In the media · SmileyOS 1.6
SmileyOS 1.6: Smartportal writes about the Macedonian operating system for kids
A few weeks after version 1.0, SmileyOS 1.6 beta has over 81,000 lines of Rust, boots from a USB stick with no installation — and Smartportal wrote about it.
By Nikola Gjorgiev · · 3 min read
On 19 December 2025 Smartportal published an article about SmileyOS (in Macedonian), written by Mišo Lekić. The full article is there; here is a short look at what version 1.6 brought.
Smartportal presented SmileyOS as a Macedonian operating system made especially for kids aged 8 to 12 who want to learn to code — according to the article, possibly the first of its kind in the world.
What version 1.6 brought
SmileyOS 1.6 is a beta, and I plan the final release as 2.0. Only a few weeks after version 1.0, the code grew from about 50,000 to more than 81,000 lines of Rust.
Version 1.6 already has:
- a boot screen and a graphical interface,
- a terminal,
- built-in apps and games,
- multitasking – several apps at the same time,
- a file manager,
- a built-in programming language, Smilium,
- mouse support,
- a choice of themes.
From USB, on any computer, without the internet
SmileyOS boots from a USB stick with no installation, and it is meant to run on any computer, older ones included. It works without internet access — which for kids is also a safety advantage: no ads, no notifications and no endless scrolling.
AI as a copilot, not an autopilot
SmileyOS is written in Rust, and most of its code was generated with AI, in the Cursor editor with the Opus 4.5 Max model. But AI does not build an operating system on its own: it takes a programmer who understands the work to direct the process.
What comes next
Besides the system itself, I am planning books for learning the system and programming, so kids have somewhere to start, step by step.