Fedora Atomic · KDE Plasma · Built for work

A practical KDE workstation for technical work.

KompassOS builds on Aurora and adds the tools, hardware support and sensible defaults used by developers, system administrators and network engineers.

Download an ISO See what's included
KompassOS Desktop

Core Features

KDE Plasma

A focused KDE environment built on the Aurora Developer Experience image.

Atomic updates

Background image updates with previous deployments available for rollback.

Practical security

Keeper Password Manager, hardened SSH port handling and the OpenSnitch application firewall.

Three hardware builds

Standard HWE, NVIDIA and Microsoft Surface images maintained from one shared configuration.

Development Tools

Network Tools

  • nmap for network discovery
  • net-snmp-utils for monitoring
  • telnet for connectivity
  • screen for terminal sessions
  • OpenSnitch application firewall

Virtualization

  • libvirt-devel for Vagrant
  • virt-manager for VM management
  • KVM and QEMU support
  • Podman Desktop included
  • Waydroid for Android compatibility

Development Environment

  • Visual Studio Code pre-installed
  • Tilix & WezTerm terminals
  • fish, zsh and powershell shells available
  • DevToolbox & DevPod included
  • Distrobox and Homebrew support

System Improvements

  • Custom Plymouth theme
  • Plasma Login Manager compatibility safeguards
  • Electron apps Wayland fix
  • rpm-ostree base system

Pre-installed Applications

Communication & Business

  • Google Chrome
  • Thunderbird
  • Zoom conferencing
  • Ferdium messaging hub
  • Citrix Workspace

System Management

  • Flatseal permissions manager
  • DistroShelf
  • Warehouse
  • MissionCenter

Remote & Peripherals

  • Input Leap (KVM switch)
  • KTailctl (Tailscale)
  • Solaar (Logitech)

Utilities

  • DejaDup & Vorta backup
  • Fedora MediaWriter
  • Skanpage scanner
  • FontDownloader & Embellish

Specialized Hardware Support

While Universal Blue announced they're discontinuing HWE (Hardware Enablement) images for ASUS and Surface devices from Fedora 43 onwards, KompassOS continues providing dedicated support for these specialized hardware platforms.

Surface Devices

KompassOS uses the linux-surface kernel to provide optimal support for Microsoft Surface devices, including:

  • Surface Aggregator Module (SAM) for keyboard/touchpad
  • Touch and pen input processing
  • Camera support with Intel ISP processing
  • Complete device compatibility matrix
  • Custom libwacom-surface build for Fedora 44 (needed for the Surface Pen), hosted on our mirror while the upstream issue is unresolved

Supported: Surface Book (1-3), Surface Pro (1,3-10), Surface Laptop series, Surface Go (1-3), Surface Studio

Intel IPU6 Camera (Dell)

KompassOS includes a fix for the Intel IPU6 MIPI camera found in many Dell laptops, using the FOSS libcamera stack via WirePlumber:

  • Enables libcamera support for Dell XPS, Latitude and Precision
  • Configures WirePlumber, Firefox and Chrome
  • USB webcams remain functional

Activate with: ujust enable-webcam

Android Phone as Webcam

Use your Android phone camera as a high-quality virtual webcam, even when your phone's OS lacks the native USB webcam mode (e.g. /e/OS or LineageOS). Powered by scrcpy and v4l2loopback:

  • Guided setup: ADB instructions, camera selection (front or back)
  • Works in Teams, Zoom, Firefox and OBS via PipeWire
  • Fully reversible with ujust disable-phone-webcam
  • Android only - video stream, no audio

Activate with: ujust enable-phone-webcam

Sources & References

Universal Blue HWE Deprecation Notice Aurora July Status Update Linux Surface Project Surface Feature Matrix Upstream libwacom-surface / Fedora 44 Issue

On-Demand Installation

KompassOS includes ready-to-use ujust commands that let you install additional software and configure your system with a single command. Use ujust --choose for an easy interactive menu to browse and select available commands.

Developer Tools

  • ujust install-claude-code
  • ujust install-codex-cli
  • ujust install-gemini-cli
  • ujust install-copilot-cli
  • ujust install-vagrant

Networking

  • ujust setup-bridge
  • ujust remove-bridge
  • ujust bridge-status

Hardware & System

  • ujust install-cups-canon
  • ujust generate-iso-kompassos-dx-hwe
  • ujust enable-webcam
  • ujust enable-phone-webcam

Get Started with KompassOS

Choose your build: HWE for standard hardware (including older NVIDIA cards), NVIDIA-optimized for RTX-Series/GTX 16xx graphics cards, or Surface-optimized for Microsoft Surface devices.

Download HWE Build For standard hardware or VMs
Checksum Updated: 20-03-2026
Download NVIDIA Build For RTX-Series/GTX 16xx only
Checksum Updated: 20-03-2026
Download Surface Build For Microsoft Surface devices
Checksum Updated: 20-03-2026

Internet Connection

For the best out-of-the-box experience, it's important to properly configure your internet connection during the installation.

If you had no internet during setup, connect first and then run this command to install all Flatpaks:

ujust install-kompassos-flatpaks

Secure Boot Information

If your hardware has secure boot enabled then enroll Universal Blue's secure boot key during the installation process by selecting "Enroll MOK" when prompted.

The secure boot password is: universalblue

Installation note: “Root Account” should stay disabled.