The Sundarban
Published Feb 26, 2026, 8:30 AM EST
Dibakar Ghosh is a tech journalist at How-To Geek, where he specializes in Linux, Windows, and productiveness instruments. His purpose is modest—support readers at every ability level earn extra performed with the tech they use on on each day foundation foundation.
He began his writing occupation in 2016 with WordPress tutorials, later entering into digital marketing, where he spent years reviewing advanced instruments for marketers. His work has also seemed on Authority Hacker, where he’s shared in-depth guides on digital workflows and on-line productiveness. That abilities now shapes his journalism, blending analytical depth with excellent, real-world advice.
When he’s not writing or trying out tool, Dibakar is regularly staring at movies or taking part in video games. He’s a extensive Christopher Nolan fan and a stable proponent of the theater abilities. In gaming, he has sunk a range of of hours into Insomniac’s Spider-Man sequence, Returnal, Prototype, Darksiders, and Final Fantasy titles.
Are you drained of Arch-based fully mostly distros that are just reskins with somewhat assorted device defaults? Are you buying for a distro that actually tackles a real wretchedness point the frequent person can’t solve on their very dangle? Properly, listed below are three Arch distros that essentially solve real issues.
There are a range of of Linux distributions in the market, however most of them don’t appear to be doing one thing radically assorted. They’re either changing the default test or tweaking device configurations that, truthfully, that you would be in a position to per chance also space up your self in an hour. What’s uncommon is a distro that solves an anguish you essentially can not fix for your dangle—one that brings one thing architecturally fresh to the table. These three Arch-based fully mostly distros attach exactly that.
ObsidianOS: Arch made stable with “optional” immutability and atomicity
Arch’s rolling release model skill you are repeatedly on the bleeding edge—which is monumental for getting easy earn admission to to the most novel functions, however vulgar when a trojan horse finally ends up breaking your device. Newer Arch-made-easy distros like Garuda Linux variety out this with Btrfs snapshots. It robotically creates restore aspects so that that you would be in a position to per chance roll support to a beforehand working assert. It works, however it absolutely makes the file device overly advanced.
This is where ObsidianOS comes in with its unfamiliar solution to the downside—A/B partitioning. Moderately than growing device snapshots, the distro maintains two root partitions. Updates are written to the slothful partition while you continue using the active one. If the update works, you swap over. If it would not, you merely reboot into the partition you by no means touched. That you would be in a position to per chance per chance handle both partitions either by using the obsidianctl CLI tool or the ObsidianOS Shield watch over Center, at the same time as you desire a graphical app. Furthermore, the distro uses the proper EXT4 file device—which has many years of proven reliability in the support of it.
The most fundamental downside with this way is bundle persistence. For instance you set up Spotify on partition A, which you utilize on on each day foundation foundation. This suggests the bundle isn’t repeat in partition B. So at the same time as you swap to partition B after an update—or for any motive—Spotify won’t be repeat. Now, the most novel workaround is manually syncing both partitions before updating, to remain faraway from this anguish. It isn’t neat, however a straightforward bash script can automate this process.
The developers are engaged on OPM (ObsidianOS Bundle Supervisor), that installs apps as overlay pictures on high of the foundation filesystem. This suggests purposes persist despite which partition you are booted into, making the total abilities a long way extra seamless. It is smooth experimental on the time of writing, however I tested a couple of apps attach in by technique of OPM, and it really works reasonably well.
On the opposite hand, the larger voice right here is that this A/B device naturally enables immutability and atomicity—the same to Fedora Silverblue—however as optional functions. As an illustration, at the same time as you simplest set up purposes by technique of OPM overlays, you are by no means writing straight to the foundation partition, conserving it successfully read-simplest, i.e., immutable. Likewise, at the same time as you repeatedly update to the slothful partition before switching, updates either fully prevail or they attach not practice at all—making the distro atomic.
Connected
BlendOS: The entire lot all over the build all precise now
One of the important finest causes of us gravitate in direction of Arch is the Arch User Repository (AUR)—a community-driven repository with tens of hundreds of purposes. It is impressive, however it absolutely’s not exhaustive. Furthermore, it has a real malware downside that requires you to attach your due diligence before placing in one thing.
This is where BlendOS comes in. It’s based fully totally on Arch, and provides you earn admission to to the AUR, however also bundles in every most fundamental distro repository precise now—Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, and CentOS Circulate. And if that smooth isn’t sufficient for you, there’s Flatpak back out of the box. In be conscious, this implies almost every Linux app in existence is in the present day accessible to you from a single device.
Waydroid will most probably be in-constructed, giving you Android app back out of the box. On the opposite hand, the actual app performance is smooth reasonably tough. This is an anguish with Android emulation on Linux, and never of the distro.
What makes this essentially purposeful beyond just raw availability is that the connected app will most probably be better on one repo than one other. Firefox on Debian, to illustrate, is rock-stable and stable. Firefox on Arch is lowering-edge. With BlendOS, you earn to originate that call based fully totally on what actually matters to your workflow.
Below the hood, right here’s all powered by Podman containers. You’re in actuality spinning up a container for whichever distro you need, and placing in apps using that distro’s native bundle supervisor. The syntax is trim: one thing like appropriate.debian set up vlc will set up VLC media player from the Debian repository using the APT bundle supervisor. Additionally, any app you set up from any container reveals up on your traditional app menu like a local utility.
The final device sits on an immutable,
