Vanilla os

Introduction

foreign

[Music]

welcome to another video from explaining

computers.com

this time we're going to check out

vanilla OS

this is a very nudistro it only had its

first stable release in December 2022

and it's a very interesting distro

because it's immutable which means that

core parts of the system are locked down

they're read only to increase security

and so before we install and test

vanilla OS let's delve a bit more deeply

into the concept of an immutable

operating system

Secure & Stable (what is an immutable OS?)

immutable operating systems provide

protection from malware failed updates

and user error by making their core

components read only

immutable operating systems have also

been around for many decades for example

some early mobile devices run Windows CE

which was pre-installed on read-only

memory chips so Windows couldn't be

corrupted by either the user or malware

more recently several immutable Linux

distros have been created

these include bottle rocket which was

developed by Amazon to run on its Cloud

servers

other examples include Talos Linux

Fedora silverblue and most recently

vanilla OS

this latest immutable distro is based on

Ubuntu and is intended to be more

beginner friendly than its Rivals

however some prior Linux experience is

whilst the idea of a demutable OS may be

appealing it also presents some

practical challenges

not least with the Linux root directory

in vanilla OS set to read only How could

a user save files and get updates

well to answer the first question a few

paths including we use a home and

configuration directories are still

writable

meanwhile a utility called a b root

facilitates updates and other essential

installs it does this by managing two

root partitions A and B one of which is

always the present root and the second

or was the future

as for developers of vanilla OS explain

drivers and updates are installed by

starting a transactional shell in the

second route partition if the

transaction succeeds the changes are

applied using an overlay and synced with

the current route on reboot if the

transaction fails no changes are applied

due to a property known as atomicity

this clever approach allows vanilla OS

to apply changes entirely in the

background to a non-live partition with

successful changes delivered to the user

on reboot

however it does mean that more drive

space is required as each root partition

is about 20 Gigabytes in size

to install applications vanilla OS has

its own package manager called apx as

well as providing optional support for

flat pack and app image with SNAP

support promised for the future

when using apx applications are

installed into containers given that

flat packs are also containerized and

app Images effectively so this means

that software installations are isolated

from the core operating system

right now that we understand the theory

of vanilla OS let's see how it currently

performs in practice

so let's click on get the OS 2210 like

that which takes us across to GitHub we

can scroll down and find the iso there

it is let's download that like that and

when the file is downloaded I'll write

it to a USB drive using Ballina etcher

and note that the USB drive needs to be

at least eight gigabytes in size and

that vanilla OS requires a drive at

least 50 gigabytes in size for

installation

Bare Metal Test (installation)

