2.0.2

AnduinOS 2.0.2 Release Notes

AnduinOS 2.0.2 is a broad system update focused on installation, Btrfs recovery, hardware management, first-boot setup, desktop consistency, and long-term maintainability.

Some storage-layout and live-image changes apply only to new installations. Existing AnduinOS 2 systems continue to receive compatible application, desktop, security, and packaging updates through APT.

New Features

• Native AnduinOS Installer: Made anduinos-installer-beta the default AnduinOS installation path and retired the Ubiquity-based installer stack. It separates the unprivileged interface from a restricted privileged executor and provides guided disk setup, coexistence installation, separate target- and boot-disk selection, a clear review and preflight step, automatic mirror selection, a fully offline path, asynchronous Wi-Fi handling and profile migration, isolated keyboard previews, multiple declarative input methods, validated account and machine identity, UTC and localized timezone handling, GRUB 2.14 EFI support, low-battery protection, streamed diagnostics, safe retry and mount cleanup, optional multimedia codecs, and optional third-party drivers.
• Btrfs Installation Layout: New installations use Btrfs by default with separate subvolumes for the operating system, home directories, logs, recovery data, containers, and virtual machine images. Unencrypted Ext4 remains available as a classic alternative, and Swap is sized dynamically while preserving at least 20 GiB for the system.
• Disk Snapshots Manager: Added anduinos-btrfs-snapshots-manager, a native graphical product for immutable Btrfs system snapshots and independent Personal Files history. It supports manual and scheduled snapshots, enforced retention policies, protected snapshots, storage visualization, export, rollback reconciliation, cross-disk recovery and discovery, interrupted-operation recovery, Btrfs maintenance, a read-only S.M.A.R.T. disk-health view, and Nautilus File History actions for earlier or deleted files. Its authorization distinguishes personal-file operations from system recovery and its interface reports storage use, cleanup results, pending size, and operation priority.
• Driver Center: Added anduinos-driver-center, a central graphical product for inspecting, installing, and repairing graphics, audio, printing, Xbox controller, DKMS, and Secure Boot support. It can apply fixed, hardware-aware recovery actions and manage supported device firmware through fwupd without exposing unrestricted root access to the interface.
• Secure Boot Toolkit: Added shared tools for enrolling security certificates, checking module signatures, and recovering Secure Boot. When DKMS is already installed, these tools can also sign DKMS modules. The toolkit does not install DKMS or a compiler toolchain on systems that do not otherwise need them.
• YubiKey Security Center: Added anduinos-yubikey-manager, a graphical product for YubiKey-backed GDM login, sudo authentication, passwordless-sudo safeguards, resident SSH credentials, persistent SSH configuration, Passkey guidance and Yubico Authenticator integration, and Git SSH commit signing.
• Bash Command Suggestions: Added anduinos-bash-guess-command, a fast, fully offline ghost-text suggestion product for Bash. It learns from local command history, understands common developer tools, uses offline APT metadata and command popularity to improve ranking, and accepts suggestions with Right Arrow or End without changing native Enter or Tab behavior. It handles history edge cases and terminal resizing without duplicate prompts or colored diagnostic noise, and explicitly tracks its native and Rust entry points so upgrades cannot leave mismatched components behind.
• Improved First-Boot Networking: Expanded anduinos-oobe with connectivity-aware Wi-Fi and Ethernet setup, hardened Flathub mirror switching, and Nextcloud guidance. OOBE and anduinos-ufwall-gtk also gain graphical mDNS controls.
• Desktop Icons Control: Added a Desktop Icons switch to anduinos-appearance.
• Automatic Theme Synchronization: Added anduinos-theme-sync, a lightweight service that propagates GNOME light and dark preferences to Flatpak GTK3 applications.
• Graphical Firmware Updates: On Resolute, anduinos-appstore now recommends gnome-software-plugin-fwupd, allowing supported device firmware managed by fwupd to appear in GNOME Software.
• AnduinOS Applications in the Store: Added validated AppStream metadata for anduinos-appearance, anduinos-btrfs-snapshots-manager, anduinos-driver-center, anduinos-exe-runner, anduinos-installer-beta, anduinos-oobe, anduinos-swapcontrol-gtk, anduinos-ufwall-gtk, and anduinos-yubikey-manager so these applications can be discovered and managed through GNOME Software.
• Expanded Swap Control: Expanded anduinos-swapcontrol-gtk with partition-backed Swap support, installer-managed Swap detection, improved hibernation-readiness checks, transactional Swap-file changes, and a responsive narrow-window layout.
• Optional Multimedia Bundle: Added anduinos-multimedia-codecs as one optional package for the GStreamer bad/ugly/libav plugins and additional FFmpeg codecs.
• Apkg Distribution: Added the apkg package to the AnduinOS package set so the declarative package toolchain can be installed and updated through APT while using the system-provided .NET 10 and ASP.NET Core runtimes.
• Rime Candidate Filtering: Added Lua-based candidate filtering to anduinos-rime.

