NoCapOS 0.5.0

Every person gets their own space: private homes, shared folders with permissions, and apps per person. Plus a new look for icons and the menu bar.

People and sharing (new)

• Two kinds of users: Desktop (signs in to NoCapOS) or File sharing only (connects over the network only). Set it in Settings → Users & Groups.
• Private homes: on a Linux install each person's Home is their own Linux home folder; files they create there belong to them.
• Files and Photos for everyone: people see only their Home, the shared folders they're allowed into and their own Trash — checked by the server on every action, not just hidden.
• Shared folders with permissions (Files → Shared folders → File Sharing…): give each person Read/Write, Read only or No access. SMB uses each person's own user name and password (kept in step with their NoCapOS password); WebDAV too.
• Apps per person: App Store → app → Who can use it. People only see the apps they may use.
• Your own look: wallpaper, settings and desktop layout are kept per person.

Look and feel

• New app icons: glossy objects, drawn for every NoCapOS app. Choose Objects (default), Glass tiles or Shapes in Settings → Personalization.
• Transparency slider (default 50%), from Solid to full glass.
• Menu bar sits straight on the wallpaper, with your profile photo on the left.
• Account menu behind your photo (menu bar or taskbar): About, Settings, App Store, Close All Apps, Restart, Shut Down, Lock Screen, Log Out. The Control Center keeps only its controls.
• Cleaner Settings: two-factor only under Privacy & Security, Restart / Shut down only at the top of General.
• Search fields no longer draw a box inside the box.

Install or update

curl -fsSL https://github.com/shatheitguy/nocapos/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sudo bash

Running it again updates in place, keeps your data, and rolls back automatically if the new version doesn't start.

Please test carefully

Per-person SMB sharing and Linux home ownership haven't run on a real server yet — try them with a test account first.

NoCapOS 0.4.0

Virtual machines, a smoother and sturdier desktop, and adjustable transparency.

Virtual Desk (new)

Run Windows, Linux and Android virtual machines on your NoCapOS server (needs a Linux server with hardware virtualization; Virtual Desk offers to install what's missing).

• Every machine at a glance: state, CPUs, memory, disks and live usage.
• New VM in four steps: pick Windows 11 (UEFI + TPM), Windows 10, Linux, Android-x86 or other → choose the install ISO from Files → CPUs, memory, disk → name and network.
• Start, shut down, force off, reboot, pause, clone, rename, delete; snapshots; edit CPUs, memory, disks, ISOs and network.
• The machine's screen opens in its own NoCapOS window, with Ctrl+Alt+Del and fullscreen.
• A notification when a machine stops unexpectedly.

Smoother and more stable

• Dragging and resizing windows is smooth; other windows no longer redraw.
• If one part of the desktop fails (a widget, the dock, the menu bar…), only that part hides itself.
• A network blip or server restart no longer signs you out.
• Faster first load: apps load when you open them and the server compresses pages (main script 410 KB → 129 KB).
• Background checks pause while the tab is hidden or a window is minimized.
• Housekeeping: the activity log keeps 90 days, old photo thumbnails are cleaned up, and file search updates in place instead of rescanning every disk.
• Updates roll back automatically: if a new version doesn't start, the installer restores the previous version and its database.

Look

• Transparency slider (Settings → Personalization → Effects) from Solid to full glass. At Solid every panel — widgets, dock, menu bar, search, menus, Control Center, notifications — is solid, and glass app icons switch to Colourful automatically.

Install or update

curl -fsSL https://github.com/shatheitguy/nocapos/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sudo bash

Running it again on an existing install updates in place and keeps your settings, apps and files.

Please test carefully

Virtual Desk hasn't run against real virtual machines yet — try it with a spare VM first.

NoCapOS 0.3.1

Notifications, a cleaner Settings, and open tabs that update themselves.

