linuxlive is young. Everything below is known; there is no need to report it again, though an issue with new details is always welcome at github.com/Eric-Ness/linuxlive/issues.
| Limit |
What it means for you |
| The installer erases a whole disk |
Install puts your distro on one disk and erases everything on it. No dual boot, no choice of partitions, no disk encryption. See Installing. |
| Fedora-based installs need the internet |
They download the system image the build published (about 3 GB). A build that did not publish its image cannot install. Ubuntu-based distros install offline. |
| Build it for me makes Fedora live only |
Fedora-based builds from linuxlive.com’s own builder have no installable image. Build in your GitHub to install one. |
| The installer is tested in QEMU only |
Every build installs the distro in a virtual machine and starts the installed disk. It has not been tested on real hardware. |
| The Install label is not translated |
The Install name launcher is in English, whatever language the distro is set to. |
| Limit |
What it means for you |
| Persistence is Ubuntu-only |
Fedora’s live boot keeps changes only on a partition that something has made on the stick beforehand, and nothing does that for a written ISO. Fedora-based distros forget everything at shutdown. |
| Persistence needs a real stick |
A virtual machine starting from the ISO file has nowhere to save. See Booting in VirtualBox. |
| No kernel choice |
Each base brings its own kernel, and hardware support is what that kernel provides. |
| Cinnamon has no accent colour |
Its theme fixes the colours. |
| Big ISOs |
About 3 GB on Ubuntu and 4.5 GB on Fedora. The TestOS Fedora example (4.45 GiB) does not fit on a single-layer DVD (4.7 GB): use a USB stick. |
| A large initramfs on Fedora |
About 265 MB, because one image serves both live and installed starts. Boots take a little longer to load. |
| Limit |
What it means for you |
| For virtual machines only |
The ARM ISO is for UTM, Parallels or VMware Fusion on Apple-silicon Macs. Macs with Apple silicon cannot start any linuxlive ISO from a USB stick. |
| No real Mac test |
ARM ISOs are boot-tested in emulated QEMU. None has been tried on an Apple-silicon Mac yet. |
| UEFI only, and slow to build |
ARM has no BIOS. Its boot tests run emulated, so an ARM build takes much longer than a PC one. |
| Apps must exist for ARM |
Every app must be built for ARM64 on Flathub. The Workshop and the spec check say which are not. |
| Where |
Status |
| Real hardware |
Every build boots in QEMU. No linuxlive ISO has been tested on real hardware yet. Reports are very welcome. |
| Secure Boot on real PCs |
It works with Secure Boot firmware in QEMU, using each base’s signed boot chain. See Secure Boot. |
| VirtualBox |
Only the TestOS Ubuntu example has been tried in VirtualBox. |
| GNOME on Fedora, KDE on Ubuntu |
These compile and are covered by linuxlive’s unit tests, but CI does not build or boot them. CI boots GNOME on Ubuntu, KDE on Fedora, and Cinnamon on both. |
| Ventoy and other writers that unpack the ISO |
linuxlive’s USB tests write the image byte for byte. See USB stick. |
| Problem |
Affects |
Harm |
| An occasional SELinux denial early in the boot: systemd reading a socket opened before the security policy loaded. It appeared in 3 of 7 green Fedora KDE runs up to 2026-10-11, and in one boot of six kept Fedora Cinnamon runs. |
Fedora |
None seen. It looks like a harmless race, but that is not confirmed. The build does not fail on it. |
plymouth-start.service was reported failed once, and not in the runs since. The cause is not known. |
Fedora Cinnamon |
None seen. A build now fails if it comes back. |
| On Ubuntu with GNOME, nothing accent-coloured is on screen in the test screenshots. |
Ubuntu, GNOME |
The accent colour is only checked in the built configuration, not on screen. |
| downloads.linuxlive.com now and then ignores a request to resume a download (about one request in five) and sends the whole ISO again. |
Library and Build it for me downloads |
Downloads work, but a resumed download may start over. |
| The boot splash shows as a text screen with the distro’s name where early graphics are not available, or with safe graphics. |
Some computers and virtual machines |
Cosmetic. |
| Limit |
What it means for you |
| Build it for me downloads last 30 days |
Then they are deleted. To keep a distro, build it in your GitHub. |
| GitHub keeps an ISO 7 days by default |
Set iso-retention-days to change it, or save the ISO somewhere of your own. Test results are kept 14 days. See GitHub Actions. |
| Build it for me builds no code |
Distros with scripts or GitHub repos of their own are built only in your GitHub. |
| The Workshop holds one script of each kind |
A spec with more is edited by hand. Through the Workshop a distro can carry at most 16 files of its own. |