Behavior Changes

• VMware Guest Integration: AMD64 Live images now include open-vm-tools-desktop, enabling dynamic display resizing and improving clipboard and drag-and-drop integration in VMware. The native installer retains the VMware guest packages on VMware targets and purges them, together with orphaned dependencies, from other targets; anduinos-desktop-core suggests the integration without installing it universally on physical systems.
• Installer Identity and Access Policy: The native installer requires a non-empty account password and validates the username, password, and machine name before it creates the immutable installation plan. Machine names follow traditional ASCII hostname-label rules; mixed-case input such as TT-VIEW-71 is accepted and stored in canonical lowercase form as tt-view-71. Passwordless sudo, automatic desktop login, and SSH password login are independent Advanced Options and are all disabled by default.
• Declarative Target Composition: Persistent metapackages own capabilities required by the installed system, while the Live image declares temporary and new-install-only payloads. The installer can therefore remove Live-only packages and purge orphaned dependencies without reconstructing the desktop package set procedurally, while retaining explicit target-specific capabilities such as VMware integration when applicable.
• Architecture-Aware Boot Composition: anduinos-core-system owns the architecture-matched GRUB modules needed after installation. AMD64 systems retain both the i386-pc modules for legacy BIOS and the x86_64-efi modules for UEFI, while ARM64 systems use the ARM64 UEFI stack. The new anduinos-grub-style package owns the installed system's GRUB presentation defaults. The ISO builder declares its signed GRUB and shim build dependencies explicitly, and the installer verifies required packages after target cleanup and checks the selected GRUB platform modules before installing the bootloader.
• Resolute Kernel Policy: Desktop installations use the Ubuntu 26.04 HWE kernel line and install anduinos-kernel-parameters to enable preempt=full on the generic kernel. The package conflicts with low-latency kernels and marks the system for reboot when necessary.
• OOBE Packaging: anduinos-desktop-apps now recommends anduinos-oobe instead of declaring it as a hard dependency, reducing the chance that an optional first-boot component blocks a base desktop upgrade.
• OOBE Navigation: Launching Driver Center keeps OOBE on the Driver page, Xbox setup is intentionally simpler, and taskbar selection shares its implementation with AnduinOS Appearance.
• A Tidier App List: For new user accounts, system tools such as Driver Center, Disks, Logs, Firewall, Swap Control, and Disk Snapshots Manager are collected in the System folder. Helper entries used only for opening files or links no longer appear as separate apps. This removes confusing or duplicate icons without removing EXE Runner, Firefox integration, or driver-management features.
• A More Useful Start Menu: The Start menu now opens with pinned and frequently used apps and can show up to 16 frequent apps. Its height adjusts to the smallest connected display, including displays using Wayland scaling, so the menu is less likely to extend beyond the screen.
• Improved Light Lock Screen: The light lock screen now has clearer text, password fields, user pictures, and notifications while remaining compatible with Blur My Shell.
• Clearer Software Sources: Ubuntu and AnduinOS repositories are identified as official sources in the software store, making them easier to distinguish from third-party repositories.
• Language-Specific Input Methods: Rime is no longer installed on every system. The installer selects it for the languages that need it, while upgrades preserve Rime and its user settings when it is already installed.
• Optional Multimedia Codecs: Additional GStreamer and FFmpeg codecs are now grouped into the optional anduinos-multimedia-codecs package. New users can select them in the installer. An upgrade does not deliberately remove codecs that are already installed, although APT may list automatically installed, unused codecs as removable later.
• Driver Management: Driver Center replaces the older Software & Updates driver ...

