⚠️ Note: Nebula Linux is currently in a very early stage of development (Alpha). Use with caution!
user@nebula:~
$  
Beta 1.0 out now — reliable install, wallpaper-driven theming, Plymouth splash

The Linux Desktop,
Reimagined.

Fast, Minimalist, and Beautiful. Arch Linux with the Dank Linux Material desktop — DankMaterialShell on the niri compositor, themed live from your wallpaper.

Nebula Linux — fastfetch showing the Arch base on the niri compositor

What's New — Beta 1.0

Released August 11, 2026. The headline fix: wallpapers now retune the entire desktop automatically — bar, launcher, notifications, lock screen, GTK/Qt apps, terminals — no manual toggle required.

🎨 Auto Theming, By Default

Material color mode now defaults to Auto instead of a fixed palette. Pick a wallpaper — matugen derives and applies the whole desktop's colors instantly.

🛠️ Reliable Install → Boot

Dedicated ext4 /boot partition, fixed bootloader install, and a fixed graphical login screen that no longer hangs on first boot.

🚀 Plymouth & GRUB Theme

Animated boot splash and a redesigned, overlap-free GRUB menu — branded from power-on to desktop.

⚠️ UEFI Required

Legacy BIOS boot isn't supported this release (confirmed GRUB bug). The installer detects and warns before you proceed.

Full Changelog →

Get Nebula Linux

Rolling

Nebula Arch · Dank Edition

Material You. Bleeding edge. Unbreakable.

  • Arch Linux base — always up to date
  • DankMaterialShell on the niri compositor
  • Material 3 theming generated from your wallpaper
  • Btrfs snapshots — roll back updates from GRUB
  • Branded Calamares installer & nebula CLI

Inside the Dank Edition

🎨 Material You Theming

Change your wallpaper and the entire desktop — bar, launcher, notifications, lock screen, even GTK and Qt apps — recolors itself instantly with a matugen-generated Material 3 palette.

✨ Xray Blur

DankMaterialShell adds automatic frosted-glass blur behind your windows on niri — the desktop underneath diffuses through, giving the whole shell a proper Material depth.

🌌 4 Curated Themes (new)

Ships with Cosmic Blue, Stellar Ember, Aurora Light and Void Green, with Auto (wallpaper-derived) color mode on by default. Switch with nebula wallpaper set <name> — matugen retunes the whole desktop instantly, no toggle needed.

🚀 Plymouth Splash (new)

Boot animation with an orbiting singularity replaces the console text scroll. Silent boot with quiet splash is wired in automatically on install.

🐛 Native Bug Reporter (new)

nebula bugreport --open gathers OS, kernel, GPU, DMS versions and failed services, then opens a pre-filled GitHub issue in your browser.

⏪ Snapshots & Rollback

Installs on btrfs with snapper. Every update takes automatic before/after snapshots, and any older state is bootable straight from the GRUB menu. A rolling release you can't really break.

🧭 Nebula Welcome

First boot greets you with a native onboarding app: install to disk, learn the niri workflow, enable Flathub, and grab app bundles for development, gaming or creative work.

⚡ The nebula CLI

One command for system care: nebula update, nebula snapshots, nebula rollback, nebula drivers (with one-shot NVIDIA install) and nebula doctor.

🔒 Dank Greeter & Lock

Installed systems log in through the DankMaterialShell graphical greeter, and the lock screen carries your wallpaper, Material colors and avatar. Branded from power-on to desktop.

🖥️ VM-Friendly

Guest tools for QEMU/KVM, VirtualBox and VMware start automatically when a hypervisor is detected — clipboard sharing and display resize just work. Great for trying before installing.

Why Nebula?

Beautiful by Default

No theming homework. Nebula generates a full Material 3 palette from your wallpaper with matugen — bar, launcher, lock screen, apps, all retuned instantly.

Blazing Fast

Native Wayland, tuned animations, zram compressed memory, and zero bloat. Menus and windows snap open instantly.

Safe to Break

Nebula Linux installs on btrfs with automatic snapshots before every update — if anything goes wrong, boot the previous state straight from the GRUB menu.

Everything You Need. Nothing You Don't.

🌐

Firefox

Fast, private web browsing.

🎬

Media Player

VLC or Celluloid — plays everything out of the box.

📝

LibreOffice

Full suite for all your documents.

📦

Flatpak Integration

One-click installs for thousands of apps.

Hardware Requirements

⚠️ Nebula Linux requires UEFI boot mode. Legacy BIOS boot is not supported in Beta 1.0 (a confirmed GRUB bug with our btrfs + snapshot-safe partition layout). The installer will warn you if it detects BIOS mode — enable UEFI in your firmware/VM settings first.

Minimum Specs

  • CPU: 64-bit Dual Core (2 GHz)
  • RAM: 4 GB
  • Storage: 25 GB free space
  • GPU: VGA capable of 1024x768

Development Roadmap

Alpha 1.0 — Debian Edition

Core Debian Trixie base, Plasma 6 integration, Custom Themes, Initial Installer.

Arch · Dank Edition (New!)

DankMaterialShell on niri, branded Calamares, btrfs snapshot rollback, Nebula Welcome, nebula CLI, VM guest support.

Beta 1.0 (New!)

4 curated wallpaper themes, defaulting to Auto (wallpaper-derived) Material color mode — no manual toggle needed. Plymouth animated boot splash, redesigned overlap-free GRUB theme, nebula wallpaper and nebula bugreport CLI, wallpaper picker in Nebula Welcome, weekly auto-built ISOs via GitHub Actions.

Reliability: dedicated ext4 /boot partition for snapshot-safe booting, fixed graphical login crashing on every boot, fixed the full install→boot chain end to end.

⚠️ UEFI required — legacy BIOS boot isn't supported this release (confirmed GRUB bug); the installer detects and warns.

Beta 2.0

Own package repository (prebuilt AUR), custom Nebula icon pack, Hyprland flavor of the Dank Edition, Hardware Driver Manager UI, and investigating a fix for legacy BIOS boot support.

Release Candidate (1.0)

Final bug fixes, stable repository freeze, Official Public Launch.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Nebula Linux based on?
Nebula Linux is built on Arch Linux with the Dank Linux desktop — DankMaterialShell running on the niri scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor, with a full Material You theme generated live from your wallpaper.
How do I install it?
Download the `.iso` file and use a tool like Rufus (Windows) or BalenaEtcher (Mac/Linux) to flash it to a USB drive. Boot your computer from the USB drive, and follow the branded Calamares installer. Nebula Linux requires UEFI boot mode — enable UEFI in your firmware/VM settings before installing (the installer warns you if it detects legacy BIOS mode).
Is this ready for daily use?
Nebula Linux is currently in an Alpha stage of development. While it is fully functional and incredibly fast, you may encounter bugs. We recommend testing it in a Virtual Machine (like VirtualBox) or on a secondary computer first.