The OS That Always Has Your Back.
An immutable OS — the core is read-only and can't be broken. Two system copies. One always safe. One command to update. One reboot to undo it — always.

Name: Shanios
Author: Shrinivas Vishnu Kumbhar

Zero telemetry · No ads · Open source · Free forever · Built on Arch Linux · Made in India 🇮🇳

Your files, apps, and settings are always untouched — built for reliability whether you're a home user, a developer, a gamer, or a corporate fleet.

0 Telemetry, ads, or tracking — nothing phoning home, ever

1 Command to update the entire OS — just type it and reboot when ready

0 Settings or files lost on update — everything survives

1 Reboot to undo any update — previous OS always ready

6 Security layers protecting you from first boot — no setup, no configuration required

~15 Minutes to install — Wi-Fi, NVIDIA, fingerprint, sound all work

100% Open source — every script public and verifiable, nothing hidden

Enterprise & OEM-ready · Fleet deployment · GPG-verified images

Steam + Proton pre-installed · Android apps · Windows apps via Bottles

Built in India 🇮🇳 · Indian languages pre-configured · भारत में बना

The Problems That Keep People on Windows. Shanios Solves Them.

These aren't Linux edge cases — they're the everyday reasons people dread updates, avoid switching, or keep reinstalling. Each one is solved by architecture, not configuration.

"An update broke my computer. I spent the whole weekend trying to fix it."

How Shanios handles this

Shanios never touches your running system during an update — it prepares the new version in the background. If anything is wrong, your previous working system is still in the boot menu. One reboot, and you're back. No fix required.

"I want to switch from Windows, but I'm scared of breaking something."

How Shanios handles this

With Shanios, the worst case is always: reboot to undo it. Every update can be reversed with one command. Your files, settings, and apps live in separate storage that no OS update or rollback ever touches. There is no "broke and have to reinstall" — just reboot.

"macOS told me my Mac is no longer supported. I have to buy new hardware just to get updates."

How Shanios handles this

Shanios runs on any 64-bit x86 PC — including older hardware Apple stopped supporting years ago. A machine Apple calls obsolete can run a fully up-to-date, secure, rolling-release OS. No planned obsolescence. No hardware upgrade required.

"My computer has been running for years and it's getting slower and weirder."

How Shanios handles this

Every Shanios update replaces the entire OS with a clean, verified image — not patches on top of patches. There is no accumulation. Every user on the same channel runs the identical, fresh system.

"I opened too many tabs and my whole system locked up. Had to hard reset."

How Shanios handles this

Shanios includes an out-of-memory manager that runs system-wide. Under memory pressure it quietly terminates low-priority background tasks — your active work keeps running. The system stays responsive instead of freezing solid, even on 4 GB RAM.

"I updated and now my dev tools are broken. I have a deadline tomorrow."

How Shanios handles this

If your dev environment lives in a Distrobox container or Nix environment, the OS updates underneath it without touching it. If you use system-level tools, rollback restores the exact previous OS state — your tools, your versions, exactly as they were. Either way, the previous working state is always one reboot away.

"I'm worried an update will break something. I keep putting it off."

How Shanios handles this

Update when you're ready — rollback is always one command away. Not ready to commit? You can simulate the full update without changing anything first. Your previous OS is kept until the next update cycle.

"My laptop lost power mid-update. Now I'm not sure what state it's in."

How Shanios handles this

Shanios blocks sleep and shutdown during an update. If power is cut anyway, your running OS is completely untouched — updates always happen in the background copy, never in the live one. Boot normally; your system is exactly as you left it.

Who It's For

Whether you're tired of Windows surprises, switching from a Mac that's been cut off from updates, a gamer who can't afford a broken OS, or a developer who just needs things to work — see which description fits you.

The IT Admin / OEM

Deploy from one identical, GPG-verified image. Roll back any machine — no reimaging required. Previous OS copy always available in the boot menu. No per-device package drift. No "works on some machines" support calls. Standardized, auditable, reproducible. Automatic rollback on boot failure without user intervention — if a bad update can't boot, the machine recovers itself before anyone notices.

The Developer

Your dev environment lives in a Distrobox container — host OS updates atomically underneath it, the two never interfere. Use Ubuntu, Fedora, or any distro's toolchain in isolation. Test Android apps in hardware-accelerated Waydroid — a full Android stack, not a slow emulator, no physical device needed. Run HPC workloads in Apptainer. Corporate VPN, fingerprint login, FIDO2/YubiKey, and smart card auth all work at first boot. Fewer broken updates, fewer lost deadlines.

The Researcher

Apptainer (the HPC standard) is pre-configured — submit reproducible environments to clusters, share exact setups with collaborators, run isolated GPU workloads. The host OS itself is a GPG-signed, verifiable artifact: your full stack from kernel to container is reproducible and auditable, not just the workload inside it. Pair with an immutable host for a research environment that stays exactly as configured, indefinitely.

The Tired Linux User

You've reinstalled more times than you can count. You love Linux but you're done babysitting updates. Shanios gives you a rolling release's freshness with server-grade update reliability. When something goes wrong, you reboot — not reinstall. Browser profiles run from RAM (Profile Sync Daemon), McFly gives your shell history a neural-network brain, and Btrfs compression cuts disk usage 30–50%. The OS that earns trust by being boring.

The Linux Gamer

Steam, Proton, Heroic, Lutris, RetroArch, Bottles — all pre-installed on KDE Plasma. NVIDIA drivers configured at first boot. MangoHud, GameScope, vkBasalt, OpenRGB, AntiMicroX — the full stack without setup pain. GameMode runs globally so every game benefits automatically. Kernel tuned for gaming: low-latency scheduler, 3072 Hz timers, expanded memory maps. Racing wheels (Logitech, Thrustmaster, Fanatec), VR headsets (HTC Vive, Valve Index, PSVR) — all pre-configured. An OS update never costs you a gaming session.

The Corporate Laptop User

Fingerprint login, smart card, YubiKey/FIDO2, and NFC auth all work at first boot. Full enterprise VPN suite (WireGuard, OpenVPN, Cisco AnyConnect-compatible, Fortinet, IPsec), printers, scanners — no setup required. Secure Boot, TPM2 auto-unlock, and LUKS2 argon2id full-disk encryption for compliance. Hibernation works out of the box. An immutable, GPG-verified OS that IT can audit. Everything a work machine needs, nothing to configure after imaging.

PC Manufacturers & Vendors

Ship Shanios pre-installed across your product line — GPG-signed images, Plymouth BGRT brand logo at boot, OEM first-run wizard, and one-command rollback that eliminates most support calls. No per-unit licence cost. See Enterprise & Vendors →

School Labs & Family Computers

Kids can install games, change settings, and browse freely — but they cannot accidentally break the OS itself. A reboot always brings it back to a known-good state. School labs can stop reimaging between terms — no summer overtime for your IT coordinator. Family computers stay stable no matter what a teenager does.

The Windows or Mac Switcher

Coming from Windows: Your familiar apps are here — Vivaldi or Firefox (browser), OnlyOffice (opens .docx/.xlsx/.pptx natively, pre-installed), VLC, and thousands more via Flathub. Windows apps run through Bottles (pre-installed on KDE; available via Flathub on GNOME). Software installs go through Flatpak rather than .exe installers — once you understand that, the rest is familiar. One command updates the OS. No surprise reboots in the middle of your work.

Coming from Mac: No locked ecosystem, no iCloud required, no Apple ID, no subscriptions for basic features. Your browser bookmarks, office documents, and media files all transfer directly. The terminal works the same way — bash/zsh, familiar UNIX commands. Homebrew can be installed and works as you'd expect. Nix is also pre-installed — it's a different, more declarative approach to package management (not the same as Homebrew), but powerful for reproducible dev environments; requires adding a channel once before first use. The biggest difference is that hardware is your choice — any x86 machine, any price point, no planned obsolescence. And unlike macOS, a bad update is never permanent — one reboot takes you back.

Why Updates Can't Break Your Computer

This is what makes Shanios an immutable OS: the core system is permanently read-only — nothing running on your machine can modify it, not even the root user. Shanios always keeps two complete, bootable copies of the OS on disk. You run on one; updates are prepared on the other. When you're ready, reboot into the new one. If anything's wrong, reboot back. Simple to use, nothing to manage. Here's how it works.

● Running Now

Your running OS (active copy)

This is what you're using right now. It is never touched during any update or rollback — not even by root.

Core OS — read-only, can't be accidentally changed

Your settings — stored separately, untouched by any update

Your files — never touched by updates or rollbacks

App & service data — preserved across reboots

Update

▶

new OS prepared here — you keep running normally

Rollback

◀

restored from timestamped backup — one reboot

↻ Staging Update

Standby OS copy (the other one)

The new OS is prepared here — completely separate from what you're running. A safety backup is taken before any writing begins. Think of these as your active and standby OS copies — always ready to switch between.

① backup current standby copy (timestamped)

② download & verify the new OS — rejected if tampered

③ old copy removed only after new one is confirmed complete

④ set up your next boot — your running OS untouched

backup stays ready so you can roll back anytime

Show step-by-step details

The updater updates itself first

Before doing anything else, shani-deploy downloads the latest version of itself from GitHub. A basic sanity check confirms the download is a valid script — if a newer version is found, it re-executes immediately — so you always run current deployment logic, no matter how long ago you installed.

Your system is protected during the update

Shanios blocks sleep, shutdown, and lid-close for the entire update — so nothing interrupts it. If the system is powered off mid-update anyway, a deployment-pending flag is detected on next run of shani-deploy, which reports the interrupted state and prompts you to use --rollback to restore a clean state before proceeding.

It checks which OS copy you're running

Before doing anything, the updater confirms exactly which OS copy you're running. If there's already a staged update waiting for a reboot, it reports that rather than proceeding — preventing any accidental double-deploy.

Download & verify — tampered files are rejected

The update image is downloaded from Shanios's primary server with multi-connection resume support — so a slow connection or interrupted download picks up where it left off. If the primary server is unavailable, a SourceForge mirror is used automatically. SHA256 and GPG signature are both verified against the public key on keyservers before the image is ever extracted. A tampered or incomplete image is rejected outright — the update aborts, nothing changes.

A safety snapshot is taken before anything is written

Before writing anything, a timestamped backup of the inactive OS copy is taken. The new image is then extracted into it. The old copy is only removed after the new one is confirmed complete. If power is cut mid-extraction, both your running system and the backup are fully intact — nothing is lost.

The new OS copy is set up and boot is prepared

The new OS copy is packaged into a single Unified Kernel Image (UKI — kernel, initrd, and cmdline bundled together) and registered as your next boot target. Your currently running OS remains the default until you choose to reboot — nothing changes on your live system until then.

You decide when to switch — no forced reboots

Reboot on your schedule — immediately, or days later. The pending update waits in the background. Your currently running OS boots exactly as normal until you choose to switch. Once you reboot and the new OS starts up cleanly, everything is finalised automatically.

Changed your mind? Roll back anytime with one command

Run sudo shani-deploy --rollback from the OS you want to keep. Shanios detects your active slot, restores the other copy from its last backup, regenerates its unified kernel image (UKI), updates the boot entries to point both slots correctly, and leaves your current system untouched. If a new OS ever fails to boot at all, systemd-boot detects the failure and reverts to the previous slot automatically — no action needed from you.

Your files, apps, and settings are never touched by OS updates or rollbacks. Everything personal lives in completely separate storage, independent of which OS copy is running. This separation — between a locked OS core and your personal data — is what "immutable" means in practice. Hibernation works out of the box — no setup needed. Two update speeds: stable (default, tested monthly builds) and latest (most recent, more frequent). You choose when to switch.

Download Shanios — It's Free

Two editions · Cryptographically verified · Zero telemetry

Everything Works. Nothing to Configure.

Every feature ships ready to use — no add-ons, no setup required. Immutable OS core means nothing can break the system underneath these features. Privacy by default, gaming ready, tools for every kind of user.

