The easy road to NixOS.
Important
Despite the name, SnapOS does not use Snap! No Snap packages and no snapd. The name comes from the
alligator snapping turtle, our mascot Snappy. Programs come from Nix, with Flatpak and .deb files if you want them.
SnapOS is a Linux distribution built on NixOS, with an everyday desktop on top.
NixOS describes the whole system in one file and can undo any change, but its
commands are hard for someone coming from Ubuntu or Debian. SnapOS is the bridge:
you keep the habits you already have (search, install, remove, update) under one
command, snapos, and SnapOS shows you the NixOS way behind each one.
- Four desktops: Budgie, KDE Plasma, Xfce or Hyprland, each in dark or light.
- Updates that cannot break the system: a new system is built for the next start, and SnapOS goes back by itself if it does not reach the login screen.
- SnapGuard: a real-time antivirus based on ClamAV.
.debprograms: a native Debian layer, where even Steam runs.- x86_64 and ARM64 images, and an installer in English or Portuguese.
| Repository | What it is |
|---|---|
| SnapOS | The official repository. It only receives code that already passed every test, and it holds the releases you download. Installed systems update from its latest release. |
| snapos-updates | Where installed systems get their updates: only the source package and release file of each published release. |
| snapos-distro.github.io | The website: downloads, news and the handbook. |
| snapos-test | The staging repository. New features and fixes are written and tested here first: the ISOs are built and every desktop is booted in a virtual machine on each change. |
snapos-test SnapOS
write the change ─▶ build + VM tests ─▶ same commit ─▶ draft release ─▶ published
A release is never built in the official repository: a short action copies the tested files from snapos-test, checks their SHA-256 and that they were built from the very same commit, and creates a draft that is published by hand.
Download the latest SnapOS · Website · Handbook · Read the guide · YouTube · TikTok
AI assisted (Sonnet 5, Fable 5.1, Opus 5.5)
