Getting Started
BruceOS is an operating system built on Fedora 43 with the CachyOS BORE kernel. It ships with a local AI assistant, a terminal that works out of the box, and gaming that doesn't require a weekend of troubleshooting.
It's a Linux distribution. It does what a computer should do.
Who it's for
BruceOS targets three groups of people who are tired of fighting their operating system:
Kids and schools. A simple desktop that runs on a Raspberry Pi or classroom x86 hardware. No ads, no accounts, no telemetry.
VFX and multimedia artists. Blender, GIMP, Krita, DaVinci Resolve, and a VFX Reference Platform container via Distrobox. Creative tools that are installed and ready, not hidden behind package managers.
Gamers. Steam and Proton-GE pre-configured. MangoHud, GameMode, and Gamescope included. Games run. That's the feature.
Profiles
BruceOS ships four profiles, each tuned for a different use case:
| Profile | What you get |
|---|---|
| Default | GNOME desktop, terminal stack, AI assistant. For most people. |
| Gaming | Everything in Default plus Steam, Proton-GE, MangoHud, GameMode. |
| VFX | Everything in Default plus Blender, DaVinci Resolve, GIMP, Krita, Distrobox with Rocky Linux. |
| Kids | Simplified desktop for schools and Raspberry Pi hardware. |
Profile selection happens during installation (coming soon -- currently only the Default profile is available).
What's in the box
Desktop
GNOME with the WhiteSur dark theme applied. Dash to Dock at the bottom. Mac-style window buttons on the left. Noto Sans and JetBrains Mono fonts. No configuration required.
Terminal stack
- Ghostty -- GPU-accelerated terminal with Catppuccin Mocha theme
- Fish -- shell with autocompletion that works without plugins
- Starship -- minimal prompt showing directory, git branch, and status
- Zellij -- terminal multiplexer with vim-style navigation
- Atuin -- shell history synced across sessions and searchable
- Modern CLI tools --
bat,eza,fzf,zoxide,ripgrep,yazi,lazygit,btop,fastfetch
Open a terminal. It works. No .bashrc archaeology required.
AI
Ollama runs locally for model inference. A GTK4 chat application (coming soon) provides a desktop interface. MCP servers for filesystem, terminal, and git access are planned.
No subscription. No cloud. No data leaves your machine.
Gaming (planned)
Steam, Proton-GE, DXVK, VKD3D-Proton, MangoHud, GameMode, and Gamescope. The kernel ships with vm.max_map_count=1048576 already set.
Creative tools (planned)
Blender, GIMP, Krita, DaVinci Resolve, Inkscape, Kdenlive, OBS Studio, Ardour, and a full FFmpeg build.
System requirements
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | x86_64 | x86_64 |
| RAM | 4 GB | 8 GB (16 GB for AI models) |
| Disk | 20 GB | 50 GB |
| GPU | Any (NVIDIA, AMD, Intel) | NVIDIA or AMD discrete for gaming/AI |
| Boot | UEFI or Legacy BIOS | UEFI |
Raspberry Pi support (ARM64) is planned for the Kids profile.
Next steps
- Install BruceOS -- write the ISO to a USB drive and boot it
- Build from source -- build your own ISO from the kickstart configuration
- First boot -- what to expect when you boot BruceOS for the first time