SnapOS 2.7

Carapace, the SnapOS store, and an installer that can keep your other systems.

Carapace. SnapOS has its own store now. The first page has a featured program, the popular ones, coloured categories and a row of programs for each category (118 picked programs). The search looks through all of Nix's roughly 27 thousand programs while you type. Installing asks for your password, adds the program to /etc/snapos and builds the next system while Snappy picks flowers, climbs a mountain, swims, sits by a campfire, goes fishing or flies a kite. Anything installed can be removed or undone with snapos rollback.

Every program in Nix. Unfree programs can be installed too: Steam, Discord, Spotify, VS Code and more. Steam's 32-bit graphics libraries are on for x86 PCs.

Partitions chosen by hand. After the disk, the installer asks whether to erase it or to let you choose the partitions. Choosing keeps everything else (Windows, another system, your files): you can open cfdisk to make room, pick the partition for SnapOS, share the EFI partition and add a /home partition. GRUB lists the other systems at start. Thanks to psyclonepman for the suggestion (issue #1).

Flatpak is a pack now. GNOME Software and Flathub leave the default system (Discover too, on Plasma); snapos.packs.flatpak.enable = true; brings Flatpak back. Systems updated from 2.6 keep the GNOME Software they have.

Everything from 2.6.1 stays. Update with snapos update; new installs use the images on the SnapOS releases page.

SnapOS 2.6.1

A straight logo and sharper wallpapers.

The logo, redrawn. The twelve spikes now sit at the same distance from the centre, one every 30 degrees, and point straight out; the top and bottom ones stay bigger, with their tip cut flat. The logo is a real vector now (branding/icons/snapos.svg), and every icon, the boot pictures and the wallpapers use it.

Sharper wallpapers. The dark and light wallpapers keep their backgrounds, now at 2560x1440, with the new logo.

Everything from 2.6 stays. Update with snapos update.

SnapOS 2.6

Net install, a minimal image, and SnapOS in packs.

Net install. With the internet up, the installer downloads the newest SnapOS from snapos-updates, checks its checksum and installs it, so this USB stick keeps installing the latest version. Without the internet it installs the version on the stick. The review screen shows which one.

The minimal image (snapos-minimal.iso, snapos-minimal-aarch64.iso): a terminal and no installer. You write your own system the NixOS way and add the SnapOS packs you want. The handbook walks through every step.

SnapOS in packs. theme, desktops, commands, snapguard, snapweb, debian, helper and updater: each one a line in any NixOS system (snapos.packs.theme.enable = true;). The full SnapOS is every pack turned on. On a system built by hand, the updater updates the packs.

SnapOS names for the NixOS tools: snapos-generate-config, snapos-install, snapos-enter and snapos-rebuild; a hand-built system lives in /etc/snapos.

Everything from 2.5.2 stays: SnapGuard's cup, the native Debian layer, the snapos commands, four desktops, updates that undo themselves.

Flash with balenaEtcher. Checksums in the .sha256 files.

SnapOS installer V2.5.2

SnapGuard comes alive.

Snappy now has a cup next to him in the SnapGuard window:

• A threat is found: the cup comes up and the virus falls into it.
• While it is in quarantine: the virus jumps around in the cup, angry.
• Delete: Snappy tips the cup and eats the virus.
• Trust: the virus grows wings and flies away.

Installed systems get it with snapos update (from snapos-updates); new installs can use the 2.5.2 images.

Flash with balenaEtcher. Checksums in the .sha256 files.

SnapOS installer V2.5.1

Hyprland back to plain tiling, and a new home for updates.

• Hyprland tiles its windows again, the way it is meant to: no title bars and no minimize. The bar shows one network icon instead of two.
• Updates come from their own repository, snapos-distro/snapos-updates. It holds only what snapos update needs, so checking for updates no longer depends on the repository with the installer images.
• SnapOS moved to the snapos-distro organization. Old links keep working.
• Installer: the new system is written to disk and unmounted before the installer says it is done.

Everything from 2.5 stays: the native Debian layer, Steam, the snapos commands, x86_64 and ARM64 images, four desktops, SnapGuard in real time.

Flash with balenaEtcher. Checksums in the .sha256 files.

SnapOS installer V2.5

The Debian layer is native.

A .deb on SnapOS now behaves as it would on a Debian computer:

• Install scripts run with every power, as root, like on Debian. The limits added in 2.0 are gone.
• Packages that bring a system service are installed instead of refused. The program works; its service does not start inside the layer, and SnapOS says so.
• The layer is not a sandbox. A program in it can do what it could do on Debian.

The protection is SnapGuard: every .deb is scanned before it is installed, and a threat goes to quarantine.

Everything from 2.4.1 stays: Steam and other 32-bit programs, the update window at login, the snapos commands, x86_64 and ARM64 images, four desktops, SnapGuard in real time.

Flash with balenaEtcher. Checksums in the .sha256 files.