Updates & Recovery

Updates That Never Break Your System

Every update runs in the background on a separate OS copy — your live system is never touched. Reboot when ready to switch. Previous version stays available for rollback. You'll get a desktop notification when an update is ready.

shani-deploy prepares the standby OS copy: downloads the update, verifies its SHA256 + GPG signature, takes a safety snapshot first, extracts the new image, and registers it in the boot menu — all without touching your running system.

The old candidate is deleted only after extraction succeeds. Sleep, shutdown, and lid-close are blocked for the duration of the update. A power cut mid-update leaves your current system completely untouched.

Two channels: stable (default, tested and validated builds — new images released approximately monthly) and latest (newest available image, released more frequently, closer to cutting edge). Switch with -t latest. shani-deploy updates itself from GitHub before every run — improvements reach you automatically.

Desktop update notifications — a separate background checker (shani-update, running as a user-level systemd service) monitors for new OS images and sends a desktop notification when one is available. No need to remember to check — you decide when to actually run shani-deploy to apply it.

Deployment pending flag — if the update is interrupted by a power loss, the pending flag is detected the next time shani-deploy is run. It reports the incomplete state and directs you to run --rollback to restore a clean system before retrying.

Always recoverable: your previous OS copy stays intact after every update. If the new copy doesn't work for you, sudo shani-deploy --rollback restores it — no recovery media, no reinstall.

Storage is shared between both OS copies — keeping two system copies takes far less space than you'd think. See Performance & Storage Efficiency for full details.

The OS Can't Be Accidentally Broken — It's Immutable

Shanios uses an immutable architecture — the core OS is permanently read-only at runtime. Nothing you run, nothing you install, and nothing that goes wrong can corrupt it. Your personal files, settings, and apps live in completely separate storage and survive every update untouched.

Immutable root (/) — mounted read-only at runtime. Even a process running as root cannot modify core system files during a live session. The system that passed QA is the system that runs.

/etc as OverlayFS — your config changes live in @data/overlay/etc/upper, layered on top of the read-only OS root at boot. This means your customisations are always active regardless of which OS copy is running — they are never inside the OS image itself and are unaffected by updates or rollbacks.

Services you enable persist. At boot, overlays mount first, then systemd daemon-reload runs — so any unit you've enabled via systemctl enable survives every OS update exactly as expected.

/home and /root live in dedicated Btrfs subvolumes — fully writable, shared between both OS images, unaffected by updates or rollbacks.

Selective /var management — transient runtime state is cleared on reboot to reduce unnecessary writes and extend SSD lifespan. Important persistent state (NetworkManager, Bluetooth, printers, audio, Tailscale, fingerprint, TPM2 data, colord profiles) is preserved via bind mounts from @data and survives reboots unchanged.

@nix subvolume — the Nix store is shared between both OS copies. Nix packages survive both updates and rollbacks, with no re-download required after switching.

Your Always-Available Fallback

Something goes badly wrong — bad driver, failed update, worst case scenario. Your previous working system is always one reboot away. No recovery USB, no reinstall, no lost afternoon. If the new OS can't even boot, it switches back automatically.

Before writing to the inactive OS copy, shani-deploy snapshots it as @{slot}_backup_{timestamp}. If the update fails at any point, an emergency rollback restores the candidate automatically.

Automatic boot failure detection — a boot-counting pipeline (mark-boot-in-progress → bless-boot → mark-boot-success → check-boot-failure → startup-check dialog) detects if a new OS copy fails to boot successfully. If the new copy can't boot, systemd-boot automatically reverts to the previous one — without requiring any user action or recovery media.

Manual rollback: sudo shani-deploy --rollback from the OS copy you want to keep. Detects your active copy, restores the other from its latest snapshot, regenerates its UKI, and updates boot entries — without touching your running system.

For OEM: rollback never requires reimaging. The previous OS copy is always in the systemd-boot menu — no recovery media, no dispatch.

Your /home, apps, containers, and /etc config live in separate subvolumes — OS rollback never touches them.

Security & Privacy

Defence-in-Depth Security Stack

Full-disk encryption, Secure Boot, a firewall, and multiple layers of protection — all active the moment you boot for the first time. No setup required, nothing to configure.

Immutable root — even root cannot modify core OS files at runtime, limiting the blast radius of malware and misconfiguration. Full details in the Core Architecture section.

6 Linux Security Modules active simultaneously — Shanios sets lsm=landlock,lockdown,yama,integrity,apparmor,bpf in the kernel command line. Most Linux distributions enable one or two; Shanios runs all of them concurrently:
• AppArmor — mandatory access control, confines processes to files and capabilities they legitimately need
• Landlock — filesystem sandboxing at the process level
• Lockdown — restricts the kernel from modifications even by root
• Yama — restricts ptrace scope and other process tracing
• Integrity (IMA/EVM) — runtime file integrity measurement
• BPF LSM — eBPF-based policy hooks for dynamic security enforcement

LUKS2 with argon2id — full-disk encryption with a modern memory-hard key derivation function. Argon2id is specifically designed to resist GPU and ASIC brute-force attacks. Optional at install, strongly recommended for laptops.

TPM2 auto-unlock — sealed LUKS keys tied to PCR (Platform Configuration Register) state. The disk unlocks automatically on trusted hardware without requiring a passphrase at every boot, while remaining locked against physical disk removal or hardware tampering. TPM data persists across blue/green OS copy switches.

Secure Boot via shim-signed, sbctl, mokutil — verifies bootloader and kernel haven't been tampered with before the system starts.

Intel ME kernel modules blacklisted — the Intel Management Engine kernel modules (mei, mei_me) are blacklisted by default, removing the OS-level communication channel to Intel ME. Note: ME firmware itself operates below the OS and cannot be fully disabled via software alone — but blacklisting the kernel modules eliminates the most accessible attack surface. This is a genuine privacy differentiator that most distributions do not do.

firewalld — active from first boot. Zone-based firewall blocking all unsolicited inbound connections.

Flatpak sandboxing — user apps get only the permissions they explicitly declare. No silent access to your home directory or system services.

Hardware security keys & smart cards — FIDO2/U2F keys (libfido2), smart cards (opensc, ccid), and NFC (libnfc) all work out of the box. Use a YubiKey or similar for login and sudo authentication without any setup.

fwupd via LVFS — keeps BIOS, NVMe, and peripheral firmware current. Outdated firmware is a major attack vector. Full details in the Hardware Support card.

No OS eliminates all risk. Network threats, zero-days in running services, and social engineering are outside what OS architecture alone can solve.

Zero Telemetry. Zero Ads.

No usage data collected. No crash reports. No ads. No background services phoning home. Your machine is yours — and unlike most operating systems, you don't have to opt out of anything. Click to see exactly how this is enforced.

Many operating systems — including some Linux distributions — include opt-out telemetry, crash reporters, or usage analytics that run by default. Shanios has none of this.

No background services report your hardware, software usage, or system behaviour to any server. No identifiers are generated or transmitted. No crash data is collected without your explicit action.

Intel ME kernel modules blacklisted — the Intel Management Engine kernel modules (mei, mei_me) are blacklisted, removing the OS-level communication channel to ME. Note: this prevents OS-to-ME communication but does not disable the ME firmware itself, which operates below the OS. It eliminates the most accessible attack surface without requiring a firmware modification.

The update tool (shani-deploy) connects to download servers to fetch images — but sends only what any standard HTTP download requires. No system fingerprints, hardware IDs, or usage statistics are transmitted.

Because the entire codebase is public on GitHub, these claims are verifiable. You can read every script that runs on your system. No black box, no trust-us.

Supply Chain Integrity

Every update is verified before it's applied — a tampered or corrupted file is rejected automatically. The entire build process is public, so you can verify it yourself. No black box, no trust required.

Supply chain attacks — where malicious code is injected between a trusted source and the end user — are one of the most serious threats facing software today. Shanios's update model is designed with this in mind.

Every OS image is GPG-signed before distribution. Before shani-deploy extracts a new image, it verifies both the SHA256 checksum and the GPG signature. A tampered or corrupted image is rejected outright — the update aborts, nothing changes.

The build system and deploy toolchain are public on GitHub. The GPG signing key is publicly registered so anyone can verify OS images independently. You can verify that the image you receive was produced by the published build process and signed by the correct key — without trusting any single party's word.

Downloads come from the primary R2 server (downloads.shani.dev) with multi-connection resume support. If R2 is unavailable, the script automatically discovers a SourceForge mirror. OS images are distributed as native Btrfs send streams, compressed with zstd — not squashfs or OCI layers. On deployment, shani-deploy pipes the verified stream directly into btrfs receive, reconstituting the exact read-only subvolume that passed build-time QA. No intermediate unpacking, no format conversion — what was signed is what gets written.

System Foundation

Arch Linux Rolling Base

Always-current software and the latest kernels — with the reliability of immutable deployment that rolling release normally sacrifices. A powerful pre-configured terminal for those who use it. Click for full technical details.

Shanios runs the Arch Linux default kernel for broad hardware compatibility and up-to-date driver support. The Arch ecosystem delivers the newest compilers, runtimes, and developer tools without a fixed release cycle — new drivers and kernels land before any fixed-release distro, without the manual maintenance Arch normally requires.

The immutable deployment layer gives rolling-release updates a verification step before they touch your active system — significantly reducing the chance a broken upgrade reaches your running OS.

Default shell is Zsh with Starship prompt — a fast, informative terminal prompt that shows git branch, exit codes, and environment context at a glance. Fish and Bash are also available.

McFly replaces standard shell history search with a neural network — see the CLI & Developer Toolchain card for full details.

Pre-configured runtimes with isolated Btrfs subvolumes: Podman, Distrobox, LXC, LXD, Flatpak, Snap, Nix, Apptainer — each isolated, each persistent across OS updates.

Avahi active by default — machine reachable as hostname.local from first boot. See Networking for details.

Performance & Storage Efficiency

Your browser opens faster. Disk space is used efficiently. The system stays responsive even under heavy load. Two OS copies take far less space than you'd expect. Click for full technical breakdown.

Btrfs with zstd compression — typically reduces disk usage by 30–50% on all subvolumes including OS images. Fast decompression at read time means no perceptible performance penalty. The dual-image architecture adds significantly less overhead than double the space, thanks to Btrfs zstd compression and continuous deduplication via beesd.

Profile Sync Daemon (psd) — browser profiles (Chrome, Firefox, Vivaldi, and others) run from RAM rather than disk. Web pages open faster, history loads instantly, and SSD write wear from day-to-day browsing is substantially reduced. Changes are synced back to persistent storage periodically and on shutdown.

zram compressed swap — keeps the system responsive under memory pressure without touching the SSD. Compressed RAM swap is faster than disk swap by several orders of magnitude.

beesd deduplication runs as a systemd service, continuously deduplicating the entire shani_root filesystem. Shared data between @blue and @green is stored only once on disk.

MGLRU (Multi-Generational LRU) — enabled with aggressive settings. The kernel's improved page reclaim algorithm makes better decisions about which memory pages to evict under pressure, significantly reducing stutter and swap thrashing on memory-constrained systems.

Volatile /var — runtime state not worth preserving is cleared on reboot, reducing unnecessary disk writes. Important state is preserved via bind mounts from @data (see Immutable Root card for details).

CPU + I/O schedulers tuned for low-latency multitasking. Transparent hugepages (set to madvise) reduce memory management overhead for workloads that benefit from them without forcing it on all allocations.

systemd-oomd — system-wide OOM daemon. Selectively terminates low-priority background processes under memory pressure, keeping your active work running instead of freezing the system.

Automated Btrfs maintenance — monthly scrub (data integrity), periodic balance, defragmentation, and TRIM all run on systemd timers in the background. Your filesystem stays healthy without manual intervention.

Hibernation support — a swapfile sized to your RAM is automatically created in a dedicated @swap Btrfs subvolume (Copy-on-Write disabled, as required for swap on Btrfs) during first deployment. Hibernate works out of the box on supported hardware — no manual setup required.

systemd socket activation — services like CUPS, Avahi, GPS daemon, and SANE start on-demand when first accessed rather than at boot. Faster boot, lower idle resource usage.

