Changelog

Reachable

• apt works on installed systems again. Every Shadowfetch install up to 2.0.0 finished by overwriting its own /etc/apt/sources.list with Debian's stock template, which names the stable suite and only the main and non-free-firmware components. Shadowfetch tracks Debian testing, so installed machines ended up running a testing userland pointed at a stable archive: installing a small package could propose removing large parts of the preinstalled creative stack, and later became impossible outright. Dropping contrib and non-free also left the NVIDIA packages with no upgrade path. The installer now derives the suite, mirror and components from the image it is installing, verifies what it wrote, and refuses to finish rather than hand over a system pointed at the wrong archive.
• The on-device AI tools are reachable from the menu. The AI Agent Setup Guide entry pointed at a documentation file that shipped compressed, so clicking it did nothing at all. Pick a Local AI Model carried a flag that hides an entry from graphical menus, so it never appeared. And the seven AI applications were scattered across Utility, System, Network and Development with nothing grouping them. They now sit together under a Local AI heading, and both broken entries work. Reviewers had concluded on camera that the AI features did not exist; they shipped, and were unreachable.
• Virtual machines get a working desktop. spice-vdagent, qemu-guest-agent and open-vm-tools now ship, so a guest can negotiate its resolution and share a clipboard with the host under QEMU, SPICE and VMware instead of being stuck at a fixed size. VirtualBox still needs Oracle's Guest Additions, which Debian does not package. All of these are inert on bare metal.
• The installer tells the truth about itself. Calamares reported the version from a file that had to be edited by hand and had fallen behind before — a 1.8.1 image greeted users as 1.8.0. The version is now derived from the system's own version file at build time and the build fails if the two disagree. The requirements check also matches the published hardware page at 40 GB and 4 GB of RAM instead of 15 GB and 1 GB, and warns rather than blocking, so a smaller disk is a decision rather than a surprise.
• The live account is removed with proof, not hope. The step that deletes the live session's shadow account suppressed every error and always reported success, so a failure would have handed over an installed machine carrying a published password and passwordless sudo. Measured on a real 2.0.0 install the removal did work, so shipped systems were not affected, but the check now verifies all five artefacts including the password hash and stops the install if any survive.

Bedrock

• Boot straight into a working snapshot. Fresh installs lay out Btrfs with a dedicated @snapshots subvolume, and Shadowfetch takes an automatic snapshot before every apt transaction. If an update goes wrong, pick the previous snapshot straight from the GRUB menu — grub-btrfs lists them at boot — and you are back on a known-good system without reaching for a live USB.
• A redesigned, agentic Welcome assistant. First boot now opens a rebuilt Welcome that runs setup as a guided assistant: role presets, graphics and local-AI setup, and app choices, with clearer language and a crisper layout.
• A crisp graphics and brand refresh. New Umbra wallpapers, a redrawn Plymouth boot splash, and matching GRUB and SDDM themes carry one gold-on-graphite identity from power-on to desktop, anchored by a new vector Shadowfetch emblem that stays sharp at every size.
• Deeper privacy and security hardening. Tighter sysctl and kernel defaults, a reviewed UFW policy, MAC-address randomization, and a smaller default attack surface build on Debian’s existing security flow.
• Published source and a written license offer. Shadowfetch’s own components are released under GPL-3.0-or-later, and the corresponding source is published in the source component of the signed APT repository. See Licensing & source for the full written offer.
• Trust anchor and support, out in the open. The release-signing key fingerprint 8F13CE1535EE1F4A2916A1F73C5C900B7BE80CA1 is now also fetchable from the keys.openpgp.org and keyserver.ubuntu.com keyservers. Bug reports have a real destination — the issue tracker or support@shadowfetch.com — and the /linux/apt repository index no longer 404s on a trailing slash.

