d/. How the network is organized: one active firewall (nftables, table "inet zeta", saved in /etc/nftables.conf) and one network manager (NetworkManager, which also writes the DNS servers in /etc/resolv.conf). There is no firewalld and no systemd-resolved. The iptables command is there, but it writes into the same nftables. Instead of resolvectl: nmcli dev show (DNS in use) and cat /etc/resolv.conf. ufw is installed but OFF. If you prefer it, sudo ufw enable turns it on: it then filters together with the ZETA firewall, and its rules for SSH (written by zeta-ssh) and ZETA Share (local network only) are already there, so nothing is cut off. sudo ufw status shows them. 9. TROUBLESHOOTING ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wi-Fi says "Wrong password" but you are sure it is right Check upper and lower case and the keyboard layout: the live session uses the US layout, an installed system the one you chose (Settings > Language & Region). If it still fails, forget the network (bin button) and connect again. The full report: sudo zeta-diagnostics. Wi-Fi says "Could not join" the network The router did not complete the connection: move closer, or restart the router. If the network is hidden, use "Hidden network". No Wi-Fi at all Settings > Wi-Fi & Network must show the Wi-Fi switch. If it does not, the card is not recognized: run "rfkill list" in the terminal (a "Hard blocked: yes" means a physical switch or a key on the laptop) and sudo zeta-diagnostics. The first answer of ZETA is slow The local model is being loaded into memory, which takes a few seconds the first time; ZETA says so while it happens. On computers with less memory it is released after a few minutes and loaded again at the next question. A program does not respond Ctrl + Alt + Esc, then click its window. Or Ctrl + Alt + Delete. "grub rescue>" or the other system is missing from the boot menu Start from the ZETA RAYS USB stick, open the terminal and run: sudo zeta-repair-boot It finds the installed systems, shows what it is about to do, asks for confirmation, then reinstalls the boot loader and rebuilds the menu. It never touches partitions or data. It also fixes installations made with earlier test images, which hid the boot menu. Cannot connect with SSH from another computer Run zeta-ssh status: it says whether the server is on, whether port 22 is open and which address to use (it can change, for example when you move from the cable to Wi-Fi: the router must forward port 22 to the address shown now). sudo zeta-ssh diagnose checks everything: network cards, routes, the chain SSH_REMOTE_ACCESS > remote_access > nftables > sshd line by line, other firewalls (iptables, ufw), sshd, open connections and refused attempts. From the internet: on this computer run sudo tcpdump -ni any 'tcp port 22' and connect from outside. If nothing arrives, the router does not forward port 22. If only [S] arrives and no [S.] goes out, access from the internet is off (sudo zeta-ssh remote on). In the live session and the OVAs the server is off: sudo zeta-ssh on. On the local network, from the other computer, nc -vz
22 tells whether the port answers. A system installed with an earlier test image can be brought up to date with the script update-network-zeta-rays.sh released with these images: sudo bash update-network-zeta-rays.sh --dry-run analyzes and checks without changing anything; then run it again without --dry-run. If SSH is already open from the internet there, it stays open (--lan-only closes it, --remote opens it). Kernel panic at boot in a virtual machine (VMware Fusion, Workstation...) Fixed in these images: the boot no longer needs more memory than a small virtual machine has. VMware creates Linux machines with only 768 MB: give ZETA RAYS at least 4 GB of memory and turn on 3D acceleration (Display settings), otherwise the desktop is slow or falls back to the installer only. No sound Settings > Sound: choose the right output device. Anything else sudo zeta-diagnostics writes a full report (hardware, drivers, network, services, errors) that you can send to info@zetarays.org. 10. KNOWN LIMITATIONS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - The ZETA RAYS apps are translated into English and Italian only. With another system language they stay in English, while the rest of the system follows the language you chose. - ZETA understands commands in English and Italian, written or spoken. The local model can reply in other languages, but commands in other languages go through the model and are slower and less reliable. - Wi-Fi was tested with WPA2, WPA3 and mixed access points, 2.4 and 5 GHz, hidden networks and slow DHCP, using simulated radios. Each real card depends on its own driver: a few cards without a free driver (some Broadcom models) are not supported. - With WPA3, a wrong password and a router that does not answer look the same to the system: ZETA RAYS then says that it could not join the network, instead of "Wrong password". - Suspend, Bluetooth and the microphone depend on the hardware and were tested in virtual machines only. - The local models run on the computer's processor: the first words come in a second or two, then the reply is written at the speed of the processor. On an Intel N100 ZETA uses Granite 4.0 Micro, the faster of the two included models (speeds on the N100 itself are estimates: the tests ran in virtual machines). Their knowledge stops at their training date: current facts come from a small verified reference (with its date) or from Wikipedia (Settings > AI, on by default); otherwise ZETA says it cannot verify them. - Some images on web pages exist only inside the page ("blob" images): Firefox cannot hand them over by dragging. Right-click them and choose "Save Image As...". - The ZETA Share window shows its own name, LocalSend. 11. LICENSE AND CREDITS ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ZETA RAYS OS is free software, released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later (GPL-3.0-or-later). You may use it, study it, modify it and redistribute it. Every component keeps its own license. The full list, generated from the image component by component, is inside the system under Settings > About > Third-party software and licenses (and Full list of components), and in the files under /usr/share/zeta/legal/. Built on the work of Debian and the whole Linux community, Mozilla, the GNU project, Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel developers, Hyprland, XFCE, GNOME, KDE, Ollama, the Qwen team for Qwen3, IBM for Granite, hexgrad for Kokoro, and everyone who wrote the free software that is in here. 12. PRIVACY ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ZETA RAYS collects no data and sends no telemetry. The AI runs only on your own computer: what you write or say to ZETA, and what it remembers, never leaves it. The only things that leave your computer are the ones you ask for: package updates, pages you open in the browser, searches you start, the Wikipedia lookups for current facts (only the question, and you can turn them off) and models you choose to download. The full details are inside the system, under Settings > About > Privacy. 13. CONTACT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Website https://zetarays.org Email info@zetarays.org Author Francesco Megna ===============================================================================