Luft

Luft is an operating system for PCs, built on Fedora. It has its own desktop, its own apps and a startup that's signed from the moment you press the power button. It ships as one sealed image that updates as a whole and can always go back to the version before.

What makes it different

• Its own desktop. Kestrel has a taskbar, Start with search across apps, settings and the text of your files, quick settings, snap layouts, and a board where windows sit side by side on an endless canvas. Its colors come from your wallpaper, and the apps follow.
• Its own apps. Settings, Rover for files, Magpie for photos, videos, music and PDFs, Mailman for mail, Draft for text and code, Tern for the terminal, Schelf for everything else from Flathub and AppImages.
• Updates you don't think about. The system updates as a whole at the next restart. If a new version doesn't start, Luft goes back to the one that did.
• A startup you can trust. Secure Boot can stay on, the disk unlocks with the TPM, a keyring keeps your passwords and passkeys, and new USB devices wait while the screen is locked.
• Easy to try. Meet Luft gets a Windows or Linux PC ready without a USB stick, and Luft installs next to Windows or in place of another Linux, keeping your files.

Get Luft

• luft.computer shows what Luft is like, and its download page has Meet Luft and the USB stick images.
• docs.luft.computer covers trying it, installing it and everything after.
• get.luft.computer hosts the files themselves, each with a .sha256 next to it. nightly/latest.json names the newest ISO.

Luft needs a 64-bit PC with UEFI. A TPM 2.0 is optional and lets an encrypted disk unlock without a password.

Status

Luft is young. There's no stable release yet: the downloads are nightly builds of main, and systems installed from them keep following the nightlies. Expect rough edges, and keep a backup of anything you care about.

What's in this repository

Folder	What it is
os	The system image, the USB stick and VMs to try them in
kestrel	The desktop, login screen, keyring, passkeys and session services
apps	Luft's apps, one folder each, and Install Luft and Meet Luft
packages	Code the apps and services share: the native app shell, D-Bus and translations, libraries for the system's parts in system and the UI kit in web
services	Luft's own system and session services: updates, sleep, online accounts, dictation, Windows next to Luft and app thumbnails
sushi	The Sushi boot splash and the SushiBoot boot menu
security	Secure Boot, TPM unlock, disk encryption and USB protection
web	The website, the docs and what they share
docs	Notes on how things work underneath, also published on the docs site under Reference

Each folder's README says what it is and how to build it.

Building and contributing

Building Luft sets up a development machine and runs Kestrel in a window, the apps on their own, and the image and USB stick in VMs. How Luft fits together is the place to start reading, and Contributing covers how to send changes. Problems and ideas go in the issues.

Translating

Luft is translated on Hosted Weblate, in the browser, with no programming needed. Weblate sends the work back here as pull requests, and it reaches the nightlies once merged. Translating Luft covers getting started and the style guide for each language.

License and credits

Luft is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or later (LICENSE). Kestrel's engine comes from GNOME Shell and the patches to Mutter follow Mutter, so both stay GPL-2.0-or-later (kestrel/engine/COPYING).

• Luft is built on Fedora and bootc, and its apps on Sabine.
• Open Runde and Maple Mono are under the SIL Open Font License, in packages/web/ui/fonts.
• Helium, the default browser, is GPL-3.0 and comes unchanged from its releases.
• The wallpapers are photos from Unsplash, credited in CREDITS.