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https://github.com/Malix-off/awesome_atomic

A list of resources for people who want to investigate image-based Linux desktops
https://github.com/Malix-off/awesome_atomic

abroot atomic awesome awesome-list btrfs btrfs-snapshots btrfs-subvolume btrfs-tools declarative distribution distro distrobox flatpak immutable linux linux-custom-image linux-desktop linux-distribution nix ostree

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A list of resources for people who want to investigate image-based Linux desktops

Awesome Lists containing this project

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# Awesome Atomic [![Awesome](https://awesome.re/badge.svg)](https://awesome.re)



An awesome list of resources about operating system atomicity



## Introductory Blogs and Publications



These should be enough to get you started:



- [“Immutable” → reprovisionable, anti-hysteresis](https://blog.verbum.org/2020/08/22/immutable-%E2%86%92-reprovisionable-anti-hysteresis/)- Colin Walters

- [The Birth of the Kubic Desktop](https://rootco.de/2017-11-16-hackweek-2017-conclusion/) - Richard Brown

- [Project Atomic + Docker: A post package world?](https://blog.verbum.org/2014/07/10/project-atomic-docker-a-post-package-world/) - Colin Walters - it's an older post but it checks out

- [Immutable Operating Systems: A Survey](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370528248_Immutable_Operating_Systems_A_Survey)  - Sebastian Böhm and Guido Wirtz, University of Bamberg, Germany - A short scientific publication that conceptualizes, defines, and outlines use cases and limitations of Immutable Operating Systems.



## Talks and Videos



- [The Fedora Podcast - Episode 30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHYyGVOae84) - Jorge Castro and Timothee Ravier talk about Silverblue and the future of Immutable Desktops.

- [Linux Downtime - Episode 39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiyjZwd4Jrs) - I went on this podcast to talk about this list, image based desktops, flatpaks, and all that stuff. If you are lost start here!

- [The Read Only Scenario](https://linuxunplugged.com/468) - An excellent introduction to these kinds of desktops

- [Kubic - openSUSEs Container Starship](https://speakerdeck.com/sysrich/kubic-opensuses-container-starship) - Richard Brown

- [openSUSE MicroOS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIwqzGbX-oc) - Richard Brown

- [Can MicroOS Desktop be your Daily Driver?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6F7iCntjWB8) - Dario Faggioli

- [MicroOS Desktop: The Road to Daily Driving](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZLckDUDYjw) - Richard Brown

- [19 talks on Fedora Silverblue and related technologies](https://silverblue.fedoraproject.org/elsewhere) - many recorded talks here, too many to list here, but worth it!

- [ostree CLI for OS management](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0xvrXkEwr4) - Denis Pynkin

- [Let's try Fedora Silverblue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hpV5l-gJnQ) - Adam Šamalik

- [How Nix and NixOS Get So Close to Perfect](https://christine.website/talks/nixos-pain-2021-11-10) - Xe

- [Fedora Silverblue: is this the FUTURE of Linux? - Project of the Month](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TjIzUJtF-I) - older video but an excellent review of the major components

- [Learning the difference between Red Hat distributions and what Fedora Silverblue is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8U2pEyeI6E) - JJ Asghar

- [Linux After Dark – Episode 07](https://linuxafterdark.net/linux-after-dark-episode-07/) - the hosts tried silverblue and did an episode on their experiences.

- [Fedora Silverblue: An Immutable OS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-FqVWFh01w)

- [What's new in (rpm-)ostree - 2022 edition! - DevConf.CZ 2022](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEDihzhsIjE)

- [Fedora 36 Silverblue: The 3 Guiding Principles for a Successful Experience](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhBnuVVdd6Y) - excellent introduction video that covers lots of tips and tricks.

- [How we build and maintain Kairos](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD5nfMf59v4) - Mauro Morales, FOSDEM 2023

- [Meet Kairos, an OSS project building the immutable Kubernetes edge](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiDQujibz2k) - Ettore Di Giacinto and Nic Vermande



## Distributions



The Future is Now(tm), try one of these today!