2.0.1

• Offline LLM Integration: Added anduinos-why-ai, a new optional package (not pre-installed). It works as a UNIX-style CLI tool to answer questions completely offline — no internet connection required. It uses a local LLM based on Gemma 4 E2B Q4_K_M. A lightweight anduinos-why-placeholder is provided for seamless system integration without pre-bundling the heavy model. Learn more.
• Graphical Memory Management: Added a new pre-installed app, anduinos-swapcontrol-gtk, giving users full GUI control over Swap, Zswap, and Zram configurations. For optimal performance out-of-the-box, Zram is now enabled by default (50% of RAM via LZ4) and default swappiness is optimized to 100. Learn more.
• Out-Of-Box Experience (OOBE): Added the new anduinos-oobe first-boot wizard. This graphical tool helps users comfortably set up basic features and securely enroll Secure Boot certificates.
• Network Traffic Auditing: Added an Audit page to anduinos-ufwall-gtk for intuitive, real-time network traffic inspection. Improved the firewall GUI localization and refreshed its icon.
• Windows App Integration: Introduced AnduinOS Exe Launcher and .exe file associations. This lightweight wrapper seamlessly runs Windows executables via Bottles (Wine + Proton) without bundling them into the system, keeping the OS clean.
• Xbox Controller Support: Added the anduinos-xbox-controller-driver package. This kernel-space driver is strictly opt-in (not pre-installed), and the new OOBE wizard provides a graphical guide to help users install it and sign it for Secure Boot if they choose to use an Xbox controller.
• Desktop & Appearance Polishing: Added a new Separated taskbar layout and a Show Activities button toggle in AnduinOS Appearance Settings, giving users more control over their desktop layout.
• Core Cleanups & Fixes: Cleaned up leftover Ubuntu promotional messages from /etc/update-motd.d/ (the login MOTD now shows pure AnduinOS information). Hidden the redundant "Show All Apps" button in ArcMenu's Classic mode, and fixed Amberol Japanese localization issues.
• New Architecture: ARM64 AnduinOS 2.0.1 now officially provides an ARM64 build, available for download on our official website. A UEFI-compliant boot environment is strictly required.

2.0.0

v2.0.0 - The Declarative Revolution

AnduinOS v2.0.0 marks a fundamental, ground-up rewrite of our entire operating system. Listening to community feedback regarding maintainability and package management, we have completely reimagined how AnduinOS is built, distributed, and maintained.

Welcome to the era of Distro Engineering. Our source code and packaging pipelines are fully open: AnduinOS-2 (OS Builder), AnduinOS-Packages (Package Sources), and Apkg (Declarative build tool).

AnduinOS 2 is shipped with GPL-v3 license. Apkg project is shipped with MIT license.

The Declarative Architecture

• Deprecation of Imperative Scripts: We have entirely eliminated legacy Bash scripts for system configuration. The OS is now assembled within a clean, sandboxed debootstrap + chroot pipeline. While not strictly bit-for-bit reproducible, this declarative approach guarantees a highly predictable and consistent build output, completely preventing imperative edge-case failures.
• Introducing aosproj & apkg: We engineered a custom, XML-based declarative Domain Specific Language (aosproj) to define system states. Powered by an automated compilation toolchain and static syntax linter, it outputs standard native .deb packages.
• The AnduinOS-Packages Repository: The system core is now modularized into 56 standalone packages across three tiers: Hard Replacements (e.g., overriding ubuntu-desktop), Soft Overrides (e.g., apt-config), and Branding/Capability extensions.
• 100% Native APT Compatibility: Custom updaters (do_anduinos_upgrade, do-anduinos-autorepair) are officially retired. AnduinOS now relies purely on sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade, preserving seamless compatibility with standard Ubuntu repositories and the broader software ecosystem.
• Dracut Ready: We rigorously validated our packages under the dracut initramfs framework (supporting both initrd and initrd.gz conventions). Users can now safely replace initramfs-tools if they prefer.
• Optimized Package Delivery: Refactored Fluent themes into pure file-extraction packages for better performance, split anduinos-core-system into anduinos-container and anduinos-core-system for container readiness, and merged extension dconf updates into single postinst scripts for atomic, stable upgrades.

