Our distro is optimized for performance on real hardware. Installing in virtual machines is not recommended as it might result in a bad experience!
We sacrifice extra RAM to improve the responsiveness of the system.
We believe in the principle "unused RAM is wasted RAM".
We recommend using Balena Etcher to create a bootable USB stick. You can use dd or its frontends (Mintstick, Popsicle, Imagewriter, Mediawriter) on Linux. Do not use Rufus to flash the iso.
We do not recommend usage of Snap or Flatpack for software installation.
Live session login details
Username: garuda
Password: garuda
Downloads
Garuda KDE Dr460nized
The dr460nized editions of Garuda Linux offer a dark, blurry and fully immersive Plasma experience. The workflow is mac-alike with the appmenu baked right into the top bar. 🐉
KDE Plasma is made to stay out of the way as it helps you getting things done. Under its light and intuitive surface it is a powerhouse. You are free to choose ways of usage right as you need them and when you need them.
KDE Multimedia edition is made for having all the right tools needed to get started on Linux, out of the box.
Xfce is a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. It aims to be fast and low on system resources, while still being visually appealing and user friendly.
Xfce is well known for being a rock-solid & stable desktop environment.
LXQt is a lightweight Qt desktop environment that does not get in your way. Its focus lays on being a lightweight, lagfree desktop with modern look and feel. For LXQt, we recommend at least 2GB of RAM.
The MATE Desktop Environment is the continuation of GNOME 2. It provides an intuitive and attractive desktop environment using traditional metaphors for Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. MATE is under active development to add support for new technologies while preserving a traditional desktop experience.
Wayfire is a 3D Wayland compositor inspired by Compiz and based on wlroots. It aims to create a customizable, extendable and lightweight environment without sacrificing its appearance.
Qtile is a dynamic extensible window manager which is easy to customize. Garuda Qtile uses jgmenu which makes it very easy and convenient to launch applications without remembering key bindings.
BSPWM is a tiling window manager that represents windows as the leaves of a full binary tree. It only responds to X events and the messages it receives on a dedicated socket.
i3-wm is a lightweight window manager that is operated exclusively with the keyboard. Our version has a simple and easy configuration with LXappearance to handle GTK themes. We do ship the configuration with an easy cheat sheet to get you started. Due to its light resources, it has a really small memory footprint.
RecBox is an OpenBox config focused on audio recording and daily usage. There are major differences between distributions designed for daily usage and "Studio" ones. It's possible to use them as daily driver but it's not necessarily comfortable when you want to use full potential of Linux as a system for audio engineering. RecBox is an attempt to merge both worlds.
Garuda Linux Barebones is made for users who do not want extra software and functionalities and complain about bloat. It contains only the bare minimum of packages needed to get started. (You are on your own, we dont provide any support for Barebones editions!)