Hardware Support & Firmware Updates

Graphics, printers, scanners, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, fingerprint, FIDO2 keys, smart cards, NFC, Thunderbolt, iOS — all pre-configured. Firmware updates (BIOS, NVMe, peripherals) happen from within the OS — no Windows, no USB boot drive needed.

Graphics: Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA drivers pre-installed and configured with full Vulkan support. All major Vulkan drivers included: Intel (ANV), AMD (RADV), NVIDIA proprietary, nouveau (open-source), software (lavapipe), virtio-GPU, DirectX (dzn), and more. Works at first boot. NVIDIA support uses the proprietary driver by default for maximum compatibility — AMD and Intel GPUs are fully supported by open-source Mesa drivers (RADV, ANV).

Printers & Scanners: CUPS with manufacturer-specific drivers, SANE for scanners with broad auto-detection support. Plug in and print.

Firmware updates via LVFS: fwupdmgr is included and configured for the Linux Vendor Firmware Service. Update BIOS, NVMe firmware, SSD controllers, keyboard firmware, and other hardware supported by LVFS with fwupdmgr update — no manufacturer tools, no Windows, no USB boot drive required. Outdated firmware is a major security attack vector; Shanios makes keeping it current trivial.

Fingerprint readers (fprintd) — biometric login and sudo authentication work at first boot on supported hardware. No setup required.

FIDO2/U2F hardware keys (libfido2) — YubiKey and similar hardware security keys work for login, sudo, and web authentication without any configuration.

Smart cards (opensc + ccid) and NFC (libnfc) — enterprise authentication methods work at first boot.

Thunderbolt 3 (bolt authorization) — Thunderbolt device authorization is pre-configured. Connect Thunderbolt peripherals and docks without manual kernel parameter changes.

iOS devices (usbmuxd) — iPhone and iPad file transfer and tethering work out of the box.

5G modems (ModemManager) — mobile broadband connections via USB and PCIe modems are supported and managed through NetworkManager.

Hybrid GPU laptops — nvidia-prime and switcheroo-control are pre-installed for systems with both integrated and discrete GPUs.

Hardware groups automatic: every user account is automatically added to all relevant groups — containers, VMs, printing, scanning, and Nix all work without manual permission setup.

Desktop & Productivity

GNOME Edition — Clean & OEM-Ready

Clean, distraction-free desktop for work, students, and OEM deployment. Every everyday app pre-installed — browser, office, notes, music, video, calendar, maps, scanner, and more. Nothing to configure, nothing to hunt for. Both editions ship Vivaldi Browser + OnlyOffice.

GNOME is designed around one idea: get out of your way. Everything a user needs is already installed and already works. No hunting for apps, no post-install setup, no configuration required.

Core GNOME apps: Text Editor, Calculator, Calendar, Clocks, Maps, Weather, Characters — the everyday utilities that should just be there. GNOME Console (terminal), GNOME Software (app store), Disk Utility, System Monitor, Screenshot, Logs.

Media & Files: Loupe (image viewer), Showtime (video player), Decibels (audio player), Snapshot (webcam/camera), Sound Recorder, Font Viewer, File Roller (archive manager), Nautilus (file manager), Transmageddon (video transcoder), Baobab (disk usage analyser).

Productivity: Gnote (notes), Papers (document/PDF viewer), Meld (visual diff and merge tool), Simple Scan (scanner), GNOME Connections (remote desktop client), NetworkDisplays (Miracast wireless display), GPaste (clipboard manager), Network Tools (ping, traceroute, DNS lookup in one GUI).

Security & Passwords: Seahorse (GNOME Keyring GUI — manage SSH keys, GPG keys, passwords), Secrets (password vault, KeePass-compatible). Malcontent for parental controls.

Hardware: GNOME Firmware (BIOS/firmware updates GUI), GSmartControl (drive health — S.M.A.R.T. monitoring), Disk Utility.

Shell extensions pre-configured: AppIndicator (system tray icons), Caffeine (keep screen awake), GSConnect (KDE Connect integration — phone notifications, file sharing, clipboard sync, remote input — on GNOME).

Customisation: Extension Manager, Papirus icon theme, GNOME browser connector.

Tools: Impression (write ISOs to USB), Drawing (paint/annotation), Fragments (BitTorrent client), Shortwave (internet radio).

Games: Nibbles, GNOME Mahjongg, Chess, Aisleriot (card games), Quadrapassel (Tetris), Sudoku.

GNOME Boxes — clean, minimal VM manager. Sandboxed Flatpak, VM disk images unaffected by OS updates or rollbacks.

Rygel DLNA/UPnP — stream media from your desktop to TVs and DLNA devices on your local network.

OEM Initial Setup wizard — first-boot experience for language, timezone, accounts, and preferences. Zero-drift fleet deployments.

Plymouth BGRT boot theme — displays the device manufacturer's logo at boot. Clean, professional for OEM deployments.

Both editions include: Vivaldi Browser, OnlyOffice, Waydroid, Warehouse, Flatseal, Gear Lever, Pods, BoxBuddy, OEM Initial Setup wizard, all security features, and the full container/networking stack.

KDE Plasma Edition — Power & Gaming

Deeply customizable desktop with the full gaming stack pre-installed. Steam, Heroic, Lutris, RetroArch, Bottles, MangoHud, vkBasalt, GameScope. Full KDE app suite (Kate, Okular, Gwenview, Elisa, Haruna, KCalc, and more). Flatpak management via Warehouse + Flatseal. virt-manager + QEMU extension, BoxBuddy GUI, Pods GUI. Kernel tuned for gaming with 3072 Hz timers and GameMode globally active. Both editions ship Vivaldi Browser + OnlyOffice.

A deeply customizable desktop for power users. Panels, themes, shortcuts, widgets — tune everything without touching the immutable OS.

Full gaming stack pre-installed: Steam with Proton, Heroic Games Launcher (Epic Games Store, GOG and Amazon Games), Lutris (supports any platform — GOG, Humble, itch.io, emulators, scripts), RetroArch, Bottles for Windows titles, MangoHud, GameScope, vkBasalt.

Flatpak management: Warehouse (browse, manage, and batch-update all installed Flatpaks) and Flatseal (granular permission control per app) — both pre-installed.

Full KDE app suite pre-installed: Kate (code editor), Okular (PDF/document viewer), Gwenview (image viewer), Elisa (music player), Haruna (video player), Kamoso (webcam), KCalc, KGet (download manager), KTorrent, Skanlite (scanner), ISO Image Writer, KRDC (remote desktop client), Kompare (file diff), KolourPaint — everything a desktop user needs, ready from first boot.

System tools: Konsole (terminal), Yakuake (drop-down terminal, press F12), Dolphin (file manager) with Google Drive integration via KIO, Ark (archive manager), Spectacle (screenshot), Discover (app store), KWallet (password manager), KDE Connect (phone integration — notifications, file sharing, remote input), Partition Manager, Filelight (disk usage analyser), Sweeper (system cleaner), Converseen (batch image converter), QRCA (QR code scanner/generator), KSystemLog + KJournald (system log viewers), KCron (scheduled task GUI), KRFB (remote desktop server), Plasma Vault (encrypted folders), Plasma Firewall GUI, KRDP (Remote Desktop Protocol server).

KDE games pre-installed: KPatience, Knights (chess), KBlocks, KSnakeDuel, KMahjongg, Kapman, KSudoku — for when you need a break.

Kernel gaming optimisations: HPET/RTC timers at 3072 Hz, custom CFS scheduler slices (3000 μs), expanded PID limits, memory maps, inotify watches. GameMode switches the CPU governor to performance on every game launch globally. Full details in the Gaming Performance card.

Ananicy-cpp background process priority manager — automatically deprioritises background tasks the moment a game goes active. See Gaming Performance for full details.

virt-manager + QEMU extension (Flatpak) — full VM lifecycle: networking, snapshots, storage pools, hardware passthrough. No system-level libvirt packages needed.

Bottles for Windows app compatibility. BoxBuddy GUI for Distrobox. Pods GUI for Podman.

True Internationalization

Indian scripts (Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu + more), full CJK, emoji, and IBus multi-language input — all pre-configured. Designed in from day one, not bolted on.

Font coverage: Indian scripts (Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, and more), full CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) rendering, complete emoji support — every script renders correctly without hunting for font packages.

IBus is the default input method — seamless switching between dozens of languages and input methods while typing. Localized layouts and screen reader support included.

Indian language support is designed in from the start, not added as an afterthought. This is an intentional focus of the project, reflecting its origin in India — where users shouldn't have to do extra work to use their native scripts on their OS.

Gaming

All gaming tools on the KDE Plasma edition. The same immutable reliability means an OS update gone wrong never interrupts your gaming — rollback in one reboot. Kernel tuned with 3072 Hz timers, custom CFS slices, and expanded system limits for competitive gaming responsiveness.

Gaming Platforms

Steam + Proton, Heroic (Epic, GOG & Amazon), Lutris, RetroArch, Bottles for Windows titles — all pre-installed on KDE Plasma. Start playing from first boot. Android games via Waydroid are covered in the App Ecosystem section.

Steam with Proton — play your Linux and Windows game library through Valve's compatibility layer. Pre-installed and configured.

Heroic Games Launcher — access Epic Games Store, GOG, and Amazon Games libraries on Linux. Pre-installed.

Lutris — open gaming platform that brings all your games together. Supports GOG, Humble Bundle, itch.io, emulators, and custom install scripts. Works alongside Steam and Heroic for anything they don't cover. Pre-installed.

RetroArch — emulate classic systems from NES to PlayStation. Pre-installed with cores ready to download.

Bottles — Windows app and game compatibility via Wine, with per-app prefixes, DXVK, VKD3D, esync/fsync, and snapshots. Installed as a Flatpak, fully sandboxed.

Gaming Performance Tools

Performance overlays, frame rate monitoring, shader effects, and game-specific CPU priority — all pre-configured and active for every game automatically. Your games perform as well as possible, out of the box. Click for the full list.

Kernel gaming tuning — HPET and RTC hardware timers set to 3072 Hz (default is 64 Hz). This dramatically reduces input latency and frame timing jitter — a meaningful competitive advantage in fast-paced games. CFS scheduler time slices (3000 μs), expanded PID limits, memory maps, and inotify watches are all configured for gaming workloads.

MangoHud + GOverlay — overlay your FPS, GPU/CPU temps, VRAM usage, and frame times in-game. GOverlay gives you a GUI to manage MangoHud and vkBasalt profiles.

vkBasalt — Vulkan post-processing layer. Apply sharpening (CAS, DLS), FXAA, or SMAA to any Vulkan game without modifying the game.

GameScope — Valve's micro-compositor. Improves frame pacing and frame limiting. Supports adaptive sync (VRR/FreeSync) and HDR output — HDR support is experimental, works best on AMD.

GameMode — Feral's GameMode daemon runs globally. When a game launches, it switches the CPU governor to performance, raises process priority, and adjusts I/O scheduling. Works with Steam, Heroic, Lutris, and any launcher that supports it — no per-game setup required.

Ananicy-cpp — background process priority manager running at all times. The moment a game goes active, background tasks are automatically deprioritised. Your foreground stays smooth without manual nice/renice commands.

NVIDIA, AMD, Intel drivers pre-installed with Vulkan and OpenGL configured. Vulkan validation tools and Mesa utils included.

Gaming Peripherals

Racing wheels, VR headsets, gaming mice, RGB lighting, and custom controller mapping — all work at first boot with no drivers to hunt for. Click for the full compatibility list.

Racing wheels with force feedback — Logitech wheels (G25, G27, G29, G920, G923, G PRO and more) are fully supported via in-kernel modules. Thrustmaster (T150, T300RS, T500RS, T248) and Fanatec wheels have udev rules and deadzone removal pre-configured. Force feedback works at first boot — plug in and race.

Flight sticks & HOTAS — Oversteer supports flight sticks and HOTAS controllers. Configure axis curves, deadzones, and force feedback profiles through a clean GUI.

VR headsets — udev rules for HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, and Valve Index / SteamVR devices are pre-configured. Hardware access is available from first boot. VR is ready for SteamVR without additional setup.

