Status: alpha — boots, installs and runs

The Linux that never breaks

Solera is an immutable, atomic Arch-based distribution with GNOME. The OS ships as a versioned, reproducible image — read-only root, transactional updates, and free rollback on every reboot.

Download the ISO View on GitHub

UEFI only · Btrfs + zstd · image-based atomic deployments

Features

A system you can always trust

Solera defines the entire operating system in Git, builds it in CI, and publishes a signed, versioned artifact. The result is a desktop that behaves the same on every machine.

Immutable root

/usr is read-only, so the system can never drift out of a known, reproducible state.

Atomic updates with rollback

Updates deploy a new Btrfs subvolume and switch on reboot. Rolling back is just picking the old boot entry.

Reproducible releases

Every release builds against a pinned Arch Linux Archive snapshot — rebuild a version, get the same image.

Refined GNOME desktop

GNOME with dash-to-dock, blur-my-shell and magic-lamp enabled by default for a polished experience.

Modern foundation

systemd-boot on UEFI, Btrfs with zstd compression, and zram swap out of the box.

PipeWire & Plymouth

Low-latency PipeWire audio and a clean Plymouth boot splash for a smooth start to finish.

Software model

The right layer for everything

The root image stays minimal and identical across machines. Software lives in layers, chosen by its nature.

Base system

The image

Kernel, GNOME, services — changes only with a full update and reboot.

GUI apps

Flatpak

Browsers, editors and end-user apps, with Flathub preconfigured.

Dev & CLI

Distrobox + Homebrew

Compilers, runtimes and command-line tools, entirely in user space.

Host escape hatch

image layer

Drivers, kernel modules and corporate VPN clients when you truly need them.

Installation

Up and running in minutes

01
Download the ISO
Grab the latest release from the Solera GitHub releases page.
02
Flash to USB
Write it to a USB drive with dd, GNOME Disks, Ventoy or your tool of choice.
03
Boot in UEFI mode
Solera is UEFI-only. In VirtualBox, enable EFI under System → Motherboard.
04
Run the installer
os-installer partitions the disk and deploys the system image.
05
Create your user
On first boot, gnome-initial-setup walks you through account creation.

Updating

One command, free rollback

An update deploys a new image as a separate subvolume. The old deployment stays on disk, so rolling back is just choosing it in the boot menu.

solera — bash

$ sudo solera update  # deploy the new image$ sudo reboot  # boot into it; old stays for rollback

GUI apps update independently through Flatpak. Building from source? The whole distribution builds locally with bash scripts/build-iso-local.sh.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Everything you might wonder before flashing the ISO. Still stuck? Open an issue on GitHub.

Not yet. Solera is in alpha: it boots, installs and runs, but the public update channel and CI pipeline are still being set up. Treat it as something to test, not as your main OS.
The root filesystem is immutable and the whole OS ships as one versioned, reproducible image built in CI. You update atomically and can roll back instantly — there is no pacman-style package-by-package upgrade on the base system.
Graphical apps come from Flatpak (Flathub is preconfigured). Command-line tools and dev environments live in Distrobox containers with Homebrew. The base image stays minimal and untouched.
For drivers, kernel modules or things like corporate VPN clients, image layers let you overlay packages onto the system image as an escape hatch — without giving up immutability for everything else.
Yes. Solera is UEFI-only, so make sure to enable EFI firmware. In VirtualBox that is System → Motherboard → Enable EFI.
A 64-bit machine that boots in UEFI mode. Solera uses systemd-boot, Btrfs with zstd compression and zram swap, so a reasonably modern x86_64 system is recommended.

Contribute

Help shape Solera

Solera is open source and built in the open. Whether you write code, test images or improve docs, there is a place for you.

By contributing you agree your work is licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later, the same license as Solera.

Try Solera today

Solera is open source. It boots, installs and runs — the public update channel and CI pipeline are still being set up, so it's not a daily-driver just yet.

Download the ISO Star on GitHub