Release Information

Available eLxr 26.04 Images

You can download images from the eLxr website. Images include package management by default, to help you customize your distribution to meet your needs.

eLxr 26.04 Images include:

  • Intel x86 and AMD EPYC:

    • elxr-edge-26.04.01-amd64.iso - This eLxr Edge 26.04 OSTree-based image, for use with edge devices, requires minimal installation, such as specifying the installation drive and optionally specifying drive and kernel parameters.

    • elxr-edge-26.04.01-minimal-amd64.iso - This eLxr Edge 26.04 OSTree-based image, is a smaller footprint version of the elxr-edge-26.04.01-amd64.iso image, designed to deploy to containers, or to provide the smallest footprint to create your custom eLxr image from.

    • elxr-cloud-amd64-26.04.01.qcow2 - This eLxr Edge 26.04 cloud-based image, for use in virtual environments, requires you to customize a cloud-init configuration file to provision it as a virtual machine.

    • elxr-minimal-amd64-26.04.01-amd64.img.zst - This minimal image is similar to the elxr-26.04.01-amd64-NETINST-1.iso image below, but provides a much smaller footprint. It provides a minimal basis for deploying your eLxr image to a container or device that requires a small footprint.

    • elxr-26.04.01-amd64-NETINST-1.iso - This full eLxr Server 26.04 image with the installer prompts you to perform an installation; for use with x86-based devices, such a PCs and servers.

  • ARM:

    • elxr-minimal-imx-26.04.01-arm64.img.zst - This minimal image is designed for container usage, or for hardware that requires a small footprint. it is optimized for the NXP i.MX8M, i.MX8+, and i.MX9 SoCs, for use with edge devices and virtual image solutions.

    • elxr-minimal-ostree-imx-26.04.01-arm64.img.zst - Similar to the elxr-minimal-imx-26.04.01-arm64.img.zst image, this live ARM boot image includes OSTree, which allows for installation to a specified drive of your choice and provides the ability to perform system-wide updates. It is optimized for the NXP i.MX8M, i.MX8+, and i.MX9 SoCs, for use with edge devices and virtual image solutions. To leverage the built-in graphics processing, you must update the firmware and install additional packages. For details, see Enable 3D Graphics Support and GNOME Desktop on NXP SoC Hardware.

    • elxr-orin-jetson-tegra-26.04.01-arm64.img.zst - This live ARM boot image is for NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin hardware, boots to a root prompt, and is optimized for the NVIDIA Orin platform. Similar to other eLxr images, this live image boots to a standard console. To leverage the NVIDIA graphics processor available on AGX Orin hardware, you must add the additional binaries available from NVIDIA. For details, see Enable Full Graphics and Multimedia Support for NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin Hardware.

In addition to the images listed here, you can find additional container images in full and slim sizes for amd64 and arm64 at DockerHub.

Minimal Images

The minimal images use the minbase package set, which includes only the minimum packages necessary, such as dpkg and base-files. In addition, minimal images include the kernel, systemd, and Apt package manager, but nothing else. A typical use for minimal images includes:

  • Running in a container

  • Using as a raw image

  • Creating a base ISO to build on

It is important to understand that minimal images may not provide a clean boot experience on hardware systems that require specialized drivers or hardware that is not supported by the kernel. Compared to the eLxr Edge minimal images, the standard minimal images provide a more barebones approach. Edge images include a larger kernel footprint with more robust hardware support.

The benefit of using a minimal image is that it provides a basis for creating the eLxr image you want, without any additional packages or dependencies you do not require.

Image Verification

Each eLxr image also includes a corresponding .iso.sha256 or .iso.sha256.txt file with the image hash for the image at build time. You can use these hash files to verify your image is genuine. To do this, use the sha256sum command in Linux, or the certUtil command in Windows.

For Linux, first navigate to the directory where you downloaded the file, then run the command. The following example uses the eLxr Server image in a Linux command prompt.

$ cd ~/Downloads
$ sha256sum elxr-26.04.01-amd64-NETINST-1.iso

334838d573047448bd8233a331292fdf0e4ceef641ac8ff844dedae7a5539d45  *elxr-26.04.01-amd64-NETINST-1.iso

Compare the hash value, in this example 334838d573047448bd8233a331292fdf0e4ceef641ac8ff844dedae7a5539d45, to the corresponding image .iso.sha256 file available at https://elxr.org/downloads. As long as the values match, the image is valid.

For Windows, use the following command from a command prompt.

$ cd C:\Users\yourname\Downloads
$ certUtil -hashfile elxr-26.04.01-amd64-NETINST-1.iso SHA256

SHA256 hash of elxr-26.04.01-amd64-NETINST-1.iso:
334838d573047448bd8233a331292fdf0e4ceef641ac8ff844dedae7a5539d45
CertUtil: -hashfile command completed successfully.

Similar to the Linux example above, compare the output hash to the image .iso.sha256 file to ensure the values match.

Package Information

Each image includes package management with APT (apt) or apt-ostree by default, which allows you to add, update, and remove packages and also include additional package feeds.

Key Major Package Versions

  • Kernel: 6.12

  • GCC: 14.2

  • Python3: 3.13.5-1

  • OpenSSL: 3.5.5

  • Kubernetes: 135.2

Hardware Features

This includes support for external memory devices, such as a USB or SD flash drive.

Your hardware device must support UEFI (32- or 64-bit). This ensures a trusted boot environment and is a requirement for using eLxr.

Intel x86

eLxr 26.04 runs on x86-based hardware and was tested on the following Intel x86 platforms:

  • Skylake

  • Broadwell

  • Cascade Lake

  • Ice Lake

  • Sapphire Rapids

AMD x86 Platform

  • EPYC

Arm

eLxr 26.04 runs on Arm hardware and was validated on the following platforms:

  • NXP:

    • i.MX8

    • i.MX8+

    • i.MX93

    See the nxp-imx-README for details on hardware board validation, feature support, and general usage.

  • nVdia Jetson AGX Orin

By default, these images do not include full graphics support, as proprietary firmware and drivers are necessary to include this functionality. To add graphics support, see the eLxr 26.04 Release Notes.

Security Features

The following security features apply to Intel x86 ISO images.

  • RADIUS - built-in support for the Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) networking protocol

Virtualization Support

Guests

eLxr Pro supports the following OSes as guests on an eLxr Hypervisor:

  • eLxr 26.04

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and 9

  • Windows 11

  • VxWorks 24.08

  • Ubuntu 24.04

And also supports the following OSes with KVM:

  • eLxr 26.04

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 and 9

  • Ubuntu 24.04

Hosts

eLxr supports the following hosts:

  • ESi VMWare

  • Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) 2.0

  • Windows 11 Hyper-V

Public Cloud