Piper + libratbag — configure gaming mice (DPI profiles, buttons, macros, LEDs) via a clean GTK interface. Works with all libratbag-supported mice — Logitech G-series, Razer, SteelSeries, Roccat, and many more.

AntiMicroX — map controller buttons and axes to keyboard/mouse inputs. Essential for games that don't natively support controllers, and useful as an accessibility tool.

OpenRGB — control RGB lighting across motherboards, RAM, fans, keyboards, mice, and peripherals. Vendor-neutral, no manufacturer software required.

All hardware groups (input, realtime, video) are pre-configured so controllers and peripherals work immediately — no permission issues.

Application Ecosystem

Multiple ways to install software — all isolated from the OS core, all persisting in their own dedicated subvolumes. An OS update or rollback never breaks your installed apps.

Flatpak & Snap

Thousands of apps from Flathub (the Linux app store) and the Snap Store — sandboxed so they can't affect the OS, and they survive every OS update. Apps update themselves automatically in the background.

Flatpak — sandboxed apps with controlled permissions. Install from Flathub — the largest curated Linux app store. Apps live in a dedicated @flatpak Btrfs subvolume shared between both OS copies. Auto-updates every 12 hours via two independent timers (system-level and per-user), including unused runtime cleanup and automatic repair. Update manually: flatpak update

Snap — snapd included and auto-enabled, backed by its own @snapd subvolume. Full Snap Store library alongside Flathub. Update: snap refresh. Note: the Snap Store backend is operated by Canonical and is not fully open-source — if this matters to your workflow, Flatpak and Flathub are the recommended alternative, with a fully open governance model.

Both keep OS and apps in completely separate layers — an OS update or rollback never affects your installed software.

Nix & AppImage

Nix: a powerful package manager for developers who want exact, reproducible environments — pre-installed and ready. AppImages: portable apps that run directly, no installation needed. Both survive OS updates and rollbacks untouched. Click for setup details.

Nix — reproducible package manager with daemon auto-enabled at boot. Isolates by environment rather than sandboxing — apps share no conflicting dependencies. The Nix store lives in a dedicated @nix subvolume shared between both OS copies. This means your Nix packages survive both updates and rollbacks — no re-download when switching. First-time setup: add a channel before installing packages: nix-channel --add https://nixos.org/channels/nixpkgs-unstable nixpkgs && nix-channel --update. After that, install as normal. Update: nix-env -u or nix flake update

AppImages are self-contained portable executables — every dependency is bundled inside a single file. No package manager, no installation, no modifications to the immutable OS root. Just download and run directly.

Gear Lever is an optional GUI for managing AppImages — it is not required to use them. Use it to add desktop shortcuts, set launch-at-login, track updates, and remove AppImages cleanly. AppImage state is stored in a dedicated persistent bind-mount, surviving every OS update and rollback.

Android & Windows Apps

Run Android apps directly on your desktop — no emulator, no phone needed — on both GNOME and KDE editions. Run many Windows apps through Bottles, pre-installed on KDE. Click for compatibility details.

Waydroid — full Android container available on both GNOME and KDE editions. Hardware-accelerated on Intel and AMD GPUs; NVIDIA GPUs use software rendering. Service enabled at boot. System images and user data in a dedicated @waydroid Btrfs subvolume, preserved across OS switches. ARM translation included via the pre-installed waydroid-helper — run ARM-only Android apps without needing a compatible device.

For Android developers: Waydroid is a full, hardware-accelerated Android stack — not a slow AVD. Test your apps on real hardware-accelerated Android without a separate device.

Bottles — Windows application compatibility via Wine, per-app prefix management, DXVK, VKD3D, esync/fsync, and snapshots. Installed as a Flatpak, fully sandboxed. Pre-installed on KDE Plasma edition; can be installed from Flathub on GNOME.

Containers & Virtualization

All container and VM storage in dedicated Btrfs subvolumes — completely separate from the OS. Updates and rollbacks never touch your containers or VMs.

Dev Containers — Distrobox & Podman

Run Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian — any Linux environment — inside a container on Shanios, without touching the host OS. Your containers survive every OS update. Graphical management tools included. Click for technical details.

Distrobox + BoxBuddy GUI — run any Linux distribution in a desktop-integrated container. Ubuntu toolchain and Fedora toolchain side by side, no host modification. BoxBuddy provides a clean GUI for creating, managing, and entering containers. Containers survive OS updates untouched.

Podman + Pods GUI — Docker-compatible, daemonless, rootless-by-default OCI container runtime. No central daemon means no single point of privilege escalation. Socket enabled at boot. Includes podman-compose, buildah, skopeo, podman-docker. The Pods app provides visual image and container management. Storage in @containers subvolume. Update: podman auto-update

systemd-nspawn — lightweight OS containers managed via machinectl. Images stored in @machines subvolume. Ideal for testing OS configs or running isolated system services without a full VM's overhead.

LXC/LXD & Apptainer

Full system containers (LXC/LXD) and scientific computing environments (Apptainer for HPC) — both pre-configured, both surviving OS updates. Built for researchers and infrastructure engineers. Click for setup details.

LXC + LXD — system containers for running full Linux distributions. LXD socket auto-enabled at boot alongside lxcfs. Persistent subvolumes (@lxc, @lxd). Run a complete Ubuntu or Debian server environment on your Arch desktop without a full VM.

Apptainer (formerly Singularity) — the HPC and scientific computing standard. Submit reproducible environments to clusters, share exact environments with collaborators, run GPU workloads in isolation. Pre-configured on Shanios — pair with the immutable host OS for a fully reproducible research stack where both container and host are verifiable artifacts.

Virtual Machines

GNOME Boxes on GNOME, virt-manager + QEMU extension on KDE Plasma — both pre-installed as Flatpaks. Full VM management, sandboxed, VM disk images unaffected by OS updates or rollbacks.

GNOME Boxes (GNOME edition) — clean, minimal VM interface. Runs fully sandboxed as a Flatpak; no system QEMU or libvirt required.

virt-manager + QEMU extension (KDE Plasma edition) — full VM lifecycle: networking, snapshots, storage pools, hardware passthrough. Both installed as Flatpaks, fully sandboxed.

VM disk images are stored within the Flatpak sandbox data directory and are unaffected by OS updates or rollbacks.

All relevant groups are pre-configured — VMs work at first boot assuming hardware virtualization (Intel VT-x / AMD-V) is enabled in BIOS.

Developer Tools, Networking & Backup

CLI & Developer Toolchain

A smart, well-equipped terminal out of the box — shell history that learns what you actually type, autosuggestions, fuzzy search, and a complete set of dev and sysadmin tools. All local, nothing cloud-connected. Click for the full toolchain list.

Shells & Search

Zsh (default, with Starship prompt — shows git branch, exit codes, and environment context at a glance), Bash, Fish. Plugins: autosuggestions, syntax highlighting, history substring search, FZF.

McFly shell history — replaces standard Ctrl+R with a local, on-device neural network that learns from your patterns. Surfaces the most relevant commands based on current directory, recent activity, and exit codes. Runs entirely locally — no data leaves your machine. The longer you use it, the better it gets at predicting what you need.

Editors

Vim, Vi, Nano, Micro, Tmux, Ed, Less, Lynx

Core Utilities

Coreutils, Findutils, Grep, Gawk, BC, Diffutils, Patch, Time, Which, Texinfo

System & Monitoring

Htop, Fastfetch, Tree, Inxi, Dmidecode, Strace, Lsof, Ncdu, Sysstat, Smartmontools, Cronie, Logrotate, PV, JQ, Expect, Dialog

Version Control

Git, Subversion, Mercurial

Archive & Compression

7zip, Arj, Unrar, Unarchiver, Unzip, Zip, Lrzip, Lzop

GPU & Hardware Diagnostics

Vulkan-tools, Mesa-utils, Clinfo, Android-tools

Networking & Self-Hosting

Tailscale, Caddy, Cloudflared, OpenSSH, Fail2ban, Samba, NFS, dnsmasq, firewalld — pre-installed, none active by default. Enable exactly what you need, nothing else exposed. All state persists across OS updates.

firewalld — active by default from first boot. Zone-based firewall blocking all unsolicited inbound connections.

Enterprise VPN suite — OpenVPN, WireGuard, L2TP, PPTP, strongSwan (IPsec), OpenConnect (Cisco AnyConnect-compatible), SSTP, and Fortinet (openfortivpn) are all pre-installed. Connect to any corporate network without hunting for packages.

Tailscale — private WireGuard mesh network. Access your services privately across devices without public exposure. Activate on sign-in.

Caddy — modern web server with automatic HTTPS. Host sites or dashboards locally or over Tailscale. Not active by default.

Cloudflared — encrypted Cloudflare tunnel. HTTPS access to local services without a static IP or exposing your real address.

OpenSSH — encrypted remote access. Not enabled by default. Recommended to run over Tailscale rather than publicly exposed.

Fail2ban — automatic IP banning for repeated auth failures. Recommended alongside public-facing SSH. Not active by default.

Samba + NFS — file sharing to Windows/macOS (SMB) and Linux/Unix (NFS). Both pre-installed; neither runs by default. All state persists across blue/green OS switches via bind mounts.

dnsmasq — lightweight DNS forwarder, DHCP server, and split-DNS resolver. Configure local DNS for your home or office network — point internal hostnames to local IPs, route only certain domains through VPN. Not active by default.

Avahi — mDNS/DNS-SD active by default. Your machine is reachable as hostname.local from any device on the local network from first boot — no router configuration, no DNS setup needed.

Network tools pre-installed: Nmap, Iftop, Bandwhich, Nethogs, Tcpdump, Traceroute, Rsync, Iperf3, MTR, Socat, OpenBSD Netcat, Curl, Wget, Aria2, Bind, Whois.

Backup & Cloud Sync

Restic for encrypted, deduplicated backups. Rclone for syncing to 70+ cloud providers. Firmware updates via fwupdmgr/LVFS. All backup state persists across OS updates.

Restic — encrypted, deduplicated backups to local drives, SFTP servers, S3-compatible storage, and more. Backup repository metadata stored in a persistent bind mount — backup history preserved across OS updates.

Rclone — sync files to 70+ cloud providers (Google Drive, S3, Backblaze, OneDrive, and more). Remote config and mount state persist across blue/green switches so configured remotes remain available.

fwupdmgr + LVFS — update BIOS, NVMe controllers, SSD firmware, keyboard firmware, and other hardware via the Linux Vendor Firmware Service with fwupdmgr update. Full details in the Hardware Support card.

