DLT OS

Custom Bazzite image based on bazzite-nvidia-open. It adds a preconfigured niri + noctalia minimal setup, providing a default system-wide config, as well as any tools or scripts required to solve any annoying or issues we might find. For example, we include a system-wide tray-launch script to wrap misbehaving spawn-at-startup entries that fail to properly load the tray icon.

DLT in dltos stands for Data Lab Tech, so dltos also provides all the software used for development, infra, and data-related tasks, as seen on the YouTube videos by @DataLabTechTV.

I mostly maintain this image for myself and any viewers who want the same experience of what they see on my videos out-of-the-box. Regardless, if you have any requests, please let me know through the Discussion section.

For more details on how to build your own custom image, please read the documentation provided with the Universal Blue template, which also applies to this image.

Maintenance

Switching

In order to switch to dltos from bazzite-nvidia-open, you can simply run the following command:

sudo bootc switch ghcr.io/datalabtechtv/dltos:stable

Caution

Make sure your system has an NVIDIA GPU, otherwise the image is unlikely to work, due to it being based on bazzite-nvidia-open.

After you reboot, you'll be running dltos, with the default KDE and niri as an additional option. You can switch to niri as the default directly from the SDDM login manager shown on boot.

Upgrading

When you need to update your system, you can either do it with ujust update or rpm-ostree upgrade, as usual, or can simply run:

sudo bootc upgrade

Testing Packages with Distrobox

The bundled dltos distrobox is no longer meant to be used as the main working environment. Instead, it can be used to easily sping up an environment that is consistent with the host OS, so that we can temporarily add features for testing and later integration into the custom bootc image.

For example, let's say you needed to install a CLI tool like bat for testing, before you decide to add it to your fork of DLT OS. You could simply create and enter the dltos distrobox:

distrobox assemble create --file /etc/distrobox/dltos.ini --replace && distrobox enter dltos

And then, once inside the distrobox, install the CLI tool and export it:

sudo dnf5 -y install bat
distrobox-export --bin /usr/bin/bat

Once you exit the distrobox, the binary you just exported will be available on your host, through ~/.local/bin.

If, instead, it's a desktop app you want to test:

sudo dnf5 -y install emacs-pgtk
distrobox-export --app emacs

And you'll find that the desktop application is now listed on your system menu.

If, for some reason, you depend on one of the host's tools inside distrobox, you can simply:

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/distrobox-host-exec /usr/local/bin/podman

The example above will expose the host's podman command through distrobox-host-exec. This way, you might be able to launch containers in the host through the emacs instance running inside the distrobox container.

Testing and Managing User Configs

Any user configs provisioned by systemd-tmpfiles on first login can be modified as usual without being overwritten, but if you want to merge them back to your own fork of DLT OS, then you can use the following just commands to help you out:

just diff-all-user-configs # view global changes in a side-by-side diff
just import-all-user-configs # overview repo's configs with the user versions

This can also be done individually using just diff-<app>-user-configs and just import-<app>-user-configs for the following apps:

• nvim
• gamescope
• konsole
• niri
• zed

The previous configs cover only the settings that are of interest to be and are, by no means, complete, but it should be enough to help you getting started.

For system-level configs under /etc (e.g., zsh, bat, etc.), I recommend that you check the corresponding package's documentation for the user config directory, if you want to test any settings locally. Depending on the package, user configs might extend or overwrite the system-level configs, so there is no general approach here.

Features

• Preconfigured niri out-of-the-box, with the noctalia shell, on the custom bootc image.
• Go, Rust, Python, and Node tooling, providing go, cargo, uv, andnpm, through a bundled distrobox config.
• System-wide tools, installed via dnf5, go install, cargo install, or uv tool install, making it easy to naturally extend, if you need to add to the bundled distrobox config, while keeping your home clean.