thank you

right here we are booting up from our

vanilla OS live USB drive on my I5 test

rig and this has got an Nvidia graphics

card so I've picked this system

deliberately to see how vanilla OS deals

with that

and here we are in the live system where

we can either try vanilla Os from a USB

drive or we can do an install I'm going

to go straight to the install like that

well I'll just pick my language

and continue and I'll now pick the

keyboard layout

there we go I now have to sort out time

and then on this screen we need to pick

a disk which will pick down there and

we'll configure

and here the default option is to use

the entire disk which will be erased

there is an option here for manual

partitioning but I'm going to stick with

entire disk

and with that said we will continue and

it now wants us to confirm changes it's

going to blank this entire disk so it's

a good idea it confirms which we will

that's okay and now of course we need to

set up a user

there we go and we can continue and

there we are we're now all set up to

install vanilla OS

and guess what it's all done so we can

now reboot

and there we are I'll just uh log in

that was all rather painless and we've

now got a first Setup Wizard which will

take us through the rest of the process

so let's start doing that

don't know if it got it or not there we

have it got it that time let's come back

to the other part of the screen now

obviously because it's summer trouble

there which color screen should we have

we'll go with light colored for now and

now we have a choice of package manager

and here I think we'll leave both flat

pack and app image in place so we'll

just click on next

we've now got applications we've got

core applications there which has ticked

we obviously want them I'm going to want

office as well I think and also common

utilities let's just check what's going

on here libreoffice's office that's

hardly a surprise and um common

utilities what's in there what am I

installing there that looks pretty

useful to me we'll go with all that lot

as well and next

and now it's asking do we want to

install time shift to make snapshots of

our system or it's a good idea we'll do

that do we want NVIDIA drivers yes it's

picked up with that we've got a Nvidia

graphics card so let's uh install

drivers for that that's good do we want

restricted codecs so we can play video

and audio things like that absolutely we

do we'll do that as well and finally

we've got extra settings do we want that

there no I don't think we do and there

we are it's all come up I just need to

give it my password now

and it will now get on with installation

2.0

and here we are it's now finalizing I

think if I click at the top it'll show

us what's going on there we are I move

things again never mind and we'll just

let it continue

and there we are it's finished all done

we can close this down and so far at

least this immutable OS is proving to be

beginner friendly

Vanilla GNOME

greetings here I am back again and I've

been testing things out and everything

is very responsive and stable

as you can see I've changed the desktop

background we've got lots of choices

available although I think I picked the

most exciting and I've also made a few

scaling changes

as we can also see vanilla OS has a

vanilla version of The Gnome desktop and

apparently it was initially called

vanilla OS because it offers a version

of Ubuntu with vanilla gnome and if

you're wondering it is pronounced gnome

due to a double acronym and has nothing

to do with tiny Stone goblins

anyway love it or lose it on the vanilla

gnome desktop like this we don't have an

applications menu

top right there was a system menu to

allow us to do things like changing

power settings or to a log out shut down

things like that but if we want to

launch an application we have to click

top left and then go down to the dash

which comes up on the bottom of the

screen with a great piece of interface

design that is and then from here we can

either launch your favorite application

or click on all applications and launch

for example the calculator

alternatively to bring up a dash rather

than clicking on activities we can press

the Super Key otherwise known as the

Windows key on the keyboard so if I do

that like that it brings up the dash and

I can now just start typing I could type

for example Libra and that would allow

me to launch LibreOffice writer

and talking of LibreOffice you may

recall we installed this using the first

Run Wizard but I found that when I first

tried to run it it wouldn't work and the

only way I got it to work was to do a

reboot so I imagine that something to do

with immutability

anyway backwards of vanilla gnome

desktop I should point out we don't have

maximize and minimize controls on our

windows and that doesn't stop us

maximizing windows we can just click to

maximize like that and click it will

store again or we can drag to maximize

by get it right like that and we can

drag drag back like that and if we want

to minimize a window well that's a bit

more of a challenge

now I'm sure there are people in the

comments saying Chris you should just

install gnome tweaks or you should just

learn to work differently to embrace the

vanilla gnome desktop

however personally I do hope that the

next release of vanilla OS include an

option in the setup wizard to restore a

dock and windows controls like we have

in Ubuntu and which would make things

far more accessible to 99.99 of computer

users on the planet

there is no doubt at all that vanilla OS

is a really Innovative distro it offers

something new it's a fantastic piece of

development with a really beginner

friendly setup and so it would be a

great shame if the decision to stick

with this vanilla gnome desktop prevents

people from migrating to this otherwise

excellent highly secure operating system

talking of excellence in addition to

being speedy and stable vanilla OS has

got great documentation let's just uh

show you that let's go to the web using

a web browser here it's actually called

Web here we are on the vanilla OS site

let's go to the handbook that's the

documentation bring that up like that

and as I said this is this is really

