Announcement: We are changing our base to Debian in Orchid.
Up to Date.
Designed to last over time and always be faithful to you.
Vanilla OS is an immutable and atomic Ubuntu-based distribution that receives updates at the right time without sacrificing security or functionality.
Work.
Your faithful colleague by day.
Vanilla OS is designed to be a reliable and productive operating system for your daily work. The GNOME Desktop is the perfect environment for your daily tasks, with a clean and intuitive interface. Everything is at your fingertips.
Vanilla OS is ready to meet your needs whether you are a developer, designer, student or simple user, thanks to a wide range of applications.
Play.
Your teammate by night.
Play your favourite games without worrying about setting up your device. Vanilla OS offers the latest stable Linux kernel, ensuring support for the latest hardware and performance improvements.
Setting up your GPU won't be an issue thanks to integrated driver management. Whether it's an AMD®, Intel®, or NVIDIA® GPU, if a driver is needed, all you have to do is launch the driver manager and follow the instructions. It's that simple.
Complete.
Access a large catalogue of applications.
Choice.
Your system, your choices.
Vanilla OS is an operating system that respects your choices. You are always in control.
At the initial start, you can choose which package format(s) you want to use in Vanilla OS (Flatpak, Nix, Appimage ...). You choose, and Vanilla OS will take care of the rest, allowing you to get started without any difficulties.
Immutable...
...but also not.
Vanilla OS is an immutable operating system. Core parts of the system are locked down to prevent unwanted changes or corruption caused by third-party applications or faulty updates. Some paths such as the home and configuration directories are still writable, allowing the user to keep and modify their files and application data.
Core components are updated via controlled and atomic transactions, which are only applied when successful and made available on reboot.
Need to install a component into the core system? At any time you can open a transactional shell, make your changes, and let the system apply them automatically.
Learn More
Free & Open Source.
You don't have to, and will never have to pay.
Vanilla OS is built on free and open-source software which does not require any payment to be used.
All system components are free and open source, meaning the code is available for your review, contribution, or forking.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some of the most common questions we get asked.
Why Ubuntu Based?
Vanilla OS aims to be a stable and compatible distribution. Ubuntu is a distribution that respects both of these canons, being updated with strict control without having to give up functionality and security.
Why not a rolling release?
Vanilla OS aims to be a stable and compatible distribution, and Ubuntu is a distribution that respects our design philosophies.
Thanks to Flatpak, Nix, and Appimage, the user can always have the latest version of the applications they use, without having to wait for the next release of Vanilla OS.
Why not OStree or [put_name_here]?
Vanilla OS uses an A/B structure (ABRoot), which transacts updates atomically between two root micro partitions. The benefits of this system are a guarantee that the system is altered only when the entire transaction is successful (concept of atomicity), as well as allowing you to roll back to the previous state, meaning you will always have a home to come back to if something goes wrong.
This structure, unlike others, is compatible with already existing distributions and does not require a complex setup, allowing easy re-initialization of the system without data loss.
Technologies
Vanilla OS is made possible by the following technologies.