Command Center

• One calm place to manage the system. The new Shadowfetch Control Center brings safe updates, system health, first-run setup, graphics, snapshots, recovery, and agent tooling together without burying people in settings panels.
• Updates with a safety net. Safe Update checks power, disk space, network reachability, package locks and package consistency first, creates Btrfs pre/post snapshots when available, logs the complete run, and finishes with a health report.
• Agent Studio. Create private workspaces with operating rules, active tasks, durable memory, a work journal, artifacts, logs and scratch space. Hermes users can create a matching isolated profile pointed at that workspace.
• More capable without being reckless. Guided browser automation and container-sandbox setup for Hermes and OpenClaw, plus checks for exposed dashboards, model servers and overly broad credential permissions. Large browser runtimes remain opt-in so the ISO stays lean.
• Diagnostics people and agents can both read. System Health provides a clear terminal report or structured JSON covering storage, memory, load, failed services, package state, update access and agent readiness.
• Safer browser migration. A new assistant validates bookmark HTML and password CSV exports, copies them into a private staging folder, and gives a Flatpak browser temporary read-only access only to that folder.
• Local AI without the model maze. The recommended path now installs one model suited to the computer and sets up the local web chat by default. The wider model catalog is still available as an explicitly advanced choice.
• Validated on the Linux build host. Package, live-boot, feature, CPU, memory, filesystem and random-I/O tests are run against the release image before publication.

Setup + Agent Refresh

• Full system refresh. Rebuilt against the current Debian testing archive with the 1.8.1 package set published in the Shadowfetch APT repo: desktop, creative base, NVIDIA helper, welcome app, themes, defaults, and branding.
• A smoother first setup. The welcome wizard now includes role presets for Creative, Developer, Gaming, Office, Local AI, and Maker workflows, with clearer app choices and a larger, crisper layout.
• Hermes and OpenClaw brought current. The launchers now update existing installs, provision missing user-local dependencies, open setup/onboarding in a terminal when launched from the desktop, and keep the agent paths ready for local Ollama workflows.
• Stress-tested before release. The ISO passed a KVM boot and mixed CPU, memory, filesystem, and random disk I/O stress test with no failed services after the run.

Ready on First Boot

• The apps a new user reaches for first, already installed. LibreOffice (documents, spreadsheets, slides), Thunderbird (email and calendar), kamoso (webcam photos and video), and ISO Image Writer (make your next bootable USB straight from the desktop) now ship on the live image — no first-run download, no hunting through a store.
• A Shadowfetch identity on the desktop. A new Shadowfetch emblem wallpaper sets the default desktop, so the gold-on-graphite Umbra look now carries all the way from GRUB and the boot splash through login to a branded desktop.
• Signed, and the signature matches. The release is GPG-signed with the Shadowfetch key, and the published SHA-256 is the checksum of the exact ISO that was built — verify it yourself in a couple of commands before installing.
• Latest Debian packages. Rebuilt against the current Debian testing archive, so the base system, KDE Plasma 6 and the creative stack all come up to date.

Agent Ready

• Run a real AI agent on your own machine. Explicit choice of Hermes (Nous Research's self-improving agent) or OpenClaw, each set up in a single command — from a new shadowfetch-agents front door, the AI Agents — Get Started menu entry, or the first-run welcome wizard.
• An agent setup guide, in the OS and on the web. A full walkthrough ships at /usr/share/doc/shadowfetch/AGENTS.md and at shadowfetch.com/linux/agents, covering Hermes, OpenClaw, and running everything 100% locally through Ollama.
• Agent-ready out of the box. Node.js, Python 3.13, git, ripgrep, ffmpeg and pipx are pre-installed so agents install fast. OpenClaw needs Node 22, which Debian doesn't ship — so its helper provisions Node 22 into your user account (no root, system Node untouched) and verifies the agent actually starts before launching.
• Stability + debug pass. A broad, adversarially-verified audit fixed a build breakage (dropped wsdd), a "degraded" boot from snapshot cleanup on non-btrfs systems, first-boot Wi-Fi timing, and pinned a locally-installed Ollama to localhost via a shipped systemd drop-in. Install-tested on both UEFI and BIOS.