Notifications (new)

• System notifications for NoCapOS updates, app updates, app errors, storage warnings and backups.
• They match your desktop: with the menu bar you get macOS-style banners at the top right and a Notification Center with stacked notifications per app (click a stack to open it, hold Option/Alt to clear all); with the taskbar you get Windows-style toasts at the bottom right and a Windows-style notification panel.
• A bell with an unread badge in the menu bar or tray. Choose which topics notify you in Settings → Notifications.

Improvements

• Open NoCapOS tabs notice when the server has been updated: with no windows open they reload by themselves, otherwise a "Reload" pill appears so nothing unsaved is lost.
• Settings → General no longer repeats the storage, memory and CPU tiles (they're in the monitor app).
• Settings → Notifications is simpler: just the topics and the sound.

Install or update

curl -fsSL https://github.com/shatheitguy/nocapos/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sudo bash

Running it again on an existing install updates in place and keeps your settings, apps and files.

NoCapOS 0.3.0

The biggest NoCapOS update yet: a new Glass look, redesigned apps, Storage with ZFS RAID, backups and much more.

New look

• Glass theme (default): frosted windows over the wallpaper, glass dock and menus, a home screen with a greeting, a search pill and your installed apps.
• 10 new wallpapers. The accent colour and the glass app icons follow the wallpaper.
• Installed apps show their own logos. Click and hold one to wiggle and uninstall it.

Apps

• Files: Home, Recents, Favorites, shared folders, network devices, external drives, Trash; quick look; compress and extract (zip/tar).
• Photos: timeline with Years / Months / Days, albums, favorites, viewer with camera info, Recently Deleted.
• App Store: featured banners, categories, full app pages, Installed and Updates tabs ("Update all").
• Settings: reorganised into Network, General, Personalization, Notifications, Sound, Lock Screen, Privacy & Security, Users & Groups. Software Update checks this page.
• Backups & Rewind (restic): encrypted, scheduled backups to a drive, SFTP or S3/B2; restore any file from any day.
• Network drives & sharing: connect SMB/NFS shares; share folders over SMB and WebDAV, right inside Files.
• Cloud Imports (rclone): bring files in from Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and more.
• Docker: edit any container (ports, folders, networks including macvlan/ipvlan, environment, limits); create networks; Compose stacks.
• Storage (new): disk health (SMART), ZFS pools (mirror, RAIDZ1/2/3), datasets, snapshots, scrubs, single-disk storage; erasing always needs a typed confirmation.

Install or update

curl -fsSL https://github.com/shatheitguy/nocapos/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sudo bash

Running it again on an existing install updates in place and keeps your settings, apps and files.

Please test carefully

These parts haven't been run on real hardware yet: ZFS pools and disk formatting (use spare disks), SMB/NFS mounts, cloud sign-ins, and macvlan networks.

NoCapOS 0.2.0

First public release of NoCapOS.

Install

On Debian, Ubuntu, Raspberry Pi OS, Fedora or Arch (amd64, arm64, armv7):

curl -fsSL https://github.com/shatheitguy/nocapos/releases/latest/download/install.sh | sudo bash

The installer verifies the bundle's SHA-256 checksum, installs Docker if needed and prints the address
and a one-time setup token.

Highlights

• Runs as root on your Linux server: sign in with Linux accounts, manage users, network/Wi-Fi, power,
  and a root terminal — all admin-only and audited.
• App Store with one-click installs (Jellyfin, Nextcloud, Open WebUI + Ollama, Vaultwarden, Syncthing,
  Gitea, code-server, n8n and more), updates and uninstall that keeps your data.
• Dual-pane Files with previews, syntax highlighting, permission badges and a protected System view.
• macOS-style login and lock screen with profile photos.
• Containers, Monitor, Logs, Remote Desktop, Scripts, AI Assistant.

Files

File	For
nocapos-linux-amd64.tar.gz	64-bit PCs and servers
nocapos-linux-arm64.tar.gz	Raspberry Pi 4/5 (64-bit OS), other ARM64 boards
nocapos-linux-armv7.tar.gz	32-bit Raspberry Pi OS and ARMv7 boards
install.sh	the installer (downloads the right bundle)
SHA256SUMS	checksums