- [Fedora Atomic](https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/) - The official atomic editons of Fedora

  - Useful Documentation

    - [Ostree Native Container](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/OstreeNativeContainerStable) - Spec on Silverblue moving to a native OCI container model (Huge change)

    - [Development on Fedora Silverblue and Fedora Kinoite](https://tim.siosm.fr/blog/2021/12/10/fedora-kinoite-silverblue-dev-guide/#development-using-flatpak)

    - [Setting yourself up for success before trying Fedora Silverblue](https://www.ypsidanger.com/setting-yourself-up-for-success-before-moving-to-fedora-silverblue/)

    - [Day-to-day differences between Fedora Silverblue and Ubuntu](https://www.ypsidanger.com/day-to-day-advantages-of-fedora-silverblue/)

  - Spins

    - [Fedora Silverblue](https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/silverblue) - An atomic-based Fedora based on the GNOME desktop environment

    - [Fedora Kinoite](https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/kinoite/) - An atomic-based Fedora based on KDE Plasma desktop enviroment

    - [Fedora Sway Atomic](https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/sway) - An atomic-based Fedora based on the Sway tiling window manager

    - [Fedora Budgie Atomic](https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/budgie) - An atomic-based Fedora based on Budgie desktop environment

    - [Fedora CoreOS](https://fedoraproject.org/coreos/) - An atomic-based Fedora focused on servers

  - Related Projects

    - [Universal Blue](https://universal-blue.org/) - An organization dedicated to build and distribute cloud-native OSTree OCI images originally based on Fedora Atomic. [list of source images](https://github.com/orgs/ublue-os/packages), [list of end-user images](https://universal-blue.org/#images)

      - [Bazzite](https://github.com/ublue-os/bazzite/) - An Universal Blue OCI image focused on Desktop Gaming, based on [Fedora Kinoite](https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/kinoite/); the gold standard of atomic desktop linux gaming

      - [Bluefin](https://projectbluefin.io/) - An Universal Blue OCI image focused on general and development use, based on [Fedora Silverblue](https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/silverblue)

      - [Aurora](https://getaurora.dev/) - An Universal Blue OCI image focused on general and development use, based on [Fedora Kinoite](https://fedoraproject.org/atomic-desktops/kinoite/)

      - [uCore](https://projectucore.io/) - An Universal Blue OCI image focused on server use, based on [Fedora CoreOS](https://fedoraproject.org/coreos/)

- openSUSE Atomic

  - [openSUSE MicroOS](https://microos.opensuse.org/) - An atomic variant of openSUSE for servers that serves as a base of openSUSE Kubic, a Container as a Service platform.

  - [openSUSE Aeon](https://aeondesktop.org) - An atomic variant of openSUSE with the GNOME desktop environment,featuring containers with Distrobox.

  - [openSUSE Kalpa](https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Kalpa) - An atomic variant of openSUSE with the KDE Plasma desktop environment,featuring containers with Distrobox.

- [NixOS](https://nixos.org/) - a Linux distribution based on Nix package manager

  - [awesome-nix](https://github.com/nix-community/awesome-nix) - A curated list of the best resources in the Nix community

  - Note: The nix community has both an OS and a packaging system and is already large and vibrant, I can't do it justice so just use the list above to dive in

- [SnowflakeOS](https://snowflakeos.org/) - A [NixOS](https://nixos.org/) based Linux distribution focused on beginner friendliness and ease of use.

- [Guix System](https://guix.gnu.org/) - a Linux distribution based on the Guix package manager based on Nix

- [RDE](http://trop.in/rde/) - Developer and power user friendly GNU/Linux distribution based on GNU Guix functional package manager

- [EndlessOS](https://endlessos.com/home/) - A Debian derivative distribution with a read-only root filesystem managed by OSTree, and is Flatpak-only for application delivery and update. One of the easiest (but constraining) linux distribution

- [ChromiumOS](https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/filesystem-autoupdate/) - Good design document on how Chromium implements its autoupdate mechanism

  - [ChromeOS Flex](https://chromeenterprise.google/os/chromeosflex/) - the cloud-first, fast, easy-to-manage, and secure Chrome OS for PCs and Macs.

- [rlxos](https://rlxos.dev/) - A immutable, independent general-purpose distribution with a primary focus on single file per application.

- [carbonOS](https://carbon.sh/) - An open operating system designed from the ground-up to be intuitive and robust. The [blog post](https://carbon.sh/blog/2021-11-25-release.html) explains the goals

- [AshOS](https://github.com/ashos/ashos) - The immutable tree-shaped meta-distribution.

- [VanillaOS](https://vanillaos.org/) - Vanilla OS is a Debian Sid Linux-based Point Release distribution that receives updates at the right time without sacrificing security and functionality.

- [Nitrux OS](https://nxos.org/) ([2.6.0](https://nxos.org/changelog/release-announcement-nitrux-2-6-0/)+) - A Debian-based Linux distribution that features [NX Desktop](https://nxos.org/english/nxd/) and the [MauiKit Applications](https://mauikit.org/) suite.

- [blendOS](https://blendos.co/) - blendOS is an operating system that seamlessly blends all your Linux distributions into one.

- [Kairos](https://github.com/kairos-io/kairos) - The immutable Linux meta-distribution for edge Kubernetes.

- [AstOS](https://github.com/CuBeRJAN/astOS/tree/main) - An immutable distro based on Arch using btrfs snapshots.

