Hey everyone — I’m Kiefer, and I run the Lemmy instance this is posted from (fangnet.me). When I’m not doing that, I’ve been building my own Linux distro, and it’s finally at the point where it boots and installs on real hardware, so here it is: FangOS.
- Base: Arch Linux (rolling release)
- Desktop: KDE Plasma
- Installer: Calamares, fully graphical
- Target: x86_64, UEFI and legacy BIOS
- ISO: ~2.8 GB, with published SHA-256
Links:
- Site: https://os.fangnet.me/
- Source: https://github.com/Kiefer-D-Hendricks/FangOS
- ISO download: https://archive.org/details/fangos-2026.09.14-x86_64
This started as a bucket-list project — “can I actually build an OS?” — and somewhere along the way it turned into a real, installable system. I submitted it to DistroWatch this week, so it’s officially in their queue.
If you give it a spin, I’d love the feedback, especially the critical kind. Bug reports and “this confused me” are the most useful thing a tiny distro can get.
P.S. Yes, this post is brought to you by the same box FangOS was built on — fangnet.me also runs my Nextcloud (FangNet Cloud) and chat (FangNet Chat). One machine, whole ecosystem.
Ok so the only unique feature this “distro” has is the following:
Arch Linux, with teeth. FangOS ships with fang, a friendly frontend for pacman. Same Arch power underneath, more personality on top — including progress bars with actual teeth. It handles privilege escalation itself, so fang install just works. Add --aur and it reaches into the Arch User Repository through yay or paru, the same friendly way.
This is f. insane. Even for a fully agenetic production.