• Media, ready on first boot. Haruna video player, Elisa music library, Kasts podcasts, screenshots, CD ripping in the file manager, MKVToolNix and tagging tools join VLC and mpv — with hardware video decoding on by default and every common format correctly associated.
• A visual identity from power-on. Five new premium Umbra wallpapers in 4K and ultrawide with live preview in the welcome app, refreshed boot art so GRUB, the splash screen, login and desktop share one continuous look, and a branded avatar and terminal.
• Quietly more stable. Snapshot cleanup runs automatically, defaults were audited and corrected, and the whole release was install-tested on both UEFI and BIOS before publishing.

• Built for creators and builders. A full creator audio stack now ships out of the box - EasyEffects for live mic cleanup, EQ and noise-suppression, plus the pipewire-jack pro-audio bridge alongside Ardour, Audacity, OBS and Kdenlive.
• A real maker toolbox. A new "Maker & hardware" one-click category adds OrcaSlicer, PrusaSlicer, FreeCAD, KiCad and the Arduino IDE - the full design to slice to print to flash pipeline - and developers gain shellcheck, valgrind, direnv, hyperfine, yq, the docker CLI over podman, OpenSSH, and one-click editors like Zed and Ghostty.
• Smoother and more correct. A full stress-test-and-fix pass: faster boot, a corrected power-management setup, MS-compatible document fonts, and a fixed system identity on installed machines.

• A premium desktop, out of the box. A redesigned floating dock puts your apps — including the creative suite of Krita, GIMP, Calibre and Shotcut — front and centre, alongside refined window styling, smoother, tasteful animations and crisp Inter typography throughout.
• A calmer, designed look. A new Umbra wallpaper — deep graphite with a soft gold glow — now flows seamlessly from boot splash to login to lock screen to desktop, for one cohesive, high-end feel.
• Polished to match. Flatpak apps now follow the dark theme automatically, a new gold app-menu icon, sharper Wayland defaults, and dozens of small refinements that make the whole system feel considered.

• Game on, out of the box. Built-in gaming tools (GameMode, MangoHud, vkBasalt) give you better frame rates and overlays from the first boot, and the welcome wizard now installs Steam, Heroic, Lutris and ProtonUp-Qt in one click — your whole library, Windows games included, ready to play.
• A richer app catalogue. The first-run app picker is now organised by category with more of what people actually use — Telegram, Element, Zoom, Jellyfin, Plex, Joplin, Cryptomator, DBeaver and more — plus baked-in favourites like btop, Calibre, KeePassXC and a one-click Vorta backup.
• Smarter graphics setup. The one-click GPU helper now recognises brand-new cards and avoids installing a driver that cannot support them yet.

• One-click graphics drivers. A new GPU setup tool detects your card and installs the right driver for you — NVIDIA proprietary or open, with the correct branch, repositories and Secure-Boot handling done automatically. AMD and Intel just work out of the box, with the full Mesa, Vulkan and hardware video-acceleration stack now baked in.
• Wi-Fi that just connects. Much broader wireless firmware (Intel, Realtek, MediaTek, Broadcom, Atheros, Marvell and more) plus fixes for the classic Linux Wi-Fi headaches — no more random drops after suspend, correct regulatory channels, and reliable Bluetooth on combo cards.
• Streamlined onboarding. A single, crisp first-run wizard walks you from Wi-Fi → graphics drivers → look & feel → apps → AI agent in a few clicks.
• Crisp, professional desktop. A refined gold cursor, sharper fonts and sensible “made for work” defaults throughout.

• Installs on everything. The installer now writes a universal boot layout that works on both modern UEFI systems and older legacy-BIOS machines — Shadowfetch sets up cleanly on hardware spanning more than a decade, with the same Btrfs snapshots and one-click rollback on either firmware.
• Hardened partitioning. A dedicated BIOS-boot partition plus a tidy ESP and Btrfs root make the bootloader install rock-solid on both firmware types.

• Snapshots & rollback. Fresh installs now use Btrfs by default and automatically snapshot your system before and after every update. If something breaks, roll back in seconds with the built-in Btrfs Assistant — your desktop is self-healing.
• Pick your AI agent. A dedicated screen on first login lets you install the Hermes or OpenClaw agent — or neither. Reopen it anytime from the menu as “Choose AI Agent”.
• Installer hardening. Rock-solid UEFI boot setup (firmware-agnostic fallback bootloader) and a cleaner, de-duplicated installer welcome screen.