- [Mocaccino Desktop](https://www.mocaccino.org/docs/desktop/) - A Gentoo-based distribution (derived from Sabayon) oriented towards Desktop systems.

- [ChimeraOS](https://chimeraos.org/) - A Steam Big Picture based couch gaming OS

- [Arkane Linux](https://arkanelinux.org/) - Arch based immutable distro which uses [Arkdep](https://github.com/arkanelinux/arkdep)



## Toolboxes



There historically have been a few versions of "toolbox", and we're probably at a point where it's more of a class of software than an individual project.

I classify toolboxes as "A terminal front end to container runtimes focusing on transparent ease of use of container images".

Someone smarter please make a better definition.



- [Toolbx](https://github.com/containers/toolbox) - Tool for containerized command line environments on Linux

  - [Toolbx Tuner](https://github.com/13hannes11/toolbx-tuner) - Toolbx Tuner is a tool to improve the experience with toolbx.

  - [Toolbx Images](https://github.com/toolbx-images/images) - Community maintained container images to use with toolbx  (Check these out if you need other distros outside the default Fedora ones)

  - [toolbox-images](https://github.com/akdev1l/toolbox-images) - a collection of container images for usage with the toolbox command. This is an attempt at providing more feature parity with regard to toolboxes for distributions other than Fedora.

  - [Toolbox GUI](https://github.com/Dvlv/toolbox-gui) - A graphical interface for interacting with Toolbox, written with GTK3 and Python

- [Distrobox](https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox) - Tool for containerized command line environments on Linux, distribution agnostic, supports a wide variety of containers , works both with podman and docker - This is a great tool to start with on your existing distro to learn working with day-to-day container workflows.

    - [BoxBuddy](https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.dvlv.boxbuddyrs) - A GUI manager for your Distroboxes, made with GTK4 and Libadwaita.

- [devbox](https://github.com/jetpack-io/devbox) - Devbox is a command-line tool that lets you easily create isolated shells and containers.

- [nsbox](https://github.com/refi64/nsbox) - Pet container manager based on systemd-nspawn and supporting DBus and desktop files.

- [unbox](https://github.com/lopukhov/unbox) - New (a little bit experimental) implementation of a toolbox that does not rely on existing container engines like `podman` or `docker`, instead opting to use Linux namespaces directly to improve performance.

- [coretoolbox](https://github.com/cgwalters/coretoolbox) - Toolbx alternative in rust with a focus on container builds. (Older project, appears unmaintained, but if I don't include rust stuff people will get upset :smiley:)

- [folderbox](https://github.com/ahayzen/folderbox) - Folder based containers that isolate project environments with escapes to the host for development.

- [apx](https://github.com/Vanilla-OS/apx) - The default package manager for VanillaOS, utilising Distrobox to manage containers for various distros on the user's behalf.



## Core Tools



Things that are the building blocks for all the stuff we're talking about here.



- [podman](https://podman.io/) - Podman is a daemonless container engine for developing, managing, and running OCI Containers on your Linux System.

  - [gnome-shell-extension-containers](https://github.com/rgolangh/gnome-shell-extension-containers) - This neat extension lets you see what containers you have, start/stop/restart, pause, and shell into them right from the notification area.

  - [Podman Desktop](https://github.com/containers/podman-desktop) - Manage different container engines from a single UI and tray icon

  - [Podman desktop companion](https://iongion.github.io/podman-desktop-companion/) - graphical management of your desktop containers

  - [Pods](https://github.com/marhkb/pods) - a podman desktop application (formely known as Symfony)

- [Flatpak](https://flatpak.org/) - a utility for software deployment and package management for Linux. It is advertised as offering a sandbox environment in which users can run application software in isolation from the rest of the system.



## Lower level tools



Most of us will not use these tools directly, but useful for developers:



- [libostree](https://github.com/ostreedev/ostree) - Operating system and container binary deployment and upgrades

  - [Upcoming experimental features in rpm-ostree](https://coreos.github.io/rpm-ostree/experimental/)

  - [flatpak-ostree-dedup-stats.py](https://gist.github.com/powpingdone/001a46aa7db190b9c935f71c6091eb71) - script to show you how well the ostree deduplication is working, this one is neat

  - [apt2ostree](https://github.com/stb-tester/apt2ostree) - apt2ostree is used for building Debian/Ubuntu based ostree images. It performs the same task as debootstrap/multistrap but the output is an ostree tree rather than a rootfs in a directory.

