by pizzalovingnerd | 2025-06-13 21:04:41+00:00
TLDR: I just dropped a brand new Linux distro, aimed to be as consumer friendly as possible. It has a lot of unique features, and isn't your typical Ubuntu/Arch respin. It uses atomic update tech, and has a lot of quality of life features. I am looking for feedback on the preview build before I get ready to launch the finished non-preview version in around a month.

Hello, I am proud to be dropping a preview of my new distribution, stillOS. This is an atomic distribution based on top of Alma Linux 10, and it's been in the works for 2 years. I know there's a new distribution every week with the same goal that ends up being just an Ubuntu or Arch fork, but trust me, stillOS isn't one of those.

I am previously the developer of risiOS which was a Fedora based distribution designed to make onboarding as easy as possible. While working on risiOS I saw new atomic distributions like NixOS and Silverblue gain momentum, and than after seeing SteamOS I wondered why no one has tried to make a distribution using immutable technology to make a truly consumer-grade stable Linux desktop. Originally, stillOS started as "Project Still" to build an atomic version of risiOS, but than I had so many ideas that it became it's own project that I thought could be impactful enough that I killed risiOS to work on it.

The goal here is to be the most consumer friendly Linux distribution possible. There's 100 other distributions that have tried this, but stillOS has several focused features designed to finally achieve this.

- The Alma Linux 10 base with bootc atomic updates, it is going to be very difficult if not impossible for an update to break the system unless we push a bad update. - Our SWAI web app system uses Electron to create PWAs with deep system integration, allowing us to make one click web app installers for popular apps like Photoshop Web, Microsoft Office Online, and more. This helps us bridge the app gap. In a future update, web apps can open windows of each other, such as a OneDrive web app opening a Microsoft Word web app for a word file. - Many Linux software centers are unreliable, so we have our own custom software center called stillCenter. This is a curated app store, so we can make sure every app works with our Flatpak/Wayland/Atomic system, and we can apply permissions-related patches on our end. Each app is also given a "stillRating" with Gold+ for all Libadwaita apps, Gold for stable non-Libadwaita apps, and than Silver/Bronze for apps that have broken theming, or Wayland issues, things like that. - stillControl allows users to customize the layout with EASE. It integrates with many extensions behind the scenes, but makes customizing the layout of GNOME as easy as KDE. Think of Zorin OS's layout switcher but with far more options.

All of these features combine to make one of the most polish and consumer ready Linux experiences you can get (once we are out of the preview stage and bugs are ironed out). T his is not ready YET for most people, but I have the iOS 26 beta on my phone, and I can tell you this preview is far more stable than iOS 26. If you can live on the edge it should be stable enough to daily drive. I expect to iron out bugs and have the full first release out in about a month. In the mean time, I would highly appreciate people trying it out and giving me any ideas or feedback they might have.

If you are interested in more info or want to see a video demo, I have a LinuxFest talk here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgEw2wAR-rw

If you want to try it out, it available here: https://stillhq.io/blog/news-2/hello-world-stillos-10-previe...