• Local-AI polish. The Hugging Face model picker now checks your free disk space and warns before downloading a model that will not fit, and first-boot setup runs your chosen AI steps in one terminal so Ollama is only ever installed once. Both came straight out of the 1.2.7 release stress test.
• Cleaner first boot. Fixed a harmless but alarming “degraded” status that some fresh installs showed on the very first boot (caused by the background firmware-metadata refresh running before the network was fully ready). Your system now reports a clean “running” state from the start.

• Pick your agent + your model. The first-boot Welcome wizard now lets you choose an AI agent — Hermes (Nous Research) or OpenClaw — and a new hardware-aware picker matches you to a Hugging Face model your machine can actually run: it detects your RAM/GPU, recommends a fitting GGUF, and runs it 100% locally via Ollama. Or paste any Hugging Face repo you like.

• More apps out of the box. The image now bundles everyday tools — mpv, yt-dlp, Syncthing, qBittorrent, PDF Arranger, Node.js, and a font manager — and the first-boot Welcome wizard adds one-click LibreOffice, OnlyOffice, Thunderbird, Blender, and Obsidian.

• Console polish + diagnostics. The text-console login banner now reports the correct version (it had been stuck on an old string), and the image ships stress-ng and fio for built-in stress-testing and disk benchmarking.

• Cleaner first boot. A freshly installed system no longer briefly reports a systemd “degraded” state. The firmware-metadata refresh (fwupd) now waits for real network connectivity before running instead of racing it at boot, so it stops failing on the first-boot network warm-up. Existing systems pick up the same fix via apt upgrade.

• One-click local AI. The first-boot Welcome wizard now sets up Ollama with two curated on-device models — Gemma 3 and Llama 3.2 — in a single click. Everything runs 100% locally and is hardened to localhost.
• Hermes Agent (optional). An opt-in tile installs the Nous Research Hermes Agent after setup, for anyone who wants a local agentic assistant.
• Bundled developer tooling behind the AI on-ramp: python3-pip, python3-venv, and ripgrep.

• Working update channel. Installed systems now fetch Shadowfetch updates from the signed public repo — earlier builds baked in a build-time localhost source that could never reach it, so apt upgrade for Shadowfetch packages now works end to end.
• Security hardening from a full release stress-test: removed a stale passwordless-sudo leftover from the live user, and masked unused standalone VPN/NFS daemons (openvpn / strongSwan / rpcbind) that were listening by default.
• Per-package licensing declared (MIT for Shadowfetch components, LGPL-2.1+ for the Breeze-derived themes); default console keymap set.

• Graphical Calamares installer, fully Shadowfetch-branded — install to disk in minutes.
• Reserved-name safety: the installer rejects system names (e.g. shadow) with a clear message instead of failing mid-install.
• Umbra GRUB theme on both the live ISO and installed systems — gold-on-graphite, emblem, tagline.
• Refreshed first-boot Welcome wizard: gold accent picker, curated Flatpak apps, and one-click local AI setup.
• Clean SDDM login greeter on installed systems; ext4 by default, btrfs + snapshots optional.

• Local AI stack: shadowfetch-ai sets up Ollama + Open-WebUI, 100% on-device, hardened to localhost.
• Additional KDE utilities and quality-of-life tools.

• Private by default: UFW firewall enabled, MAC-address randomization, hardened sysctl and zram.
• First-boot service wires up services, Flathub, and the firewall.
• Quality-of-life fixes driven by community feedback.

• The Umbra visual identity: a gold-on-graphite theme unified across GRUB, boot splash, login, and desktop.

• Initial release of Shadowfetch Linux — KDE Plasma 6 creative workstation on Debian testing.
• Full creative stack: GIMP, Krita, Inkscape, darktable, Ardour, Audacity, Kdenlive, OBS Studio.
• Proprietary NVIDIA driver baked in, auto-removed on non-NVIDIA hardware at first boot.
• PipeWire audio with the full LV2 plugin baseline; APT repo for incremental updates.