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Atomic About
JumpyVi edited this page Oct 25, 2026
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Work-in-progress guide for contributors and technical users. Not made for end users
Atomic distributions abstracts away the Ubuntu core and classical package management for modern and sandboxed packages. Packages and no longer simply shoved into your root system, they are independent from your host system.
elementary Atomic focuses on AppCenter and Flathub to provide an easy click-and-install experience.
Don't let this affect your tinkering!
- Other package management methods are also available
- / is fully writable (except /usr)
- /usr/local is writable
- Sysext exists to modify your /usr at runtime
- Podman is installed ootb, and virtualization can be set up
- Most things can still be tweaked from your home or /etc
elementaryOS atomic uses a bunch of new technologies you might never have heard from before.
Open Lexicon
| Program | Use | Docs |
|---|---|---|
| mkosi | Builds the OS image itself, the parition layout and signing keys | https://github.com/systemd/mkosi/blob/main/mkosi/resources/man/mkosi.1.md |
| repart | Used to install OS images to disk at runtime or inspect them | https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd-repart.html |
| sysupdate | Updates your system | https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd-sysupdate.html |
| updatectl | User-friendly CLI to sysupdate, also let's you enable features | https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/repart.d.html |
| sysexts | Overlay over /usr, letting you modify /usr at runtime, without actually changing it | https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/systemd-sysext.html |
| erofs | True read-only filessysext with verity, used for /usr | https://docs.kernel.org/filesystems/erofs.html |
| tmpfiles/factory | Tmpfiles let's you copy/link configs at runtime so they stay in sync with the expected image | https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/tmpfiles.d.html# |
https://secureblue.dev/faq#immutable
https://0pointer.net/blog/fitting-everything-together.html
- GnomeOS; Has a similar update mechanism, but build with buildstream, without mkosi
- KDELinux; Built from ArchLinux with mkosi
- Nuraeco's Duranium; Build from nura repos with mkosi
- Zirconium; Really similar to elementaryOS, but with Fedora/Niri
See the wiki sidebar (below on mobile) for other sections, sub-pages, etc.