![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/12\/obsidian-os.webp\")
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Most new Linux distributions tend to follow a familiar formula: take a well-known base, add a desktop environment, sprinkle in some theming, and call it a day. <\/p>\n
Sometimes it works; sometimes the distro disappears in six months. What you don\u2019t often see, however, is a distro trying to rethink how updates, rollbacks, and system integrity fundamentally work.<\/p>\n
ObsidianOS<\/a> is one of those unusual projects that immediately caught my attention for exactly that reason. It\u2019s Arch-based, yes, but the defining feature isn\u2019t Arch at all; it\u2019s the implementation of an A\/B partitioning layout<\/strong> using good old ext4<\/strong>, not btrfs, snapshots, or any of the usual suspects.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll admit, when I first heard about ObsidianOS, I had the same confused grin many Reddit users did: \u201cWait\u2026 A\/B partitions? On a traditional Linux desktop? Without btrfs?\u201d But after digging into the documentation, installing it on a virtual machine, and exploring it for a bit, I walked away genuinely impressed! \u2728<\/p>\n Let\u2019s break things down.<\/p>\n At its core, ObsidianOS is a UEFI\u2011only, systemd\u2011based operating system for\u00a0x86_64 <\/strong>systems, designed with an A\/B partition layout for reliability. The A\/B partition scheme means your root filesystem exists twice, partition A and partition B. When you update, the system writes to the inactive slot. If something goes wrong, you reboot into the previously working one.<\/p>\n So, no complex snapshot rolling, no broken bootloaders, no \u201creinstall Arch because Pacman<\/a> broke at 2 AM.\u201d Just a simple flip back to the other partition. It\u2019s very similar to how ChromeOS, Android, and some embedded systems work, but brought to the broader Linux desktop.<\/strong><\/p>\n The project originally launched with a single edition, but now it offers:<\/p>\n This is already more variety than I expected for a distro still considered \u201cearly.\u201d<\/p>\n From my experience and the project\u2019s own documentation, ObsidianOS is quite modest in its hardware needs but add more than what it says.<\/p>\n Installation depends on the edition. The Base Edition<\/strong> sticks to a TUI installer, which is a bit old-school, and familiar to anyone who has installed Arch Linux<\/a>.<\/p>\n The KDE and COSMIC editions, on the other hand, come with a Qt6 + Python GUI installer <\/strong>built by the project itself. I tested the KDE version, and honestly, it\u2019s refreshing to see an independent project ship its own installer instead of relying on Calamares.<\/p>\n It walks you through:<\/p>\n Selecting the target disk.<\/p>\n Setting up the A\/B partitions automatically.<\/p>\n Selecting System Image.<\/p>\n Selecting Timezone.<\/p>\n Selecting Keyboard layout.<\/p>\n Bootloader setup.<\/p>\n The layout still feels young, a few dialogs could be clearer, but it works, and more importantly, it handles the A\/B scheme seamlessly without throwing technical jargon at the user.<\/p>\n Booting into ObsidianOS for the first time feels much like entering a polished Arch environment. KDE is clean and mostly vanilla, without unnecessary patches or wild theming choices. <\/p>\n The application launcher provides quick access to system settings, utilities, and installed applications, keeping everything organized and easily reachable. It feels intuitive, responsive, and minimalistic, much like what you\u2019d expect from a well-curated Arch-based environment, no clutter, just efficiency at your fingertips.<\/p>\n But the interesting parts aren\u2019t immediately visible. They show up once you open the ObsidianOS Control Center<\/strong>, a Qt6 GUI frontend for the The Control Center shows you: <\/p>\n For a project its size, the amount of infrastructure built around these tools is impressive. \ud83d\ude0e<\/p>\n This is where ObsidianOS goes beyond just A\/B partitions.<\/p>\n The distro introduces user-mode overlays<\/strong>, an experimental system written in Rust<\/a> that intercepts libc calls to create layered filesystem behavior, without touching kernel modules or requiring special filesystems.<\/p>\n \ud83d\udcdd To simplify: it adds an overlay on top of the root filesystem, but entirely in user space.<\/p>\n This gives you:<\/p>\n It\u2019s clever, experimental, and absolutely the kind of thing that appeals to tinkerers. The overlay mechanism also powers another new component.<\/p>\n This is miles away from how most distros handle packaging, and while it\u2019s still experimental, it hints at a future where package changes have a much smaller chance of trashing your root system.<\/p>\n Arch fans might raise eyebrows, but power users will probably be curious. \ud83d\ude0e<\/p>\nObsidianOS: Doing things a bit differently<\/h2>\n
![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/12\/obsidianos.webp\")
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Minimum system requirements<\/h2>\n
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\n\ud83d\udea7<\/div>\nObsidiaOS is in the early stages of development. I would consider it experimental. For this reason, either try it in a virtual machine or spare test system. Don’t replace your stable Ubuntu\/Debian\/Mint\/Fedora with Obsidian yet.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nInstalling ObsidianOS<\/h2>\n
![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss4.png\")
<\/figure>\n![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss8.png\")
<\/figure>\n![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss10.png\")
<\/figure>\n![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss11.png\")
<\/figure>\n![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss13.png\")
<\/figure>\n![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss14.png\")
<\/figure>\n![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss15.png\")
<\/figure>\nFirst impressions of ObsidianOS<\/h2>\n
![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss5-1.png\")
<\/figure>\n![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss17.png\")
<\/figure>\nobsidianctl<\/code> command-line tool. This is where the distro starts to feel like its own thing rather than \u201cArch with an unusual partition setup.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
![\"ObsidianOS](\"https:\/\/itsfoss.com\/content\/images\/2025\/11\/itsfoss16.png\")
<\/figure>\nUser-Mode Overlays: Probably the most intriguing feature<\/h3>\n
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opm: Overlaid packages<\/h3>\n
opm<\/code> is the ObsidianOS Package Manager<\/strong>, also written in Rust, that works alongside pacman. When you install a package with opm:<\/p>\n\n
ObsidianOS Plugins<\/h3>\n