Blendos has announced the release of Blendos 4, a distribution that utilizes container isolation to allow the coexistence of packages from various Linux distributions within one system. Aside from packages from ARCH Linux, universal packages in Flatpak format, users can install packages from Fedora 39, Debian 13 (Testing branch), CentOS Stream, and Ubuntu 22.04 (packages are installed in containers based on these distributions). Blendos also offers an environment for installing and running Android applications from Google Play and F-Droid catalogs, with options for Gnome, KDE, XFCE, MATE, BUDGIE, CINNAMON, and LXQT desktop environments. The size of the installation image is 2.2 GB. Installation image
The core system environment remains unchanged during operation (Immutable) and is updated atomically using root partitions that replace each other. Updates are obtained from new ISO images, with contents synchronized with the base environment using ZSYNC (data upload size during updates ranges from 10 to 100 MB on average). When a new ISO image build is available, a second root FS is created in the system, becoming the working root FS upon the next reboot, while the old one remains for the next update installation.
To install Blendos 4, users can utilize its own installer with a GUI based on Jade-gui from Crystal Linux. The distribution supports the creation of scenarios for replicating identical installations on different computers, allowing the saving and importing of desktop settings, detailed container lists, and installed package lists in a YAML file.
This new release marks a shift towards declarative description of the system’s configuration, all consolidated in one file “/system.yaml”. Users can specify in this file the necessary packages for installation on top of the base system, desktop environments, Linux kernel versions, and drivers available in the Arch