The following sections summarize the packages that DLT OS provides out-of-the-box, where Base refers to the custom bootc image, while everything else is shipped as a distrobox config under /etc/distrobox/dltos.ini, which you can use by running the following commands:

distrobox assemble create --file /etc/distrobox/dltos.ini
distrobox enter dltos

Base

For the base system, defined in the custom bootc image, we add niri and noctalia-shell, alongside a few utilities. We also remove xwaylandvideobridge, which opens a blank window by default on niri, but seems to be deprecated anyway. This let's us run the xwayland-satellite integration without issues.

Package	Version	Via	Observation
niri	>= 25.11	dnf5	niri compositor
noctalia-shell	>= 4.7.6	dnf5	Noctalia shell (bar and panels).
niri-float-sticky	>= 0.0.8	go	Utility to keep a window visible on all workspaces (installed as a systemd user service).
xdg-desktop-portal-gnome	>=49.0	dnf5	Required for the Screen Capture (PipeWire) feature on OBS.
qt6ct	>=0.11	dnf5	Let's you pick the Qt theme without using KDE utilities.
wev	>=1.1.0	dnf5	Keyboard and mouse event debugging utility.
wlsunset	>=0.4.0	dnf5	Used for Noctalia's Night Light feature.
cava	>=0.10.2	dnf5	Used for Noctalia's audio visualizers.
playerctl	>=2.4.1	dnf5	Controls your media player (e.g., Spotify) via preconfigured niri keybinds.

Portals

Here are a few notes about portals. The system will install portal configs by default under /usr/share/xdg-desktop-portal. In DLT OS you'll find niri-portals.conf and kde-portals.conf, preinstalled by KDE and niri, respectively. By default, niri-portals.conf should be used. However, we currently still use kwallet6, and we haven't added gnome-keyring yet, so, for now, we provide a custom config under /etc/xdg/xdg-desktop-portal/niri-portals.conf with the following configs:

[preferred]
default=gnomeorg.freedesktop.impl.portal.Notification=kdeorg.freedesktop.impl.portal.FileChooser=kdeorg.freedesktop.impl.portal.Print=kdeorg.freedesktop.impl.portal.ScreenCast=gnomeorg.freedesktop.impl.portal.Screenshot=gnome

Please also notice that the xdg-desktop-portal-gnome package has been bugged since 2022. When adding multiple capture sources, or re-selecting the window for the source, it will not respond correctly. Follow their #40 issue about this problem.

Qt Theming

We use qt6ct for theming Qt apps on niri. This is provided by an environment config under /etc/environment.d/niri.conf containing:

QT_QPA_PLATFORM=wayland
QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=qt6ct
QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME_QT6=qt6ct

Make sure to run the following command the logout afterward:

systemctl --user daemon-reexec

Languages

Package	Version	Via	Observation
golang	>=1.25.8	dnf5	Used to install system-wide tools under /usr/bin.
cargo	>=1.93.1	dnf5	Used to install system-wide tools under /usr/bin.
uv	>=0.10.9	dnf5	Used to install system-wide tools under /usr/share/uv/tools, symlinked to /usr/bin. Defaults to python >=3.14.3, which is the system default.
node-npm	>=10.9.4	dnf5	Depends on node >=22.22.0, which is installed as a dependency. Let me know if you need pnpm or other node tooling that we currently don't include.
just-lsp	>=0.4.0	dnf5	Language server for your justfile.
gopls	>=0.21.1	dnf5	Language server for Go code.
golangci-lint	>=2.11.3	dnf5	Can be integrated with pre-commit for Go code linting.
shfmt	>=3.13.0	dnf5	Can be used with your editor to format shell scripts.