How Shanios Compares

An honest comparison — including where others win. Coming from Windows or macOS: Shanios never requires a reinstall to recover from a bad update, collects zero telemetry, and is completely free — things neither Windows nor macOS offer. For Linux users comparing distributions: we highlight where others genuinely beat us too.

vs Windows & macOS

What matters to you	Shanios Free · Open Source	Windows 11 Microsoft · Paid	macOS Sequoia Apple · Requires Mac hardware
Bad update recovery	✓ One reboot — alwaysPrevious OS copy stays intact; automatic rollback on boot failure. No reinstall ever.	✗ Reinstall or System RestoreWindows Update can break boot; recovery often requires USB media or reinstall	Partial — Time MachineFull system restore requires Time Machine backup + reboot into recovery
Telemetry & data collection	✓ Zero — verified in public codeNo usage data, no crash reports, no analytics. Intel ME kernel modules blacklisted. Nothing phoning home.	✗ Extensive by defaultDiagnostic data, typing/inking telemetry, ad personalisation, Recall (AI screenshots). Opt-out buried in settings.	✗ SignificantUsage analytics, Siri data, iCloud integration, app usage reporting sent to Apple by default
Price	Free — alwaysCommunity edition is completely free. No licence key, no subscription, no trial.	₹14,999+ / $139+Home licence required. OEM copy tied to one machine. Pro costs more.	Hardware cost: ₹90,000+macOS is free — but requires Apple hardware. Cheapest Mac starts at ~$599 / ₹89,900.
Ads in the OS	✓ None — everNo ads anywhere in the OS or its tools.	✗ Ads in Start, File Explorer, lock screenMicrosoft increasingly places sponsored content and upsell prompts throughout the UI	RareOccasional prompts to use Apple services (iCloud, Apple TV+); no banner ads
Your familiar apps	✓ Pre-installed & compatibleBrowser, OnlyOffice (Word/Excel/PPT), VLC, Flatpak apps from Flathub, Android apps via Waydroid. Windows apps via Bottles (pre-installed on KDE; Flathub on GNOME)	✓ Native Windows appsFull Windows software ecosystem — .exe installers, Microsoft Store, Office 365	✓ Native Mac appsApp Store, Homebrew, most professional creative tools (Adobe, Final Cut, Logic)
Gaming	✓ Full stack pre-installedSteam + Proton, Heroic (Epic/GOG/Amazon), RetroArch, Bottles for Windows titles, NVIDIA at first boot	✓ Best native supportLargest library, DirectX native, anti-cheat works everywhere	✗ Very limitedSmall library, no DirectX, limited GPU options, no competitive anti-cheat
Security architecture	✓ 6 kernel security modules activeAppArmor, Landlock, Lockdown, Yama, Integrity, BPF — all on by default. TPM2 + Secure Boot + LUKS2 argon2id.	Defender + TPM2 + Secure BootGood baseline; frequent vulnerability disclosures; large attack surface from app ecosystem	✓ Strong by defaultGatekeeper, SIP, AMFI, sandboxed apps. Tight hardware/software integration helps.
Read-only, tamper-proof OS core	✓ Always — even root can't modify itCore OS is read-only. Malware can't persist across a reboot to the other copy.	✗ Writable by admin/malwareSystem32 modifiable by elevated processes; rootkits can persist across reboots	Partial — SIP protects system dirsSystem Integrity Protection blocks most changes; not fully immutable
Hardware freedom	✓ Any x86-64 PCWorks on any UEFI machine — your existing hardware, no upgrade required	✓ Any modern PCWide hardware support; some older CPUs dropped with Win 11	✗ Apple hardware onlyLocked to Mac/MacBook. No choice of manufacturer, no upgrades on most models.
Terminal / command line needed for daily use	✓ Not requiredGUI for everything. OS updates use one terminal command (`sudo shani-deploy`) — a desktop notification tells you when one is ready.	✓ Not requiredFull GUI for all common tasks	✓ Not requiredFull GUI for all common tasks; Terminal available for power users
Hibernation	✓ Works out of the boxSwapfile sized to RAM created at install. Suspend-then-hibernate also configured.	✓ WorksSupported; some driver/firmware issues on certain hardware	Sleep-only on Apple SiliconTraditional hibernate not available on M-series Macs; Intel Macs support it
Open source & auditable	✓ Fully openEvery build script, deploy tool, and signing key is public. Verify the full chain yourself.	✗ Closed sourceSource not available; security relies on trust in Microsoft	✗ Mostly closedDarwin kernel is open; everything above it is proprietary

Where Windows wins: native gaming anti-cheat, broadest .exe app compatibility, Microsoft Office native, DirectX.

Where macOS wins: Apple Silicon performance/battery, Final Cut/Logic Pro, tight hardware integration, iOS/iPad app ecosystem.

Shanios is not trying to beat either for every use case — it's the right choice if you want a reliable, free, zero-telemetry, open-source daily driver on your existing PC hardware.

Feature / Criteria	Shanios Arch · Blue-Green	Traditional Linux Ubuntu / Arch / Fedora	Fedora Silverblue OSTree · rpm-ostree	Bazzite Fedora Atomic · Gaming	SteamOS 3 Arch · Valve · Handheld	Vanilla OS 2 Debian Sid · ABRoot	NixOS Declarative · Nix
Update mechanism	Btrfs send/receiveGPG-verified send stream piped directly into the inactive @blue/@green subvolume — running system never touched	Package layeringModifies live system directly	OSTree commitsrpm-ostree layering possible, adds complexity	OSTree + layeringPre-layered gaming packages on Fedora Atomic	Full image swapA/B partition, Valve-controlled, Steam Deck optimised	OCI image swapABRoot v2 transacts between two root partitions	Generation switchDeclarative rebuild via Nix
Instant rollback	✓ Always availablePrevious slot untouched; one reboot — same speed as normal boot. Automatic on boot failure.	✗ No rollbackManual fix or reinstall	✓ OSTree historyPrevious commit in boot menu	✓ OSTree historyUp to 90 days of deployments	✓ A/B partitionPrevious slot in boot menu	✓ ABRoot rollbackabroot rollback to previous OCI image	✓ Boot generationSwitch generations at boot
Zero telemetry / no ads	✓ Verified — codebase is publicNo tracking, no crash reports, no analytics — ever. Intel ME kernel modules blacklisted by default, removing OS-level ME communication. Nothing phoning home.	Varies by distroUbuntu has had opt-out telemetry; others vary	✓ MinimalFedora opt-in countme data only	✓ No telemetryInherits Fedora Atomic defaults	Steam analyticsSteam hardware survey and usage data by default	✓ No telemetryOpen source, no analytics	✓ No telemetryCommunity project, no analytics
Cryptographic image verification	✓ SHA256 + GPG, public key on keyserversEvery image verified before deployment — independently auditable	✗ Package checksums onlyNo full-image GPG signing	OSTree signingContent-addressed commits	Signed container imagesInherited from Universal Blue / Fedora Atomic	Valve-signed imagesClosed signing, not independently auditable	OCI image integrityFsGuard checks binary integrity at boot	Nix store hashesReproducible builds, content-addressed
Active kernel security modules	6 simultaneously activeAppArmor, Landlock, Lockdown, Yama, Integrity, BPF — all on by default. No setup required.	1–2 typicallyAppArmor (Ubuntu/Debian) or SELinux (Fedora/RHEL); rarely combined	SELinuxOne LSM; strong but not combined	SELinux + Secure BootInherits Fedora Atomic security defaults	LimitedValve-managed; user-configurable security is restricted	FsGuardBoot-time integrity; no kernel LSM stack by default	ConfigurableNone by default; can be added via Nix config
TPM2 auto-unlock + Secure Boot	✓ Both included & configuredTPM2 with PCR binding for passwordless LUKS unlock on trusted hardware; Secure Boot via shim/sbctl	Manual setupPossible but requires significant manual work	Secure Boot ✓, TPM2 manualSecure Boot supported; TPM2 auto-unlock requires manual setup	✓ Both supportedPre-configured on Bazzite	LimitedValve-managed; limited user control	Secure Boot ✓LUKS2 at install; TPM2 integration varies	ConfigurablePossible via Nix options; not default
OEM & deployment	✓ Core design goalGPG-verified images, automatic boot-failure rollback, no-reimaging rollback, OEM wizard, BGRT boot logo	✗ Per-device driftNo standardised image model	✗ Not a focusNo OEM tooling or deployment story	✗ Gaming consumer focusNot designed for enterprise or OEM deployment	PartialValve expanding to select OEM handhelds — not general PC OEM	OEM first-setup presentSetup wizard	Reproducible configsPossible via NixOps / deploy-rs; steep setup
Software base / release cycle	Arch Linux — rollingAlways-current packages, latest kernels and drivers — no 6-month wait	VariesRolling (Arch) or fixed release (Ubuntu/Fedora)	Fedora ~6-month cycleFixed release cadence	Fedora Atomic ~6-monthGaming layer updated more frequently	Arch — Valve-curatedSlow to land on non-Deck PC hardware	Debian Sid (near-rolling)Debian unstable branch	NixOS stable / unstableStable = fixed; unstable = rolling
NVIDIA support	✓ Works at first bootDrivers pre-installed; Vulkan/OpenGL included	VariesOften manual driver install needed	Supportedakmod-nvidia; can be tricky on rpm-ostree	✓ Pre-installedProprietary NVIDIA drivers included and tested	✗ No official supportNVIDIA not officially supported on non-Deck hardware	✓ Detected at installInstaller proposes NVIDIA OCI image if GPU detected	Availablenixos.config.hardware.nvidia; manual but reproducible
Gaming stack included	✓ KDE editionSteam, Heroic, Lutris, RetroArch, Bottles, MangoHud, GameScope, vkBasalt, peripherals, VR, racing wheels, kernel tuned with 3072 Hz timers	✗ Manual setupInstall and configure everything yourself	✗ Not includedInstall via Flatpak manually	✓ Primary focusSteam Gaming Mode, handheld-optimised, HDR, VRR	✓ Deepest integrationValve's Proton, Gamescope, Steam Deck hardware-optimised	✗ Not includedInstall via Flatpak; no gaming defaults	✗ Manual setupPossible, no gaming defaults
Container runtimes pre-configured	✓ Full ecosystem with GUIsPodman+Pods, Distrobox+BoxBuddy, LXC/LXD, Apptainer, systemd-nspawn, Nix — each with own subvolume. Plus Flatpak, Snap, AppImage for app ecosystems.	PartialInstall individually as needed	Toolbox / DistroboxPodman included; others manual	Distrobox + PodmanSome extras via ujust scripts	Distrobox + PodmanPre-installed from SteamOS 3.5+	APX subsystemsDistrobox-based multi-distro containers via APX GUI	Nix-nativeDocker/Podman via config; no UI defaults
Android apps (Waydroid)	✓ Pre-configuredIntel/AMD hardware-accelerated, service enabled at boot, dedicated subvolume, ARM translation included	Manual installPossible, no defaults	✗ Not included—	✓ AvailableSetup guide; ARM translation included	✗ Not availableGaming-focused, no Android layer	✓ Via VSO v2Waydroid + F-Droid, experimental	✗ Not included—
Hibernation out of the box	✓ Auto-configuredSwap subvolume (CoW disabled) sized to RAM at first deployment — hibernation works without any manual setup	VariesUsually manual swapfile or partition setup required	✗ Manual setupNot configured by default	PartialGaming-focused; hibernation not a priority	✗ Not supportedSteam Deck uses suspend, not hibernate	PartialDepends on OCI image; not guaranteed	ConfigurablePossible via Nix options; not default
Profile Sync Daemon (browser from RAM)	✓ Pre-configuredBrowser profiles run from RAM — faster page loads, less SSD wear, syncs back on shutdown	✗ Not includedManual setup required	✗ Not included—	✗ Not included—	✗ Not included—	✗ Not included—	✗ Not included—
Indian language support	✓ Designed in from day oneDevanagari, Tamil, Telugu + more; IBus pre-configured	AvailableAdd-on; quality varies by distro	AvailableInstall separately	AvailableInstall separately	Not a focusGaming-oriented; no i18n defaults	AvailableInstall separately	AvailableConfigure via Nix options
Price	Community: freeEnterprise & OEM licensing available — librewish@gmail.com	Free—	Free—	Free—	Free—	Free—	Free—
Setup complexity	Low — works out of the boxOEM wizard, all hardware configured, no post-install tuning	Low to HighDepends heavily on chosen distro	ModerateNew paradigm; good docs; Fedora familiarity helps	LowDesigned for approachable gaming setup	Low (supported hardware)Seamless on Steam Deck; PC install is community-only	ModerateNew tooling (ABRoot, APX, VSO); docs maturing	High — intentionalDeclarative by design; steep learning curve, but reproducibility is the payoff

Reflects publicly documented behaviour as of early 2026 — always check current docs before deciding.

Where others win: Bazzite/SteamOS for Steam Deck. NixOS for declarative reproducibility. macOS for Apple-exclusive creative apps (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro). Shanios is the right fit for general hardware, rolling-release reliability, NVIDIA at first boot, and zero telemetry.

Download Shanios

Community edition — open source, free, no account required. Enterprise & OEM editions available. Built on Arch Linux packages (rolling release) — new OS images ship roughly monthly on the stable channel, more frequently on latest. Coming from Windows or Mac? Start with GNOME edition — most familiar for switchers. Already on Linux? Pick your preferred DE — GNOME for clean and minimal, KDE Plasma for power and gaming.

