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Marlin (Arch Linux)

Visual overview

Prefer a visual tour? See the Marlin overview → start page.

Based on: Arch Linux (continuous updates, no fixed releases)

Status: Beta

Marlin is the TunaOS variant that follows Arch Linux, which updates continuously and has no fixed releases. Arch ships upstream packages with almost no delay, so Marlin has the newest GNOME, KDE Plasma, and kernel builds in the catalog. In exchange, it does not give the stability guarantees of the Enterprise Linux variants (Albacore and Yellowfin). Arch has no bootc package yet, so Marlin builds bootc from source in the image.

Features​

  • 🚀 Continuous updates: Marlin gets new Arch packages with no backport delay.
  • 🍺 Baked-in Homebrew: Access thousands of CLI tools and fonts immediately.
  • ⚡ CachyOS kernel overlay: Optional -cachyos flavors add the performance-tuned CachyOS kernel on top of the standard Arch base.
  • 🎮 NVIDIA support: -nvidia flavors add nvidia-open-dkms via pacman + dkms (Arch has no akmods/RPM equivalent).

Downloads​

TunaOS publishes its pre-built ISOs for the GNOME and KDE flavors. Other flavors are available as container images only.

GNOME (Standard)​

Image: ghcr.io/tuna-os/marlin:gnome

ISOs: marlin-gnome-latest.iso

KDE Plasma​

Image: ghcr.io/tuna-os/marlin:kde

ISOs: marlin-kde-latest.iso

COSMIC​

Image: ghcr.io/tuna-os/marlin:cosmic

Niri​

Image: ghcr.io/tuna-os/marlin:niri

XFCE​

Image: ghcr.io/tuna-os/marlin:xfce

CachyOS kernel overlay​

Adds the CachyOS performance-tuned kernel on top of any desktop flavor above.

Images: ghcr.io/tuna-os/marlin:gnome-cachyos, :kde-cachyos, :cosmic-cachyos, :niri-cachyos, :xfce-cachyos

NVIDIA (NVIDIA drivers + CUDA)​

Adds nvidia-open-dkms and CUDA for AI, graphics, and VFX workloads, via pacman + dkms.

Images: ghcr.io/tuna-os/marlin:gnome-nvidia, :kde-nvidia, :cosmic-nvidia, :niri-nvidia, :xfce-nvidia

Apple Silicon

TunaOS publishes a gnome-asahi image, but it is not a supported way to run Marlin on Apple Silicon. The upstream asahi-alarm kernel package gives only 5 device trees and no GPU driver module. So the image does not boot on Apple Silicon (tuna-os/tunaOS#911). For Apple Silicon, use bootc-installer-asahi with a supported variant instead.

Installation​

Using Container Image​

podman pull ghcr.io/tuna-os/marlin:latest

Building ISO with Just​

# Clone the repo
git clone https://github.com/tuna-os/tunaOS.git
cd tunaOS

# Build Marlin ISO
just build-iso marlin

Known limitations​

  • No disk encryption: Marlin has no LUKS with TPM2 auto-unlock today. Arch's pacman has no tpm2-tools or tpm2-tss package, so the dracut TPM2 probe finds nothing. See tuna-os/tunaOS#714.
  • Apple Silicon (gnome-asahi): see the note above; use bootc-installer-asahi instead.

Community Support​