Global Infrastructure & Project Stewardship

• Backed by AIURSOFT LIMITED: The project is now officially maintained by AIURSOFT LIMITED (Hong Kong) to transition from a solo-maintained project to an internationally backed ecosystem. All AnduinOS 2 projects and shell extensions are proudly licensed under GPL-v3.
• Global CDN Package Network: All APT repositories have migrated to packages.anduinos.com. Powered by Cloudflare load balancing, our US, Europe, and Asia nodes deliver low-latency updates worldwide. We also enforced [arch=amd64] explicitly to prevent multi-arch dependency pollution.

Base System & Performance Tuning

• Next-Gen Foundations: Transitioned the system base from Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing) to the cutting-edge Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute), shipped with Linux Kernel 7 for extensive out-of-the-box hardware and modern graphics support.
• Desktop-Optimized Kernel Parameters: We overhauled upstream defaults to deliver a highly responsive desktop experience with lower latency:
  • Memory: Adjusted vm.swappiness=10 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50 for better responsiveness.
  • Disk I/O: Set vm.dirty_background_ratio=5 and vm.dirty_ratio=10 to eliminate UI freezes during heavy writes.
  • Network: Enabled BBR congestion control and tcp_fastopen=3 for maximized throughput.
  • Workloads: Raised fs.inotify limits to 524288 for developer-heavy file-watching tasks.
• Intel SOF Audio Fix: Shipped firmware-sof-anduinos to deliver the always-latest Intel SOF audio firmware without breaking Secure Boot.

The "Single ISO" Multilingual Experience

• Runtime Language Selection: We shifted our localization strategy from "build-time forking" to "runtime selection." All 28 officially supported languages now ship in a single ISO.
• Multilingual GRUB Boot Menu: Users can now select their native language directly from the GRUB boot menu before entering the live session. We embedded unicode.pf2 to ensure proper rendering of CJK, Arabic, and Thai scripts right at the bootloader stage.
• Smart Installer & Keyboards: Ubiquity now explicitly filters and displays only our 28 curated languages. Keyboard layouts dynamically adapt to the user's chosen language, dropping the hardcoded US default.
• Zero-Pollution Chinese Input: Using the dpkg-divert mechanism, anduinos-rime is installed as the exclusive Chinese input method for zh_* users. This prevents pulling 20+ unrelated legacy input method packages from upstream, keeping the system incredibly clean.
• Expanded Locales: Added Danish, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Finnish, Hindi, and Greek, bringing the total supported locales to 28 across the globe.

Streamlined Footprint (~2.5GB ISO)

• Build Quality Enforcement: The CI pipeline now hard-fails if unwanted Ubuntu junk packages (like snapd or telemetry) are detected during the build, guaranteeing a pristine ISO output.
• Modern Lightweight Default Apps: To reduce ISO bloat while maintaining a modern GNOME experience, we swapped legacy apps for their modern lightweight counterparts:
  • Image Viewer: Loupe (replaced shotwell)
  • Video Player: Celluloid (replaced showtime, shipping with ffmpeg and yt-dlp for broad format and streaming support)
  • Task Manager: Resources (replaced gnome-system-monitor)
  • Email Client: Geary
  • Calculator: gnome-calculator (replaced qalculate)
  • Music Player: Amberol (replaced gnome-music, rhythmbox, and rhythmbox-plugins)
  • Text Editor: vim-tiny (replaced full vim)
• Developer Tools Unbundled: build-essential, gdb, gcc, and git are no longer pre-installed to save space. They remain easily installable via APT.
• First-Party Firewall GUI: Introduced anduinos-ufwall-gtk, a brand-new native GTK4 GUI for UFW to easily manage your firewall rules.
• Refined Extensions:
  • Replaced the legacy tray icons extension with AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support for robust GNOME 45+ compatibility.
  • Disabled simple-weather-extension by default out of respect for privacy (easily toggleable in the Extensions app).
  • Removed the legacy media-controls extension to resolve system freezes during browser video playback.
• Next-Gen Font Stack: Completely replaced Ubuntu's default fonts with an elegant typographic stack: Cascadia Code, Noto Sans/Serif, and Nerd Fonts Symbols. Emoji rendering is now powered by Twemoji COLRv1 (with Noto Color Emoji as a fallback).