GNOME Edition

Arch Linux · systemd · Btrfs · rolling kernel · x86_64

OEM-Ready Enterprise & Professional Clean & Focused Desktop

Download GNOME — Community Edition Verify SHA256

Version 2026.03.10 · ~5.4 GB · SHA256 + GPG signed · Actively maintained
signed_shanios-gnome-2026.03.10-x86_64.iso

What's included

Clean, focused desktop — best for work, students, and Windows/Mac switchers. Browser, office suite, calendar, notes, media apps, VMs (GNOME Boxes), Waydroid, OnlyOffice, Vivaldi — all pre-installed, nothing to configure. Full feature list →

KDE Plasma Gaming Edition

Arch Linux · systemd · Btrfs · rolling kernel · x86_64

OEM-Ready Power User & Gaming 🎮 Recommended for Gamers

Download KDE Gaming — Community Edition Verify SHA256

Version 2026.03.10 · ~7.6 GB · SHA256 + GPG signed · Actively maintained
signed_shanios-plasma-2026.03.10-x86_64.iso

What's included

🎮 Best for gamers and power users. Steam, Heroic, Lutris, RetroArch, Bottles, GameMode — all pre-installed. NVIDIA configured at first boot. Full KDE productivity suite, Waydroid, OnlyOffice, Vivaldi — everything ready at first boot. Full feature list →

Active community on Telegram · Source on GitHub · Questions answered personally by the developer

New to Linux? You're welcome here. Shanios is designed so you don't need Linux knowledge for daily use — just a willingness to try. Want to try it before installing? Run the ISO in a VM first — GNOME Boxes or VirtualBox let you install and test Shanios without touching your main system. If you get stuck, the Telegram community is active and friendly. Start with GNOME edition — it's the most familiar if you're coming from Windows or Mac.

Need an enterprise or OEM deployment? SLA support · Fleet management · OEM image customisation · Volume licensing · Private update channel (in development). Get in touch →

How to Install Shanios

Five steps. About 15 minutes. No Linux experience required.

Shanios needs its own dedicated drive — it cannot share a drive with Windows or another OS.
The installer will erase the entire selected drive and set it up automatically. It creates a small boot area and uses the rest of the drive for the OS, your files, and apps — all managed for you. You don't need to partition anything yourself.

Need to keep Windows? Use a second drive for Shanios. At startup, press F12 (or your laptop's boot key) to choose which drive to boot from.

Download & verify the ISO

Download the GNOME or KDE edition from the Download section. Before writing to USB, verify the file wasn't corrupted in transit — the verify link is next to each download button. On Linux:

sha256sum signed_shanios-gnome-2026.03.10-x86_64.iso

Compare the output against the checksum on wiki.shani.dev. If they match, the file is intact.

Write to USB (8 GB+)

Windows: use Balena Etcher or Rufus.
Linux:

sudo dd bs=4M if=signed_shanios-gnome-2026.03.10-x86_64.iso \
  of=/dev/sdX status=progress oflag=sync

Replace /dev/sdX with your USB drive — confirm with lsblk first. Do not use Ventoy.

Quick BIOS check

Access BIOS with F2, Del, or F10 at startup:

Disable Fast Boot
Disable Secure Boot (re-enable after install)
Set boot mode to UEFI — legacy/CSM not supported
Set SATA to AHCI
Enable Virtualization (Intel VT-x / AMD-V)

Boot from USB & install

Press F12 at startup → select your USB → choose Install Shanios → follow the installer (~10–15 min). Select your target drive — it will be fully wiped.

Optional: enable LUKS2 full-disk encryption during install (recommended for laptops).

First boot & updates

Shanios configures everything automatically on first boot — hardware, drivers, hibernation. Just wait for your desktop to appear.

To update the OS anytime:

sudo shani-deploy

A desktop notification tells you when an update is ready. Your running system is never touched during the update.

Stuck? Ask in the Telegram community — developer responds personally.

Installation Guide

Installing Shanios takes about 15 minutes. Everything you need is below.

System Requirements

Firmware: UEFI required — legacy/CSM BIOS not supported
Storage: 32 GB minimum (64 GB recommended) — dual-image architecture keeps two complete system copies. Btrfs zstd compression and continuous deduplication keep the real overhead well below double the single-image size.
Memory: 4 GB RAM minimum (8 GB recommended)
Processor: 64-bit x86 CPU with virtualization support (Intel VT-x or AMD-V) — present on virtually all CPUs made after 2010; must be enabled in BIOS (see Pre-Installation below)
Graphics: Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA (all drivers included and configured at first boot)
Installation Media: 8 GB+ USB drive

Pre-Installation: BIOS/UEFI Setup

Configure before installing (usually via F2, F10, Del, or Esc at startup):

Disable Fast Boot
Disable Secure Boot for installation — re-enable it after install by enrolling the Shanios MOK key (mokutil — full steps on wiki.shani.dev). The enrolled key persists across all future updates.
Set SATA mode to AHCI
Enable UEFI boot — legacy/CSM BIOS mode is not supported. Shanios requires a UEFI system.
Enable virtualization (Intel VT-x or AMD-V) — required for VMs (GNOME Boxes, virt-manager) and hardware-accelerated containers such as Waydroid, both pre-installed
Enable TPM 2.0 if present (for passwordless LUKS unlock via TPM2 auto-unlock)

Creating Installation Media

Write the ISO using Balena Etcher (recommended), Rufus (Windows), or dd (Linux/macOS).

On Linux with dd — find your USB drive first (lsblk), then:

sha256sum signed_shanios-gnome-2026.03.10-x86_64.iso    # verify checksum first
sudo dd bs=4M if=signed_shanios-gnome-2026.03.10-x86_64.iso of=/dev/sdX status=progress oflag=sync
sync

Replace /dev/sdX with your actual USB device (e.g. /dev/sdb). Use the KDE filename for the Plasma edition.

Important: Do not use Ventoy — its ISO mounting method conflicts with Shanios's bootloader. Use Balena Etcher or Rufus instead.

Installation Steps

Boot from USB (F12, F2, or Del at startup)
Select "Install Shanios" from the boot menu
Choose language, timezone, and keyboard layout
Select target drive — the entire drive will be used. The installer creates its own partition layout and wipes the selected drive. Use a dedicated drive.
Enable LUKS2 full-disk encryption if desired (strongly recommended for laptops — uses argon2id key derivation)
Wait for installation to complete (~10–15 minutes)
Reboot when prompted and remove the USB drive

First Boot & Initial Deployment

On first boot after installation, Shanios completes its setup: the OEM wizard runs, hardware is detected and configured, and your desktop is ready. The swapfile, disk layout, and both OS copies are all prepared by the installer before first boot — nothing heavy runs in the background on your first session. Just log in and use it.

OS Updates

sudo shani-deploy                  # Update (stable channel, default)
sudo shani-deploy --rollback       # Roll back — run from the OS copy you want to KEEP
sudo shani-deploy -t latest        # Switch to latest channel for this run
sudo shani-deploy --dry-run        # Simulate the full update without making changes
sudo shani-deploy --cleanup        # Remove old OS copy backups and cached downloads (safe anytime)
sudo shani-deploy --storage-info   # Show subvolume disk usage and compression stats
sudo shani-deploy --optimize       # Run on-demand block-level deduplication
sudo shani-deploy --force          # Redeploy even if already on latest version

Updating Apps & Package Ecosystems

flatpak update        # Flatpak apps (also auto-updates every 12 hours)
snap refresh          # Snap packages
nix-env -u            # Nix packages (imperative)
nix flake update      # Nix packages (flake-based)
distrobox upgrade --all  # Update all Distrobox containers
podman auto-update    # Podman container images
fwupdmgr update       # Hardware firmware (BIOS, NVMe, SSD, peripherals — via vendor firmware service)

Important: Always use shani-deploy for OS updates — do not run pacman directly, as it bypasses the immutable deployment system.

Post-Install: Re-enable Secure Boot

Enroll the Shanios MOK key. When prompted enter password: shanios. Full instructions in the Secure Boot enrollment guide on wiki.shani.dev.

Important Notes

Dual-boot on the same drive is not supported.
Shanios uses its own partitioning — the installer wipes the entire selected drive and creates its own layout (a 1 GB EFI partition + a single Btrfs root partition). There is no option to shrink or share partitions with an existing OS. Custom partition tables are not supported.

To dual-boot with Windows or another OS: install Shanios on a separate physical drive. Both drives coexist without interfering. At startup, press F12 (or your motherboard's boot selection key) to choose which drive to boot from. Shanios uses systemd-boot and will only show its own entries — it will not auto-detect other drives.

Dedicated drive required: The Shanios installer uses the entire selected drive — it creates two partitions: a 1 GB EFI partition (FAT32) and a single Btrfs root partition that contains everything else. The two OS copies (@blue/@green) are Btrfs subvolumes inside that root partition, not separate partitions. Dual-booting on the same drive is not supported. If you need to keep another OS, install Shanios on a separate physical drive and use BIOS boot selection (F12) to choose.
Installing software: Use Flatpak, Snap, Nix, AppImages, or containers — all persist across updates in dedicated subvolumes. Note: Nix requires adding a channel once before first use (nix-channel --add)
Disk space: At least 10 GB free is needed to run an update. Use sudo shani-deploy --cleanup to remove old OS copy backups and cached downloads when disk space is low — safe to run at any time without affecting your running system.
TPM2 auto-unlock: If TPM 2.0 is present and enabled in BIOS, LUKS2 disk encryption can be configured to unlock automatically using TPM PCR binding — no passphrase required at boot on trusted hardware. See the TPM encryption guide on wiki.shani.dev for setup details.

Need Help?

Visit the full documentation on wiki.shani.dev or join the Telegram community.

Frequently Asked Questions

The questions people ask most before trying Shanios, answered directly.

Do I need to know Linux to use Shanios?

No — not for everyday use. Both GNOME and KDE editions have full graphical interfaces for everything from settings to app installation. You do not need to open a terminal to browse, write documents, play games, or install apps. You will need one terminal command to update the OS: sudo shani-deploy — that's it. If you want to go deeper (containers, Nix, custom configurations), Shanios gives you full access. If you don't, it stays out of your way. New to Linux? Start with the getting-started guide and feel free to ask questions in the Telegram community.

I'm coming from Windows. Will my apps work? Is this beginner-friendly?

Yes — your familiar apps are here and the switch is more manageable than most expect. See the Windows or Mac Switcher section for a full rundown of app equivalents and what changes. Not sure it's right for you? Ask in the Telegram community before you install — fast, friendly answers.

I'm coming from Mac. What changes? What stays the same?

What stays the same: The terminal works exactly as you'd expect — bash or zsh, standard UNIX commands, familiar tools. Your browser (Firefox, Vivaldi pre-installed — or install Chrome via Flatpak), office documents (OnlyOffice opens .docx/.xlsx/.pptx natively), and media files all transfer directly. Homebrew can be installed and works just as it does on macOS — see the Homebrew section on wiki.shani.dev for setup details. Nix is also pre-installed — it's a declarative, reproducible package manager (a different mental model from Homebrew, not a replacement) that keeps packages conflict-free and surviving OS updates; requires adding a channel once before use.

What's better: No Apple ID required. No iCloud. No subscription for basic features like iCloud Drive or full OS backups. No planned obsolescence — hardware Apple stopped supporting in 2019 runs Shanios fine today. Bad update? One reboot back — macOS has no equivalent. Full-disk encryption with no Apple key escrow.

What's different: Software comes from Flatpak (like an App Store, but open) rather than .dmg files. The update command is one terminal line: sudo shani-deploy. You have root access — something macOS increasingly restricts. Some Mac-exclusive apps (Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Xcode) have no Linux equivalent — check beforehand if these are essential to your workflow.

Can I install software? How does app installation work?

