They call me Bruce.
An operating system for you. All your favourite apps, gaming that works, built-in agents, and a terminal for nerds — built on Fedora 43, the CachyOS BORE kernel, and a quiet confidence that things should just work out of the box.
BruceOS is an operating system for people who want a computer that works — with local AI that runs on your hardware, a terminal stack that doesn't need a config weekend, and gaming that actually runs. It ships as a live ISO you can boot from USB or install to disk.
Built by Danger Studio in Wellington, NZ. Documentation at bruceos.com.
AI Built In — Ollama running locally with a GTK4 chat interface. No subscription, no cloud, no data leaving your machine.
Terminal Stack — Ghostty + Fish + Starship + Zellij + Atuin. GPU-accelerated, zero-config, with shell history sync and a dropdown terminal on Ctrl+`.
Gaming — Steam, Proton-GE, MangoHud, GameMode, and Gamescope pre-configured. CachyOS BORE kernel tuned for low-latency gaming.
Creative Tools — Blender, GIMP, Krita, DaVinci Resolve, OBS, Kdenlive, Inkscape, Ardour. VFX Reference Platform support via Distrobox.
GNOME Desktop — WhiteSur dark theme, Dash to Dock, Noto Sans + JetBrains Mono. macOS-adjacent layout that looks good without tweaking.
GPU Auto-Detection — NVIDIA proprietary, AMD amdgpu, or Intel i915 drivers installed automatically at build time.
Offline Install — The full desktop works without an internet connection. Network-dependent features degrade gracefully.
Performance Tuned — ZRAM swap, vm.max_map_count=1048576, low swappiness, CachyOS BORE scheduler for desktop responsiveness.
| Profile | For | What's Different |
|---|---|---|
| Default | Most people | GNOME desktop, AI, terminal stack, sane defaults |
| Gaming | Gamers, streamers | Steam, Proton-GE, MangoHud, GameMode, OBS |
| VFX | 3D artists, compositors | Blender, DaVinci, Distrobox + Rocky for VFX Reference Platform |
| Kids | Schools, Raspberry Pi | Simplified desktop, guardrails, runs on ARM64 |
Status: Pre-release. Functional but not yet recommended for daily use.
Download BruceOS-1.0-x86_64.iso (~2 GB)
Boot from USB or test in a VM (UEFI, 4 GB+ RAM). See all releases.
Requires podman and sudo.
git clone https://github.com/Bruce-OS/BruceOS.git
cd BruceOSksvalidator kickstart/bruceos-base.kssudo podman run --rm --privileged --pid=host \
--security-opt label=disable \
-v /dev:/dev \
-v $(pwd):/build \
fedora:43 bash -c "bash /build/iso/build.sh bruceos-base.ks"Output: output/BruceOS-1.0-x86_64.iso (~2 GB)
Boot the ISO in GNOME Boxes, QEMU, or virt-manager:
| Setting | Value |
|---|---|
| OS | Fedora 43 |
| Firmware | UEFI |
| Memory | 4 GB+ |
| Storage | 30 GB |
kickstart/
bruceos-base.ks Fedora 43 kickstart — packages, repos, %post config
config/
ghostty/config Catppuccin Mocha, JetBrains Mono 13pt, Fish default
fish/bruce.fish Starship + Atuin + zoxide init, eza/bat aliases
starship/starship.toml Minimal prompt — directory, git, status
zellij/config.kdl Catppuccin theme, Alt+hjkl nav
iso/
build.sh livemedia-creator wrapper — runs in Podman
Containerfile Fedora 43 build container
theme/
bruceos-logo.svg Logo — green gradient rounded square, white B
plymouth/ Boot splash theme (dark bg, green spinner)
site/
index.html Static landing page (pre-VitePress)
docs/
.vitepress/ VitePress config + theme
guide/ Getting started, installation, building, first boot
reference/ Kickstart, packages, terminal, AI
The ISO is built from a single kickstart file via livemedia-creator --no-virt:
- %packages — Base GNOME desktop, fonts, terminal tools (Fedora repos only)
- %post — CachyOS kernel (COPR), terminal tools (COPR), RPM Fusion codecs, GPU detection, Fish/Starship/Ghostty config, ZRAM, sysctl, GDM auto-login, Plymouth
- %post --nochroot — WhiteSur theme install (network-dependent, skips gracefully offline), dconf defaults
| Layer | Technology |
|---|---|
| Base | Fedora 43, RPM, dnf5, systemd |
| Kernel | CachyOS BORE (COPR, with fallback to stock Fedora) |
| Desktop | GNOME 47+, WhiteSur Dark, Dash to Dock |
| Terminal | Ghostty 1.3 (GPU-accelerated, GTK4) |
| Shell | Fish 4.4 (zero-config autocomplete) |
| Prompt | Starship (Rust, TOML config) |
| Multiplexer | Zellij (WASM plugins) |
| History | Atuin (encrypted, SQLite) |
| AI | Ollama + GTK4 chat app (Newelle fork) |
| Installer | Anaconda (Calamares planned) |
| Gaming | Steam, Proton-GE, MangoHud, GameMode |
| VFX Compat | Distrobox + Rocky Linux |
| ISO Build | lorax/livemedia-creator in Podman |
| Docs | VitePress, deployed to Cloudflare Pages |
Dark mode. The brand palette is used across the landing page, docs, Plymouth theme, and Calamares installer.
| Token | Value | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| Background | #0a0a0a |
Main background |
| Surface | #141414 |
Cards, panels |
| Border | #2a2a2a |
Dividers |
| Text | #f5f5f5 |
Primary text |
| Muted | #a1a1a1 |
Secondary text |
| Accent | #10b981 |
Primary accent (emerald green) |
| Accent Dark | #059669 |
Hover, active states |
| Font Display | Red Hat Display | Headings (700–900) |
| Font Body | Red Hat Text | Body copy (400–700) |
| Font Mono | JetBrains Mono | Terminal, code |
| Icons | Lucide | All iconography |
Contributions welcome. Please:
- Validate kickstart before committing:
ksvalidator kickstart/bruceos-base.ks - Test ISO changes in a VM before opening a PR
- Fedora packages go in
%packages, COPR packages in%post - Shell scripts in Bash, not Zsh or Fish (CI compatibility)
- All BruceOS packages prefixed
bruce-
| Command | Purpose |
|---|---|
/build |
Build ISO locally via Podman |
/docs |
Regenerate reference docs from source |
npm run docs:dev |
Local docs dev server (hot reload) |
npm run docs:build |
Production docs build |
- Fedora 43 base kickstart (validated, builds)
- GNOME + WhiteSur dark theme
- Terminal stack (Ghostty, Fish, Starship, Zellij, Atuin)
- GitHub Actions CI (lint, shellcheck, ISO build)
- Landing page + VitePress docs on Cloudflare Pages
- Calamares installer with profile selector
-
bruce-setupfirst-boot TUI configurator - BruceAI GTK4 chat app + Ollama integration
-
bruce-wine-adobepackage (Photoshop 2021 via Wine) - Gaming profile (Steam, Proton-GE, MangoHud)
- VFX profile (Blender, DaVinci, Distrobox + Rocky)
- Raspberry Pi ARM64 build
- Windows Bridge — VFIO + Looking Glass (v2.0)
They call me Bruce.
Built by Danger Studio for BruceOS Inc.