Mandara

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Mandara OS is a Linux distribution: a hyper-optimized, bloat-free, image-based Fedora desktop for software development and everyday personal use, for x86_64 and aarch64. It starts from a clean Fedora base, swaps in a low-latency kernel and scheduler, compiles its compositor for a modern CPU baseline (x86-64-v3, or ARMv8 with crypto and CRC), and puts Mandara Shell on MangoWM as the desktop. Everything else is left out: no second desktop hiding underneath, no pile of preinstalled apps, no background services idling away your memory.

It ships as a bootable container image (bootc). Your system is one versioned image: an update is downloaded whole, applied at the next boot, and one command takes you back if you don't like it. Your home folder, /var, /opt and /usr/local stay yours and writable.

And it's never stale. The moment a new Mandara release is published, its own release pipeline asks this repository to build a fresh image around it, for both architectures, with new downloads attached. Installed systems pick it up with sudo bootc upgrade.

At a glance

What	A bootable Fedora desktop image: Mandara Shell on MangoWM, with its own login screen, lock screen and boot splash
Base	Fedora 45 via Universal Blue base-main on x86_64 (codecs, firmware, ujust), Fedora fedora-bootc on aarch64
Kernel	CachyOS with LTO, the scx_lavd scheduler in performance mode and KSM on x86_64; Fedora's kernel on aarch64
Apps	Ghostty (terminal), Helium (browser), Files (with built-in archive extraction and compression), Celluloid (video) and Rufin (music). That's the list
Developers	git, gh, clang/lld/lldb, gcc, cmake, meson, Podman, Docker Engine, and Rust ready offline through rustup
Terminal	23 Rust command-line tools, starship, fish and bash, all wired up
Downloads	Installer ISO, plus ready-to-boot qcow2, vmdk and raw disks, for x86_64 and aarch64
Updates	sudo bootc upgrade for the system; Studio → About → Update now for Mandara, without root
License	GPL-3.0-or-later

More than a shell on a distro

You can install Mandara Shell on almost any Linux distribution, and that gives you the Mandara desktop. Mandara OS is the whole machine around it, tuned as one piece:

Layer	Mandara Shell on your distribution	Mandara OS
Desktop	Mandara on your compositor	Mandara on MangoWM, with Mandara Login, the lock screen and the boot splash
Kernel	Your distribution's	CachyOS LTO with scx_lavd and KSM (x86_64)
System tuning	Your distribution's	Low-latency kernel arguments, BBR, Btrfs with zstd, masked idle services
Compositor	Your distribution's package	MangoWM and scenefx compiled with ThinLTO for x86-64-v3, or ARMv8 with crypto and CRC
Developer tools	Whatever you install	C/C++, Rust, Podman, Docker and 23 Rust command-line tools, ready
Updates	Your package manager	Atomic image updates with one-command rollback

What sets it apart

1. Built around one shell, all the way down. Mandara isn't added to a desktop that already has one. The login screen is Mandara Login, the session is MangoWM with Mandara on top, the boot splash is the Mandara phoenix on Corniche blue, and the default theme is Mandara Corniche. The system identifies itself as Mandara OS, with the Mandara release version, logo and support links. GRUB lists Mandara OS deployments; fresh installs give you five seconds to choose one, with a cyan highlight. Routine boot and login output stays off the screen; kernel errors and failed services remain visible, and graphical-session logs go to the journal.

2. A kernel tuned for latency. On x86_64 the CachyOS kernel (built with LTO) replaces Fedora's, with sched-ext's scx_lavd scheduler in performance mode, full preemption, threaded interrupts, BBR congestion control and no watchdogs. Same-page merging (KSM) shares identical memory between login sessions.

3. Compiled for a modern CPU baseline. MangoWM and its scenefx effects library are built from source with clang at -O3 and ThinLTO, for a fixed target: x86-64-v3 on x86_64 (so an AVX2-era processor is required) and ARMv8 with the crypto and CRC extensions on aarch64. Mandara itself is its x86-64-v3 release build, checked against the release's checksums.

4. Zero bloat, by rule. Every package is installed without weak dependencies, printing, modem and mDNS services are masked, and each virtual-machine agent only starts on its own hypervisor. Docker Engine stays off until you ask for it.

5. A developer machine out of the box. A full C/C++ and Rust toolchain, Podman with its Docker-compatible socket, Docker Engine one command away, and a stable Rust toolchain (clippy, rustfmt, rust-analyzer) that's copied into your home on first use: it works offline right away, and rustup can update it or add nightly like anywhere else.

6. The best of Rust in the terminal. ripgrep, bat, fd, starship, helix, delta, zoxide, hyperfine, yazi, zellij, atuin, just, gitui, eza, tokei, bottom, bandwhich, dust, procs, sd, xh, ouch (archives) and cargo-nextest, with starship, zoxide and atuin already set up in bash and fish, and delta as git's pager.

7. Latin and Arabic as equals. Alexandria is the default interface font for both scripts, including GTK apps, Mandara and the login screen. Cairo and Inter are fallbacks, JetBrains Mono handles code, Noto covers other scripts, and colour emoji just work. Applications and users can still choose a different font explicitly.

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