Out-of-the-Box Conveniences:

• AppImage Ready: Pre-configured with libfuse2t64 and OpenGL libraries to run AppImages instantly.
• Seamless Permissions: Integrated policykit-desktop-privileges to allow passwordless prompts for standard desktop actions like mounting drives and running simple updates.
• Desktop Shortcuts: Custom deskmon.service automatically allows executing .desktop files in the ~/Desktop directory.
• Office & Hardware Ready: Pre-installed printing (cups, system-config-printer) and scanning (sane-airscan) utilities.

Refined Desktop Experience & Customization

• AnduinOS Appearance: First-party GTK4/Adwaita settings app with full 28-language i18n. Supports taskbar style switching (Windows 11 centered icons vs. Classic left-aligned), taskbar position (bottom/top/left/right), grouping behavior (Vista-style launcher separation), and an About dialog with hamburger menu.
• GDM Wallpaper & Fluent Theming: Built-in login-screen wallpaper selector with image preview, backed by pkexec + anduinos-gdm-set-wallpaper engine. The GDM login screen now surgically injects the complete Fluent CSS + SVG assets — including perfectly rounded a11y buttons — to match your desktop seamlessly, auto-regenerating on every package upgrade. We are proud to officially sponsor @vinceliuice for the stunning Fluent GTK and Icon themes that power our desktop interface.
• Taskbar & Multitasking: Dash-to-Panel now renders 1px Fluent-style panel borders. The taskbar isolates monitors and workspaces for multi-display setups by default, with layout changes reliably applied across all displays.
• Right-Click Menu Localization: Dash-to-Panel panel menu (4 items × 22 languages), DING desktop menu (renamed to "AnduinOS Appearance Settings" × 30 languages), and ArcMenu (Pin/Unpin × 35+ languages) — all localized via .mo injection.
• Wallpaper Pack: 4 new wallpaper pairs (New Mountain, New Bubbles, 11, AnduinOS); default changed to New Bubbles.
• System Cleanup: Removed GTK4 Desktop Icons NG and no-overview extensions for a leaner desktop experience.

Under-the-Hood Polishes

• Fixed a blur-my-shell bug to ensure the taskbar is blurred correctly.
• Updated Ubiquity installer screenshots to reflect the new 2.0 design language.
• Bumped Fluent-icon-theme to include the latest icons for modern apps like Resources and Celluloid.
• Bumped alsa-ucm-conf to v1.2.16.1 for broader audio hardware compatibility.
• Fixed DING ding.js crash (spawnv + chmod +x).
• Fixed Fluent icon theme tarball bloat (--exclude='.git').
• Fixed 6 CI ↔ aosproj dependency inconsistencies.
• Added missing dconf update calls across 12 extension postinst scripts.

Stand...

2.0.0 RC2

• Added a new app anduinos-ufwall-gtk to provide a GUI for ufw to manage firewall rules.
• Fixed a bug of blur-my-shell which may not blur the taskbar correctly.
• Removed gnome plugin media-controls because it may cause system freeze when playing Youtube videos in Chrome.

