If you’ve been following the growing popularity of “atomic desktops” or immutable Linux distros, you might want to check out the latest release from HeliumOS. It’s a user-friendly distro based on the enterprise-focused AlmaLinux, and this is its second full release—despite the 10 in its name.
The developer of HeliumOS, Isaac Beverly, announced on July 28 that HeliumOS 10 had moved from alpha and beta into a full release. It features KDE Plasma as its desktop environment, and it replaces its first full release, HeliumOS 9. That was based on AlmaLinux 9, which explains the confusing version numbers.
Here’s the complete list of changes to the stable version of HeliumOS:
- Version 6.12 of the Linux kernel from AlmaLinux, signed for secure boot
- Zsh as default shell, with a polished and minimal configuration
- BTRFS as default filesystem, with an option for LUKS full-disk encryption in the installer
- Docker is installed by default, see our documentation for more details.
- HeliumOS build sources were migrated from a collection of Bash scripts to Ansible yaml. These are built using Podman into Bootable Container images.
There are also some bug fixes, including a stuttering issue when using HeliumOS with certain Nvidia GPUs, and compatibility issue with systemd service that was causing kernel panics. There are also notes in the blog post on an experimental “Edge Edition” of HeliumOS 10, which includes a newer kernel for hardware enablement.
HeliumOS is based on both Red Hat’s CentOS Stream and the original CentOS spiritual successor, AlmaLinux. One of the more unique aspects of HeliumOS among Linux distros is its use of bootc, a method of creating “bootable containers.” Unlike your common application container, bootable containers have packaged inside them not just libraries and dependencies, but also an entire kernel.
Interestingly, HeliumOS combines that forward-thinking approach to containers with a more conservative approach to the distro’s base Linux kernel. It supplies the LTS (Long-Term Support) kernel rather than the latest stable kernel, meaning it doesn’t have all the newest kernel updates but can be considered more reliable. As the developer stated in its first blog post, “… each Fedora release has a lifecycle of only 13 months. HeliumOS intends to provide a more stable platform, one measured in years rather than months.” HeliumOS claims an impressive 10 years of support.
I haven’t tried HeliumOS yet, but these release notes give me a positive impression. I appreciate the support for Secure Boot, meaning you don’t have to make UEFI changes just to try it. I also absolutely won’t install a distro on my laptop if full-disk encryption isn’t available in the installer.
I also share the concern that some expressed in the announcement thread on Reddit over the fact HeliumOS currently has just one developer right now. What happens if that developer gets busy with other work, or worse? Since it’s an immutable “atomic desktop”, that’s actually less of a concern than with other distros. Your HeliumOS installation can be converted at any time to a related distro like AlmaLinux, which would be handy should development ever cease.
Related
Why I’ve Gone All In on Fedora Silverblue
There’s more to like here than just those two (admitedly awesome) colors.
If you want to give it a go, check out the HeliumOS download page. You can spin up a virtual machine or straight-up install it on your PC. Over the weekend, I installed openSUSE on my main desktop, and I’ll be frank in sharing that I’m already thinking of finding a different distro. I’ll be doing more research, especially on the bootc approach, to see if HelliumOS is something I want to try.
Source: HeliumOS blog, Reddit