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Posted by moWerk 5 hours ago

Show HN: AsteroidOS 2.0 – Nobody asked, we shipped anyway(asteroidos.org)
Hi HN, After roughly 8 years of silently rolling 1.1 nightlies, we finally tagged a proper stable 2.0 release. We built this because wrist-sized Linux is genuinely fun to hack on, and because a handful of us think it's worth keeping capable hardware alive long after manufacturers move on. Smartwatches don't really get old — the silicon is basically the same as it was a decade ago. We just keep making it useful for us.

No usage stats, no tracking, no illusions of mass adoption. The only real signal we get is the occasional person who appears in our Matrix chat going "hey, it booted on my watch from 2014 and now it's usable again" — and that's plenty.

Privacy is non-negotiable: zero telemetry, no cloud, full local control. Longevity is the other half: we refuse to let good hardware become e-waste just because support ended. On the learning side, it's been one of the best playgrounds: instant feedback on your wrist makes QML/Qt, JavaScript watchfaces and embedded Linux feel tangible. The community is small and kind — perfect for people who want to learn open-source dev without gatekeeping.

Technically we're still pragmatic: libhybris + older kernels on most devices since it just works, but we've already mainlined rinato (Samsung Gear 2) and sparrow (ASUS ZenWatch 2) — rinato even boots with a usable UI. That's the direction we're pushing toward.

Repo: https://github.com/AsteroidOS Install images & docs: https://asteroidos.org 2.0 demo video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6FiQz0yACc Announcement post: https://asteroidos.org/news/2-0-release/

Questions, port requests, mentoring offers, criticism, weird ideas — all welcome. We do this because shaping a tiny, open wearable UX and infrastructure is oddly satisfying, and because Linux on the wrist still feels like a playground worth playing in.

Cheers, the AsteroidOS Team

212 points | 26 commentspage 2
tamimio 2 hours ago|
Thanks for sharing this, it looks promising!

I would love if it would support some of the no-brand Chinese watches you get usually for cheap, the hardware is great but the software usually is bad or outdated. I use one now, I don’t even know anything about it other than the Bluetooth name and app name, but it’s good in measuring distance, blood pressure, heart rate, sleep, among others that’s surprisingly it’s very accurate, it also has a builtin strong flashlight, I like it but with a fully fledged linux would definitely be better.

MagneFire 5 hours ago||
Great work to everyone involved with the project!
lovegrenoble 3 hours ago||
Rust support?
verin0x 2 hours ago|
The main UI and GUI components are Qt. So you could use Qt bindings to build something with Rust. If you don't want the same look and feel, it's just a normal linux with wayland and systemd. Cross compile to the architecture and adapt the UI to the small displays and you should be fine.
lovegrenoble 3 hours ago||
well done!