great documentation so for example if

you want to install it in a virtual

machine there's a great guide here and

they've gone to a lot of trouble there's

lots and lots of screenshots everything

is really really clearly laid out this

is very beginner friendly we've got much

better documentation here with this new

distro than we find for many older

distros

the other thing I want to show you is if

we go back to our little Dash so I want

to show the control center let's go

across to vanilla OS control center like

that and here in updates I like the fact

we can schedule our updates weekly or

monthly I like that and we can turn on

or off automatic updates very quickly

and we also have what are called smart

updates so the system if we turn that on

will not update if it's very busy or if

you're on a laptop and the batteries are

low

the other thing we can see here is

subsystem I find this fascinating this

shows us the containers in which

applications may be installed and as you

can see we've got a subsystem here for

the standard apx managed applications

apx are now understand should be

pronounced Apex in the context of

vanilla OS and in addition to this

subsystem we could add if we want other

subsystems for Fedora for open Souza for

archery looks Etc this really is a very

innovative distro

and just to show you how things work I

also want to take you to disks let's

just go across here and go to utilities

and disks like that and if we pick the

SSD on which our system is installed we

can see we've got our two root

partitions A and B we can see

immutability in action on this system

and with this before our eyes I think

it's now time to try and install some

applications

Installing Apps

inevitably installing software in an

immutable distro like this has the

potential to be more challenging than in

a regular operating system

so I therefore thought we should set

ourselves a target of adding these

popular applications

so how are we going to install them

well the easiest ways to use the

graphical genome software stall so let's

fire it up like that and do a search for

our first application which is

Firefox like that there it is that was

nice and easy and we'll just click on

install and cross our fingers

and there we are it's finished and does

it work straight away or something else

is happening let me see it go on there

we are and uh

live demos are always fun aren't they is

it going to open yes that's working

absolutely fine so let's try now to the

other applications I wanted to add in

should be fairly straightforward we'll

start with

there we are

and install

lovely jubbly and we'll now go back and

do a inkscape Escape Escape like that

which is a fantastic vector graphics

package a great Adobe Illustrator

Alternatives will install that as well

very good and we'll now go back and do

the audacity audio editor

fantastic and next here we'll install

the Caden live video editor

once again we seem to have success so

we'll now just add in solitaire

there we go and finally we'll do a

search for lender

although before we launch this let's

just check everything else has worked

let's just look in our applications

because things been added in are they

all sitting there have we got things

that will run can we run up for example

it seems we can let's just try some of

the others I'm being very impressed with

this so far I thought it'd be difficult

to get things working in this immutable

distro but it seems that's not the case

let's just take those as the defaults

here and inkscape that's absolutely fine

yes inkscape is clearly working as well

this is a very good what else do we

install I forgotten already well also on

my list oh Audacity Of course because

audacity going to work

but a first one plug-in stuff and I'm

sure it'll come up looks like it's going

to work it is that's that's fine as well

and finally here I think we had

something else which was oh it was Caden

live wasn't it the video editor actually

that'll be an interesting one to a check

because Caden live normally installs a

few things on first boot but no no all

there this is this is very impressive so

the only thing I've got left to install

is blender so let's press the final

install button let blender install on

our system I hope you've been keeping up

with my recent blender tutorials

and there we are that's finished as well

hopefully blender is now down in our

little set of applications is it going

to be down here somewhere there it is

can we now or not blender

it looks like we can oh it's the latest

version just come out isn't it very very

exciting so we'll just have to run

through that there we are that's fine

and we can do a normal blendery stuff

messing around with a cube that's very

exciting

but you may be thinking you forgot

Solitaire Chris of course I didn't

forget Salter would I forget salta that

could not possibly be the case it's over

here somewhere isn't it where's

Solitaire gone I've lost it I've gone

past it in my excitement you must be

here somewhere there it is and as it

comes up and I resize things for Optimum

play I would just point out we've just

managed to install a load of

applications very easily in this

immutable distro and we haven't even

gone near the terminal although if you

want to install applications in the

terminal you can use the command line

Apex package manager where you would

install things like for example blender

by typing the command apx install

blender no need for a sudo because Apex

Works in user mode

anyway I'm not going to test to see if

solto is working properly that might

take me some time and so we'll now speed

on through to the end of the video

A Daily Driver?

vanilla OS is a bold attempt to create a

new immutable distro

personally I'm not going to be

installing it as my own daily driver

just yet but I am very interested in the

concept of an immutable operating system

and so I'm going to keep a close eye on

the development of vanilla OS

but what about you are you attracted to

the idea of an immutable operating

system do let us all know down in the

comment section

but now that's it for another video if

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very soon

foreign