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Vanilla os

Introduction

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base this time we're going to check out
vanilla OS
thinking this is apotentially 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 partsone of the best options in the future if they stick with it. also theres only two updates per year and a roling release but you have to manually enable rolling releases

tl;dr

its stable asf, and you can run any app on it!

 A Unique Solution to Distro Hopping

Vanilla OS is a Linux distribution designed to eliminate the need for distro hopping, a common practice among Linux users who switch between different Linux distributions to find the ideal balance of stability, hardware support, and application access. Vanilla OS offers these features within a single, highly stable base.

Immutability and Atomicity: Enhancing Security and Stability

One of the distinguishing features of Vanilla OS is its immutable and atomic nature. The base system is locked down, preventing both applications and users from writing to it, except for certain directories like the home folder or partition and the /etc and /var directories. This design principle significantly bolsters the system's security.

Updates in Vanilla OS are lockedapplied down

atomically,
meaning either they'recompletes readsuccessfully or, if any issue arises, the entire operation is reverted, leaving the system unaltered. This ensures that any reboot will either return the system to its previous state or update it successfully.

Innovative Software Installation with 'apx'

Vanilla OS introduces 'apx', a package manager that allows software installation from any source, including all distro containers. This innovative approach enables Vanilla OS to run virtually any software developed for Linux, addressing the issue of distro packaging fragmentation.

Intuitive User Experience

Vanilla OS prioritizes user-friendliness in its design. The intuitive installer guides users through the necessary steps, and post-installation, users can customize their experience, choosing between dark and light mode, enabling support for Flatpak and AppImage, and selecting their preferred apps. This user-centric approach makes Vanilla OS accessible to both beginners and technically inclined users.

Is Vanilla OS the Future of Linux Distributions?

Vanilla OS represents a promising concept that could potentially shape the future of Linux distributions. It provides access to virtually all Linux-developed software at native speeds within a highly stable base. However, it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. Users who only toneed increasesoftware security

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vanilla OS let's delve a bit more deeply
intoor the concept of ancontainers immutable
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this
one with andai, user errormodified 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
still recommended
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
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
uh
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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I hope to talk to you again
very soon
foreign
me...

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