2.0.0 RC1

• Fixed an issue where the taskbar layout change feature may not take effect on multi-display setup.
• Fixed localization issues of the anduinos-appearance app.
• Updated screenshots of the ubiquity installer to reflect the new design.
• Replaced showtime with celluloid as the default video player. Added ffmpeg and yt-dlp since celluloid relies on them for some video formats and online streaming.
• Added new app Geary as the default email client.
• Bumped Fluent-icon-theme to 2026-06-19 to support more icons including Resources and Celluloid.
• Bumped alsa-ucm-conf to v1.2.16.1.
• Separated the anduinos-core-system package to anduinos-container and anduinos-core-system.
• Refactored the Fluent-icon-them and Fluent-gtk-theme packages as pure file extraction packages without any scripts makes the maintenance easier and better performance.
• Refactored the way to package the gnome-shell-extensions that merged all dconf update calls into a single postinst script to improve the performance and stability of upgrades.
• Taskbar will isolate monitors and workspaces for multi-display setups by default.
• Replaced gnome-music with amberol for better experience.

2.0.0 Beta3

Beta 2 → Beta 3

• AnduinOS Appearance: First-party GTK4/Adwaita settings app with full 28-language i18n. Supports taskbar style switching (Windows 11 centered icons vs. Classic left-aligned), taskbar position (bottom/top/left/right), grouping behavior (Vista-style launcher separation), and About dialog with hamburger menu.
• GDM Wallpaper Picker: Built-in login-screen wallpaper selector with image preview, backed by pkexec + anduinos-gdm-set-wallpaper engine using Gio.Subprocess.wait_async for async process tracking.
• GDM Full Fluent Theming: anduinos-gdm-set-wallpaper now surgically injects the complete Fluent CSS + SVG assets into the GDM theme, making the login screen visually consistent with the desktop. Auto-regenerates on every package upgrade. Also fixed the a11y button from a stretched pill shape to a proper Fluent circle.
• Right-Click Menu Localization: Dash-to-Panel panel menu (4 items × 22 languages), DING desktop menu (renamed to "AnduinOS Appearance Settings" × 30 languages), and ArcMenu (Pin/Unpin × 35+ languages) — all localized via .mo injection.
• Wallpaper Pack: 4 new wallpaper pairs (New Mountain, New Bubbles, 11, AnduinOS); default changed to New Bubbles.
• Dash-to-Panel Fluent Borders: Added trans-border-* keys for 1px Fluent-style panel borders.
• System Cleanup: Removed GTK4 Desktop Icons NG and no-overview extensions; fixed DING ding.js crash (spawnv + chmod +x); fixed Fluent icon theme tarball bloat (--exclude='.git'); added missing dconf update calls across 12 extension postinst scripts; fixed 6 CI ↔ aosproj dependency inconsistencies.

2.0.0 Beta2

AnduinOS v2.0.0 marks a fundamental, ground-up rewrite of our entire operating system. Listening to community feedback regarding maintainability and package management, we have completely reimagined how AnduinOS is built, distributed, and maintained.

Welcome to the era of Distro Engineering. Source code is available at AiursoftWeb/AnduinOS-2.

The Declarative Architecture

• Deprecation of Imperative Scripts: We have entirely eliminated legacy Bash scripts for system configuration. The OS is now assembled within a clean, sandboxed debootstrap + chroot pipeline, completely preventing edge-case build failures.
• Introducing aosproj & apkg: We engineered a proprietary, XML-based declarative Domain Specific Language (aosproj) to define system states. Powered by an automated compilation toolchain and static syntax linter, it outputs standard native .deb packages.
• The AnduinOS-Packages Repository: The system core is now modularized into 56 standalone packages across three tiers: Hard Replacements (e.g., overriding ubuntu-desktop), Soft Overrides (e.g., apt-config), and Branding/Capability extensions.
• 100% Native APT Compatibility: Custom updaters (do_anduinos_upgrade, do-anduinos-autorepair) are officially retired. AnduinOS now relies purely on sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade, preserving seamless compatibility with standard Ubuntu repositories and the broader software ecosystem.
• Dracut Ready: We rigorously validated our packages under the dracut initramfs framework (supporting both initrd and initrd.gz conventions). Users can now safely replace initramfs-tools if they prefer.