Shell

Package	Version	Via	Observation
kitty	>=0.43.1	dnf5	GPU-accelerated terminal emulator. Highly customizable.
zsh	>=5.9	dnf5	The Z shell is now the default shell for DLT OS.
starfish	>=1.24.2	dnf5	Cross-shell prompt, with good defaults. Requires atim/starship COPR.
chezmoi	>=2.70	dnf5	Used to manage dotfiles. Take a look at the DataLabTechTV/dotfiles repo for an example and instructions on how to use.
direnv	>=2.35	dnf5	Utility to automatically load and unload .envrc or .env files per directory.
zoxide	>=0.9.8	dnf5	Useful cd replacement, with fuzzy matching and filtering.
bat (batcat)	>=0.25.0	dnf5	Replacement for cat with syntax highlighting and pager by default. You can also use it to improve readability for help messages (e.g., cat --help | bat -l help) or man pages (e.g., man cat | bat -l man).
rg (ripgrep)	>=14.1.1	dnf5	Recursive grep alternative. Generally more efficiency than grep -r.
fd (fd-find)	>=10.4.2	dnf5	User-friendly find command. Good for quick file searching, but you might still prefer find, depending on the task.
eza	>=0.23.4	cargo	Beautified version of ls, with features like icons or tree listing.
ncdu	>=2.9.2	dnf5	Utility for recursively measuring storage, identifying largest directories. Useful for large file system cleanup.
prettyping	>=1.1.0	dnf5	Utility ping script useful for visually monitoring packet loss.

Network

Package	Version	Via	Observation
rclone	>=1.73.0	dnf5	This is like the rsync for cloud storage. It can connect to wherever, from S3 to Dropbox.
iperf3	>=3.19.1	dnf5	Useful to measure network bandwidth and performance.
mkcert	>=1.4.4	dnf5	Easily run your local CA to issue certificates.
nc	>=7.92	dnf5	Swiss army knife for network communication.
nmap	>=7.92	dnf5	Port mapping software.
mc	dev	go	MinIO command line client.
s5cmd	dev	go	Another S3 client.
warp	dev	go	Benchmark software for S3 object stores, by MinIO.
httpie	>=3.2.4	uv	Command line REST API request tool. We include support for SigV4.

Graphics

Package	Version	Via	Observation
ImageMagick-heic	>=7.1.1.47	dnf5	ImageMagick support for HEIC format.
libheif-freeworld	>=1.20.2	dnf5	Only available on the rpmfusion-free repo. Adds support for Apple's HEIC format.
rembg[gpu,cli]	>=2.0.73	uv	AI tool to remove the background from photos.

Dev

Package	Version	Via	Observation
pre-commit	>=4.5.1	dnf5	Useful to run linters and formatters before git commit.
cloc	>=2.08	dnf5	Counts lines of code, so you can get some stats for your codebase.
delta (git-delta)	>=0.18.2	dnf5	A better diff for the CLI, with side-by-side support.
nvim (neovim)	>=0.11.6	dnf5	Replaces vim-minimal. Set as the default alternative for vim (i.e., vim command will run nvim).
lazygit	>=0.60.0	dnf5	Requires the dejan/lazygit COPR.
hugo	>=0.111.3	go	This is pinned to an older version that works with the blowfish theme.

Containers

Package	Version	Via	Observation
docker (docker-cli)	>=29.3.0	dnf5	Uses the user's Podman by default, via the corresponding socket, via the provided script.
docker-compose(docker-compose-switch)	>=5.1.0	dnf5	The docker-compose package is deprecated. This isn't a command to switch compose versions, but a new package they are switching to. Uses the user's Podman by default, via the corresponding socket, via the provided script.
lazydocker	>=0.25.0	go	TUI for docker.
cosign	>=3.0.5	go	Used to sign container images, like this one.

AI

Package	Version	Via	Observation
ramalama	>=0.21.0	uv	To run your LLM models and coding agents locally in a sandbox.

Data

Package	Version	Via	Observation
sqlite3		dnf5	Embedded SQL database, with support for WAL.
duckdb		Official Archive	Embedded SQL database, that works as a data lakehouse, supporting ETL and analytics locally.
mlr (miller)		dnf5	CSV query tool.
yq	>=4.47.1	dnf5	YAML query tool similar to what jq is for JSON.
gnuplot		dnf5	Command line plotting tool, with multiple charting options, that produce images.
termgraph		uv	Command line plotting tool, that produces charts directly in the terminal.
visidata		uv	TUI for data exploration.

Validations

We also include a validations script, where, at this point, we only validate the /etc/niri/config.kdl file.

Acknowledgements

A big thanks to the helpful people at the Universal Blue Discord server, who promptly answered my questions on building a custom image of Bazzite.