Yes — the app store works exactly as you'd expect. Flatpak (via Flathub) is the main app store, with thousands of apps including all the popular ones. There's also Snap, portable AppImages, and for power users: Nix environments and containers via Distrobox. All persist across OS updates in their own dedicated storage — completely separate from the OS itself. Nix packages live in their own dedicated storage shared between both OS copies, so they survive updates and rollbacks. Note: Nix requires adding a channel once before first use — see wiki.shani.dev for the one-line setup. The point is that your apps and your OS are separate concerns — an OS update can't break your apps, and your apps can't corrupt the OS.

Does Shanios need an account? Does it collect any data about me?

No account needed, no email, no registration — just download and install. Shanios collects zero telemetry, sends no crash reports, and has no analytics of any kind. The update tool (shani-deploy) connects to download servers to fetch images — but only transmits what any standard HTTP download requires. No hardware fingerprints, no system IDs, no usage statistics are sent. Intel Management Engine — a low-level chip-level background process on Intel hardware — is disabled by default, removing a known surveillance and attack surface. Because the entire codebase is public on GitHub, this is verifiable — you can read every script that runs on your system.

Why does it need 32 GB minimum? That's more than most distros.

Shanios keeps two complete, bootable OS copies at all times — that's how instant rollback works. The GNOME edition ISO is ~2.3 GB; the KDE Plasma edition is ~2.8 GB. The filesystem uses Btrfs zstd compression (typically cutting OS size 30–50%) and continuous background deduplication via beesd, so content shared between the two copies is stored only once. In practice the real extra overhead is well below double a single-copy OS. 64 GB gives comfortable room for apps, containers, and updates. You'll need at least 10 GB free to stage an update.

What happens if an update fails mid-way?

Nothing happens to your running system — it's in a completely separate copy and is never touched during an update. Before any writing begins, a timestamped backup of the standby copy is taken automatically. If the update fails for any reason (network drop, power cut, verification failure), the standby copy is restored from that backup. If power is lost mid-update, a deployment-pending flag is detected the next time you run shani-deploy — it will prompt you to run --rollback to restore a clean state. To undo a completed update: sudo shani-deploy --rollback.

Does it work on my hardware? NVIDIA? Older machines?

Shanios includes Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA drivers pre-installed and configured including full Vulkan support. Printers, scanners, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, game controllers, fingerprint readers, FIDO2/YubiKey, smart cards, NFC, Thunderbolt, iOS devices, and 5G modems are all pre-configured. It runs the standard Arch Linux kernel with broad hardware support. Firmware updates (BIOS, NVMe, SSD, keyboard controllers) are handled automatically via the Linux Vendor Firmware Service — no manufacturer tools or USB drives needed. Minimum: 64-bit x86 CPU, 4 GB RAM, 32 GB storage.

How do I keep everything updated — OS, apps, containers?

Each layer has its own command: OS with sudo shani-deploy, Flatpak with flatpak update (also auto-updates every 12 hours), Snap with snap refresh, Nix with nix-env -u, Podman containers with podman auto-update, firmware with fwupdmgr update. These are completely independent — updating apps doesn't touch the OS, and vice versa. Desktop notifications tell you when a new OS update is ready, so you never need to remember to check.

How do I roll back if the new OS doesn't work for me?

From the OS copy you want to keep, run sudo shani-deploy --rollback. Shanios restores the other copy from its most recent backup and updates the boot menu — without touching your running system. If a new OS ever fails to boot at all, it's detected automatically and the previous one takes over — no action needed from you. Your personal files, apps, and settings live in completely separate storage and are never affected by any OS rollback.

Is it good for laptops? Battery life? Hibernation?

Yes. Fingerprint login works at first boot on supported hardware — no setup required. Hibernation works out of the box — a swapfile sized to your RAM is created during installation, nothing to configure. TPM2 auto-unlock means you can use full-disk encryption without typing a password at every boot — the disk unlocks automatically on your own trusted hardware. Power Profiles Daemon is pre-installed — switch between balanced, performance, and power-saver modes directly from the system settings in both GNOME and KDE. Your browser profile runs from memory (RAM) rather than writing constantly to your SSD, which measurably extends SSD life. Full-disk encryption (LUKS2) and Secure Boot are both fully supported.

Is it secure? What exactly is protected?

The system root is read-only — even root can't modify core OS files at runtime. Updates are verified SHA256 + GPG before deployment. Six Linux Security Modules run simultaneously: Landlock, Lockdown, Yama, Integrity, AppArmor, and BPF LSM. Full-disk encryption protects all your data at rest using a modern, attack-resistant key algorithm (LUKS2 argon2id). TPM2 auto-unlock ties LUKS keys to hardware state. Secure Boot verifies the bootloader and kernel before the system starts. Intel ME kernel modules blacklisted by default, removing the OS-level communication channel to ME. Flatpak sandboxes user apps. firewalld blocks unsolicited inbound connections from first boot. Zero telemetry means no analytics attack surface. That said — no OS eliminates all risk. Network threats, zero-days, and social engineering are outside what OS architecture alone can solve.

Is it really open source? Can I verify how updates work?

Fully. The build system, shani-deploy scripts, and every tool that runs on your system are public on GitHub. The GPG signing key is publicly registered so anyone can verify OS images independently. In an era of supply chain attacks, that isn't a nice-to-have — it's the point. You don't have to trust claims. You can read the code, verify the key, and reproduce the build. Full technical documentation is at wiki.shani.dev.

Does every update download the full 2–3 GB image?

Yes — shani-deploy downloads a full OS image each time. This is the trade-off of the blue-green model: instead of incremental package patches (which can drift, conflict, and accumulate), you get a complete, verified, identical image every time. Downloads are resumable — a dropped connection picks up where it left off. On a typical broadband connection it takes a few minutes. The previous OS copy is kept until your next update, so you can always roll back. If bandwidth is a genuine constraint, the stable channel ships roughly monthly — you're not downloading 3 GB every day. To preview what would happen without downloading anything, run sudo shani-deploy --dry-run.

I already use Linux. Does my knowledge transfer? What about pacman and the AUR?

Yes — Shanios is standard Arch Linux under the hood. systemd works exactly as you know it: systemctl enable/disable/start/stop, user services, timers, all of it. /etc is fully writable via an overlay mount — config files, service overrides, and custom unit files all persist across updates and rollbacks. cron (via cronie, pre-installed), user crontabs, and systemd timers all work. Shell: bash and zsh pre-installed; fish available via Flatpak, Distrobox, or Nix. Everything else — networking, firewall, SSH, VMs, containers, kernel parameters — works exactly as you expect on Arch.

The one thing that changes: pacman -S won't work on the live root — it's read-only by design, and package changes wouldn't survive an update anyway. Use Flatpak for user-facing apps, Distrobox for a full mutable Arch container with pacman + AUR helpers (survives updates in its own subvolume), Nix for reproducible per-environment packages, or AppImages for portable binaries. This is intentional — keeping the OS clean and verified is what makes rollback reliable.

Who built this, and what happens if development stops?

Shanios is built by Shrinivas Vishnu Kumbhar — a developer and researcher from Shivaji University, Kolhapur, India. The project grew from research into why server deployments stay reliable while desktop OS updates so often fail, and applies those same techniques to the everyday desktop. It's currently a one-person project — a fair thing to ask about. The entire codebase — build scripts, deploy tooling, signing workflow — is public on GitHub under a free software licence. If development stopped, anyone could fork it and continue. shani-deploy is a standalone script, not a proprietary service. The goal is to grow into a sustainable team as enterprise licensing generates revenue. Until then: transparent, forkable, and not dependent on any closed infrastructure. Full background in the About section →

I'm a PC manufacturer or vendor. What does OEM licensing actually include?

OEM licensing covers a private GPG-signed update channel, Plymouth BGRT brand logo at boot, image customisation, SLA support, and fleet management tooling. The community edition base is always open source — licensing covers the private infrastructure and customisation layer on top. Full details, pricing, and pilot enquiries: Enterprise & Partners section or Telegram.

Can I dual-boot with Windows or another OS?

No — the Shanios installer writes to the entire selected drive. It creates two partitions: a 1 GB EFI partition (FAT32) and a single Btrfs root partition. The two OS copies that make rollback possible are Btrfs subvolumes (@blue/@green) inside that single root partition — not separate partitions. There is no option to install alongside an existing OS on the same drive. If you need to keep Windows, use a separate physical drive for Shanios and select which OS to boot via BIOS boot selection (usually F12 at startup) — both drives coexist without interfering. Note: Shanios uses systemd-boot, which only shows Shanios boot entries — it will not auto-detect other drives. Use BIOS boot selection (F12) to switch between drives. If you need Windows apps, Bottles (Wine-based, pre-installed on KDE; available on Flathub for GNOME) handles many Windows applications without needing Windows at all.

Download Free Ask a Question First

No account · No telemetry · Still unsure? The community on Telegram is active and welcoming.

Support the Project

Shanios is an independent, self-funded OS platform. Today's donations directly fund build servers, testing hardware, and development time. The roadmap — sovereign infrastructure, global OEM programme, enterprise support organisation — requires real resources. This is early-stage backing for something built to last.

If Shanios saves you time, saves your team a reimaging, or just works the way software should — consider supporting the project. You're not keeping a project alive — you're backing the platform it's becoming.

Donate via Razorpay Donate via PayPal

Other ways to help

Spread the Word

Why it matters

Star the project on GitHub, share it with admins and developers who are tired of reinstalling, or write about your experience. Word of mouth is how small open-source projects grow.

Star on GitHub

Contribute

How to contribute

Report bugs, propose features, improve documentation, or contribute code. Whether you're a developer, tester, designer, or technical writer — every contribution matters.

Get Involved

Join the Community

What's in the community

Real-time support, announcements, tips, and discussion on Telegram. Fast responses, active community.

Join Telegram

Roadmap

Where Shanios has been, where it is now, and where it is going. The hard architectural work is done. What follows is scaling it — infrastructure, enterprise, and a platform built to last decades. Built in public — every milestone tracked on GitHub.

✓ Shipped

Foundation

Atomic blue-green Btrfs updates
GPG + SHA256 image verification
Immutable root with OverlayFS /etc
TPM2 auto-unlock + LUKS2 argon2id
6 Linux Security Modules
Intel ME kernel modules blacklisted by default
Hibernation auto-configured

✓ Shipped

User Experience

GNOME & KDE Plasma editions
OEM Initial Setup wizard
Full gaming stack (KDE)
Waydroid Android layer pre-configured
All container runtimes with GUIs
Desktop update notifications
Script self-update mechanism

✓ Shipped

Developer Platform

Distrobox + Apptainer pre-configured
Podman + Flatpak + Snap + Nix + AppImage
Stable + latest update channels
Dry-run mode for all operations
rollback, cleanup, storage-info flags
Power-failure safe deployment
R2 CDN + SourceForge mirror fallback

▶ In Progress

Enterprise Infrastructure

Fleet management tooling
Private update channel infrastructure
Controlled rollout scheduling
Compliance audit documentation
Enterprise support SLA framework

→ Next Up

Security & Attestation

Remote attestation support
Measured boot integration
Reproducible build verification
SBOM (Software Bill of Materials — a machine-readable inventory of every package in an OS image, for auditing and CVE tracking)
CVE tracking dashboard

◎ Planned

Platform Expansion

ARM64 / Snapdragon X Elite support
Immutable server edition
Cloud image (AWS, GCP, Azure)
Installer CLI for headless deploy
OEM partner portal

◎ With Funding

Sovereign & Global Platform

Self-hosted build infrastructure (no GitHub dependency)
Own global CDN, mirror network, and package signing servers
Independent update infrastructure for enterprise customers
Dedicated hardware test lab
Worldwide OEM licensing programme
Enterprise support organisation (24/7 SLA)
Certified hardware partner network
Government-grade compliance certifications (CC, FIPS)
Shanios Cloud — managed immutable infrastructure
Community edition remains free and open source — always. This roadmap scales the platform, not the licence.

Follow on GitHub

All development is public. Issues, PRs, and discussions are open.

About the Platform

Why this OS exists, what it stands for, and the person behind it — so you know what you're installing and why it was built this way. Shanios is not the right tool for everyone — the compare section shows exactly where Bazzite, NixOS, and others genuinely win.