Global Infrastructure & Project Stewardship

• Backed by AIURSOFT LIMITED: The project is now officially maintained by AIURSOFT LIMITED (Hong Kong) to transition from a solo-maintained project to an internationally backed ecosystem. All AnduinOS 2 projects and shell extensions are proudly licensed under GPL-v3.
• Global CDN Package Network: All APT repositories have migrated to packages.anduinos.com. Powered by Cloudflare load balancing, our US, Europe, and Asia nodes deliver low-latency updates worldwide. We also enforced [arch=amd64] explicitly to prevent multi-arch dependency pollution.

Base System & Performance Tuning

• Next-Gen Foundations: Transitioned the system base from Ubuntu 25.10 (Questing) to the cutting-edge Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute), shipped with Linux Kernel 7 for extensive out-of-the-box hardware and modern graphics support.
• Desktop-Optimized Kernel Parameters: We overhauled upstream defaults to deliver a highly responsive desktop experience with lower latency:
  • Memory: Adjusted vm.swappiness=10 and vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50 for better responsiveness.
  • Disk I/O: Set vm.dirty_background_ratio=5 and vm.dirty_ratio=10 to eliminate UI freezes during heavy writes.
  • Network: Enabled BBR congestion control and tcp_fastopen=3 for maximized throughput.
  • Workloads: Raised fs.inotify limits to 524288 for developer-heavy file-watching tasks.
• Intel SOF Audio Fix: Shipped firmware-sof-anduinos to deliver the always-latest Intel SOF audio firmware without breaking Secure Boot.

The "Single ISO" Multilingual Experience

• Runtime Language Selection: We shifted our localization strategy from "build-time forking" to "runtime selection." All 28 officially supported languages now ship in a single ISO.
• Multilingual GRUB Boot Menu: Users can now select their native language directly from the GRUB boot menu before entering the live session. We embedded unicode.pf2 to ensure proper rendering of CJK, Arabic, and Thai scripts right at the bootloader stage.
• Smart Installer & Keyboards: Ubiquity now explicitly filters and displays only our 28 curated languages. Keyboard layouts dynamically adapt to the user's chosen language, dropping the hardcoded US default.
• Zero-Pollution Chinese Input: Using dpkg-divert hijacking, anduinos-rime is installed as the exclusive Chinese input method for zh_* users. This prevents pulling 20+ unrelated legacy input method packages from upstream, keeping the system incredibly clean.
• Expanded Locales: Added Danish, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Finnish, Hindi, and Greek, bringing the total supported locales to 28 across the globe.

Streamlined Footprint (~2.5GB ISO)

• Build Quality Enforcement: The CI pipeline now hard-fails if unwanted Ubuntu junk packages (like snapd or telemetry) are detected during the build, guaranteeing a pristine ISO output.
• Modern Lightweight Default Apps: To reduce ISO bloat while maintaining a modern GNOME experience, we swapped legacy apps for their modern lightweight counterparts:
  • Image Viewer: Loupe (replaced shotwell)
  • Video Player: Celluloid (replaced showtime)
  • Task Manager: Resources (replaced gnome-system-monitor)
  • Email Client: Geary
  • Calculator: gnome-calculator (replaced qalculate)
  • Music Player: Amberol (replaced rhythmbox and rhythmbox-plugins)
  • Text Editor: vim-tiny (replaced full vim)
• Developer Tools Unbundled: build-essential, gdb, gcc, and git are no longer pre-installed to save space. They remain easily installable via APT.
• Refined Extensions:
  • Replaced the legacy tray icons extension with AppIndicator and KStatusNotifierItem Support for robust GNOME 45+ compatibility.
  • Disabled simple-weather-extension by default out of respect for privacy (easily toggleable in the Extensions app).
• Next-Gen Font Stack: Completely replaced Ubuntu's default fonts with an elegant typographic stack: Cascadia Code, Noto Sans/Serif, and Nerd Fonts Symbols. Emoji rendering is now powered by Twemoji COLRv1 (with Noto Color Emoji as a fallback).