- [Endless OSTree Builder](https://github.com/dbnicholson/deb-ostree-builder) - Stripped down Endless ostree builder for Debian

- [osbuilder](https://www.osbuild.org/) - Build-Pipelines for Operating System Artifacts

  - [How to: Image Builder + OSTree + Anaconda](https://www.osbuild.org/news/2020-06-01-how-to-ostree-anaconda.html)

  - [osbuild user guide](https://www.osbuild.org/guides/user-guide/user-guide.html)

- [ABRoot](https://github.com/Vanilla-OS/ABRoot) - A utility which provides full immutability and atomicity to a Linux system, by transacting between two root filesystems. Updates are performed using OCI images, to ensure that the system is always in a consistent state.

- [BootC](https://github.com/containers/bootc) - Transactional, in-place operating system updates using OCI/Docker container images. (Experimental)

- [bootupd](https://github.com/coreos/bootupd) - Distribution-independent updates for bootloaders.

- [Elemental Toolkit](https://rancher.github.io/elemental-toolkit/) - A toolkit which allows container images to be bootable in VMs, baremetals, embedded devices, and much more. Elemental and derivatives share a common feature set, can be upgraded with a A/B mechanism, and upgrades are delivered with standard container registries.

- [GoldBoot](https://github.com/fossable/goldboot) - a command-line utility that builds machine images for both servers and workstations alike.

- [Arkdep](https://github.com/arkanelinux/arkdep) - Toolkit for building, deploying and maintaining immutable, atomic, btrfs-based systems



## Integration Resources



aka. duct tape.



- [Integrate VSCode and Distrobox](https://distrobox.privatedns.org/posts/integrate_vscode_distrobox.html)

- [silverblue-nix](https://gitlab.com/ahayzen/silverblue-nix) - Andrew Hayzen's steps for getting nix working on Fedora Silverblue.

- [Toolbox Visual Studio Code Integration](https://github.com/owtaylor/toolbox-vscode) -  Toolbox Visual Studio Code integration

- [silverblue-tools](https://github.com/A6GibKm/silverblue-tools) - Collection of scripts for silverblue related technologies



## Configs from the Community



OSTree based systems allow for composable derivative distributions.

If you're automating the config on systems like this please PR your config to share:



- [workstation-ostree-config](https://pagure.io/workstation-ostree-config) - Manifests for rpm-ostree based Fedora variants (start here!)

- [ostree-pitti-workstation](https://github.com/martinpitt/ostree-pitti-workstation) - Fedora minimal sway developer desktop

- [vauxite](https://github.com/hyperreal64/vauxite) - This is an rpm-ostree-based Fedora Xfce desktop.

- [zepyros-dev's config](https://github.com/zephyros-dev/silverblue-config)

- [JayDoubleau's config (ansiblue)](https://github.com/JayDoubleu/ansiblue)

- [Universal BLue](https://github.com/ublue-os) - Community built OS images based on Fedora Silverblue

- [ansible-silverblue](https://github.com/j1mc/ansible-silverblue) - Jim Campbell's ansible playbook for silverblue

- [Sodalite: A Pantheon Experience for Silverblue](https://github.com/electricduck/sodalite)

- [silvernobara](https://github.com/VinnyVynce/silvernobara) Fedora Silverblue with Project Nobara enhancements



## Desktop Tours



Here are some people walking through their setups:



- [Schykle's Dell XPS 13 and Silverblue Setup](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeiPUxLf-dQ)

- [Jorge Castro's Desktop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM5exNztbXE)



## Tips



- [Using Automatic Updates on Fedora Silverblue](https://miabbott.github.io/2018/06/13/rpm-ostree-automatic-updates.html)



## Discussion



- Reddit:

  - [r/silverblue](https://www.reddit.com/r/silverblue/)

  - [r/NixOS](https://www.reddit.com/r/NixOS/)

  - [r/flatpak](https://www.reddit.com/r/flatpak/)



- Discord Servers:

  - [Immutable Linux Discord](https://discord.gg/N4mswFw6ds)

  - [Universal Blue Discord](https://discord.gg/Xsk7n54fFY)

  - [NixOS Discord](https://discord.gg/RbvHtGa)

  - [VanillaOS Discord](https://discord.gg/vanilla-os-1023243680829681704)

  - [ChimeraOS Discord](https://discord.gg/rgB8utyteK)



- Matrix Rooms:

  - [Fedora Silverblue Matrix Room](https://matrix.to/#/#silverblue:fedoraproject.org)

  - [NixOS Matrix Room](https://matrix.to/#/#nix:matrix.org)

  - [OpenSUSE Aeon / Kalpa](https://matrix.to/#/#microos-desktop:opensuse.org)



## Miscellaneous



Things that don't fit anywhere else but might be useful reference material



- [Introducing flox - Nix for simplicity and scale](https://discourse.nixos.org/t/introducing-flox-nix-for-simplicity-and-scale/11275)- Barry Plunkett