Why Shanios Exists

Servers have stayed reliable for years by updating to a standby copy, verifying everything cryptographically, and rolling back instantly on failure. Desktop operating systems never did this — and users paid for it with reinstalls, broken updates, and wasted weekends. Shanios grew out of research at Shivaji University into exactly this gap. The result isn't just a better Linux distro — it's a platform architecture designed from first principles to be reliable, auditable, and independent at any scale. Rollback in one reboot, strong security out of the box, hibernation that just works — as defaults, not add-ons.

Radical Transparency

Every build script, deploy tool, and signing workflow is public on GitHub. The GPG signing key is on public keyservers. You can verify the full supply chain yourself — end to end, without trusting anyone's word. Shanios is free software: free to use, study, modify, and share. See also: Is it really open source? in the FAQ.

Built in India 🇮🇳

Shanios is built in India — with Indian-language support (Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, and more) designed in from the start. Indian scripts render correctly on first boot without any extra packages. IBus multi-language input is pre-configured. This is an intentional first-class feature, reflecting a project built where users shouldn't have to do extra work to use their native scripts.

Founder

Founder · Lead Developer

Shrinivas Vishnu Kumbhar

Building an OS platform from India that competes globally — architecture-first, no shortcuts, no compromise. Your OS should be your most reliable tool, not a source of anxiety. Reliability and security shouldn't require expertise. Zero telemetry shouldn't require an opt-out. Atomic updates, instant rollback, cryptographic verification — all running on real hardware today. What's being built now is the platform layer: enterprise licensing, OEM programme, sovereign infrastructure. One developer, one country, one codebase that's already ahead of where most funded teams get to.

Enterprise, OEM & Partners

The same architecture that keeps a developer's laptop reliable scales to a fleet of thousands. Shanios is open source and free for everyone — that is not in conflict with being a viable business, it is the foundation of it. Whether you're a PC manufacturer, IT department, school network, or regional reseller — the platform is the same. What changes is your update channel, your branding, and your SLA.

Platform Capabilities

Zero-Touch Fleet Deployment

Every machine in a fleet pulls from the same GPG-signed image. No per-machine package drift. No "works on most of them" support calls. When a new image ships, every machine either runs it or rolls back automatically — with no manual intervention required.

Rollback Without a Dispatch

A bad update on a remote machine doesn't require on-site recovery. Boot-counting detects a failing OS copy and reverts automatically. For machines that do reach the desktop: one command, one reboot, previous state restored. No recovery USB. No reinstall. No on-site visit.

OEM-Ready Out of the Box

OEM Initial Setup wizard, Plymouth BGRT manufacturer logo, hardware-specific profiles, and pre-configured drivers for Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA — all included. Shanios ships as a complete, verified, deployable image. No per-model post-processing required.

Security That Passes Audits

Immutable root, 6 active Linux Security Modules, LUKS2 argon2id full-disk encryption, TPM2 auto-unlock, Secure Boot, Intel ME kernel modules blacklisted by default, and firewalld active from first boot. The attack surface is minimized by architecture — so it stays minimized regardless of what an end user does.

Cryptographic Trust Chain

Images are GPG-signed before distribution. SHA256 checksums are verified before deployment. The signing key, build scripts, and deployment tooling are all public and auditable — independently, by anyone, at any time.

Private Update Channel (In Development)

Enterprise and OEM licensees will get a private, GPG-signed update channel — fully independent from the public community release. Stage updates for internal validation, roll out in batches, pin specific versions. Contact to discuss early access.

Why Vendors & OEMs Should Care

No Windows Licence Cost on Every Unit

Every PC you ship with Windows carries a per-unit OEM licence cost that compresses your margin. Shanios has no per-unit cost — a direct margin advantage at any volume, in any market.

OEM Windows licences typically cost $20–$60 per unit (or ₹2,500–₹6,000 in India) depending on tier and volume. That cost is either absorbed into your margin or passed to the customer — either way it is real money on every unit you ship.

Shanios has no per-unit licence cost. At any meaningful volume, the margin advantage compounds quickly — pass it to the customer as a price advantage, keep it as margin, or both.

A Shanios-based device needs no Microsoft account at setup, no OneDrive push, no Cortana, no pre-installed trial software. You control what ships, the first-boot wizard, and the defaults.

Dramatically Lower Support Cost

A broken OS update is the most common support call for PC vendors. On Shanios, the customer runs one command and reboots. No reimaging. No courier. No engineer visit.

An in-warranty OS repair costs your service network 45–90 minutes of technician time plus handling and logistics. On Shanios: sudo shani-deploy --rollback restores the previous verified state in under a minute. If the machine can't boot, it reverts automatically — the customer may not even notice.

A vendor shipping 2,000 units/year with a 3% OS-related incident rate handles 60 incidents. At $30–$50 per incident, that's $1,800–$3,000/year in service cost that largely disappears — and that scales with volume.

A Credible Answer to Data Sovereignty

Zero telemetry from the OS. No foreign key escrow. Fully auditable open-source code. The OS collects nothing and sends nothing — verifiable by reading the source.

Windows sends telemetry to Microsoft. ChromeOS sends data to Google. macOS sends data to Apple. Shanios sends nothing — zero telemetry, zero crash reports, zero analytics — verifiable by reading the public source code on GitHub.

LUKS2 full-disk encryption with TPM2 auto-unlock means encryption keys never leave the device. No Apple key escrow, no Microsoft BitLocker backup to a foreign server. The key stays on your customer's hardware.

The genuine differentiator: an open-source, auditable OS that collects zero data and has zero foreign key escrow — backed by a public codebase anyone can verify.

Revenue Models — What You Can Build

OEM Hardware Sales

Ship Shanios pre-installed on laptops, desktops, or workstations. No per-unit licence cost, one-reboot recovery. Position on price against Windows OEMs and on capability against Chromebooks.

What you ship: Commodity x86 hardware with your brand's custom first-boot experience — your logo via Plymouth BGRT, your OEM wizard, your defaults — at a lower price point than Windows hardware while keeping equal or better margin.

Who buys it: Students and schools (price-sensitive), SME offices (browser, OnlyOffice, email), government procurement (open-source, auditable), cybercafés (immutable OS, resets after every user).

Licensing structure: Flat annual rate covering your entire product line — not per unit. Your cost stays fixed regardless of how many units you ship.

Fleet Deployment & Managed IT

Sell Shanios-based fleet deployments to schools, SMEs, and corporates as a managed service. The OS architecture makes that service extremely low-effort to deliver — and therefore high-margin.

Deploy identically-imaged machines at a customer site. Charge a monthly or annual per-device fee. OS updates roll back automatically if they fail — your SLA is backed by the platform architecture, not just your team's response time.

Managing 100 Windows desktops involves driver conflicts, patch management, AV renewals, and reimaging cycles. Managing 100 Shanios machines means pushing one verified image that either works or auto-reverts. Engineer-hours per device drop sharply.

Schools specifically: A managed Shanios fleet means near-zero IT burden between semesters — no reimaging, no maintenance push.

Government & Institutional Tenders

Bid on government, public sector, and education tenders requiring an open-source, zero-telemetry, auditable OS. Requirements like these are tightening globally — Shanios is purpose-built to meet them.

Governments, defence departments, public institutions, and universities worldwide are moving toward open-source, auditable OS platforms driven by data sovereignty and supply chain security requirements.

In India specifically: Central and state governments, PSU banks, and public universities deploy hundreds of thousands of desktops annually. Shanios provides: Indian-origin open-source OS, zero foreign telemetry, LUKS2 encryption, Secure Boot, no foreign key escrow, and Indian-language support from day one.

Near-term targets: State government computer labs, district court digitisation programmes, PSU bank branch terminal refresh cycles, and education ministry deployments.

Training & Certification

Package Shanios-based laptops for coding bootcamps and IT training institutes. A pre-configured, identical environment on every machine eliminates the "works on my setup" problem.

Deploy one verified image across all machines. Every student has the exact same environment. A student who breaks something reboots. At the end of a batch, sudo shani-deploy across all machines brings every device to the latest clean state — no reimaging cycle, no technician weekend.

Pre-configured dev tooling — VS Code via Flatpak, Distrobox for any language runtime — makes Shanios a natural fit for developer training. Offer a hardware + OS + maintenance package at a fixed annual price.

Cybercafé & Shared Computing

An immutable OS is the ideal shared computing platform. Users can't compromise it. No AV subscription, no reimaging cycle, no Windows licence per machine.

The immutable root means a user cannot persistently modify the OS. A full OS reset is one command and one reboot. For a chain of 10 cafés with 20 machines each, the savings on Windows OEM licences alone are significant. Maintenance staff can focus on hardware rather than software cleanup.

Reseller & System Integration

Become an authorised Shanios reseller or system integrator for your region. Local deployment, training, support, and customisation on top of a complete platform. No software development required.

You do not need to build anything — deploy it, support it, and sell it. Buy hardware at volume, deploy Shanios under your brand, charge for support and maintenance.

What you provide: Local sales, on-site deployment, first-line support, custom image configuration, and training for IT staff or end users.

What Shanios handles: OS development, security patching, kernel maintenance, driver support, and update infrastructure — so your margins hold even as you scale.

Get in Touch

OEM licensing · Fleet deployment · Government tenders · Reseller partnerships · Enterprise pricing · Pilot deployments

Partnerships & Vendors

OEM, fleet, government tenders, reseller — describe your company and what you're planning to build or deploy.

Enterprise & OEM

Describe your fleet size, use case, and what you need — private update channel, SLA, OEM customisation, compliance docs, or a pilot deployment.

Message on Telegram Email Directly

librewish@gmail.com · Community edition is always free.

GNOME Edition KDE Edition Top

The OS That Always Has Your Back. An immutable OS — the core is read-only and can't be broken. Two system copies. One always safe. One command to update. One reboot to undo it — always.

The Problems That Keep People on Windows. Shanios Solves Them.

Who It's For

The IT Admin / OEM

The Developer

The Researcher

The Tired Linux User

The Linux Gamer

The Corporate Laptop User

PC Manufacturers & Vendors

School Labs & Family Computers

The Windows or Mac Switcher

Why Updates Can't Break Your Computer

The updater updates itself first

Your system is protected during the update

It checks which OS copy you're running

Download & verify — tampered files are rejected

A safety snapshot is taken before anything is written

The new OS copy is set up and boot is prepared

You decide when to switch — no forced reboots

Changed your mind? Roll back anytime with one command

Everything Works. Nothing to Configure.

Updates & Recovery

Updates That Never Break Your System

The OS Can't Be Accidentally Broken — It's Immutable

Your Always-Available Fallback

Security & Privacy

Defence-in-Depth Security Stack

Zero Telemetry. Zero Ads.

Supply Chain Integrity

How Shanios Compares

vs Windows & macOS

Download Shanios

GNOME Edition

KDE Plasma Gaming Edition

How to Install Shanios

Download & verify the ISO

Write to USB (8 GB+)

Quick BIOS check

Boot from USB & install

First boot & updates

Installation Guide

System Requirements

Pre-Installation: BIOS/UEFI Setup

Creating Installation Media

Installation Steps

First Boot & Initial Deployment

OS Updates

Updating Apps & Package Ecosystems

Post-Install: Re-enable Secure Boot

Important Notes

Need Help?

Frequently Asked Questions

Support the Project

Spread the Word

Contribute

Join the Community

Roadmap

Foundation

User Experience

Developer Platform

Enterprise Infrastructure

Security & Attestation

Platform Expansion

Sovereign & Global Platform

About the Platform

Why Shanios Exists

Radical Transparency

Built in India 🇮🇳

Founder

Enterprise, OEM & Partners

Platform Capabilities

Zero-Touch Fleet Deployment

Rollback Without a Dispatch

OEM-Ready Out of the Box

Security That Passes Audits

Cryptographic Trust Chain

Private Update Channel (In Development)

Why Vendors & OEMs Should Care

No Windows Licence Cost on Every Unit

The OS That Always Has Your Back.
An immutable OS — the core is read-only and can't be broken. Two system copies. One always safe. One command to update. One reboot to undo it — always.