I tried AnduinOS 2.0, and it may be the easiest way to ditch Windows for Linux

ZDNET's key takeaways

AnduinOS 2.0 beta is available, and it's something special.

This desktop distribution is fast, clean, and private.

You can download and test the latest release now.

"Today, AIURSOFT Limited is thrilled to announce the beta release of AnduinOS 2.0.0. This is not just another system update; it is a fundamental, ground-up architectural rewrite of our entire operating system."

That's the opening to the announcement about AnduinOS 2.0. It continues to say, "Listening closely to community feedback regarding maintainability and package management, we have completely reimagined how AnduinOS is built, distributed, and maintained."

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Essentially, AIURSOFT Limited is leaving behind the era of 'remastering' and moving into the era of true distro engineering.

What does that even mean? Well, to begin, AnduinOS is now assembled within a pristine, sandboxed debootstrap and chroot pipeline. Again, what does that mean? AnduinOS now uses a proprietary, XML-based declarative domain-specific language and an automated compilation toolchain that makes the AnduinOS core modularized into 56 standalone, native .deb packages. In the end, that makes for a more stable, predictable, and reproducible operating system.

More importantly, AnduinOS now enforces a strict "hard-fail" policy, such that if any unwanted Ubuntu packages are detected during the build, the ISO generation is aborted. By doing this, you can be certain that the AnduinOS ISO you've downloaded is pristine and fundamentally respects your privacy.

AnduinOS 2.0 is really good

Now, here's the important part of AnduinOS 2.0 -- it's really good. Yes, it's laid out like Windows 11 (which is great for some users, but I prefer a much more Linux-like desktop), it's remarkably stable for an early release (beta), it ships with zero bloatware, it doesn't track you at all, and it will make you feel right at home at first login.

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As for default apps, you get Firefox, a text editor, GNOME Software, a music player, a video player, and a few utilities. That's it. Of course, you can install anything you need from within the Software app, including Flatpak apps, which are enabled out of the box, so there's no need to be concerned about having enough software.

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And it's fast

What really struck me, beyond the privacy and the stability, is the speed. AnduinOS 2.0 is fast. Click an app, and it immediately opens. I've grown accustomed to Linux desktop distributions being zippy (whether they are of the lightweight type or not), but AnduinOS is surprisingly sprightly, especially for a beta release.

I can't say if this is because of the new approach to crafting releases, but I can't help but think that the new take on remastering has something to do with the speed. This also happens to be a tweaked GNOME desktop, which means it benefits from the speed the GNOME developers have injected into the desktop. Even the file indexing is lightning-quick. I created a file named zdnettest.txt from within the file manager, opened the desktop menu, typed zdnet, and the file immediately popped up, allowing me to open it. I've experienced this kind of indexing speed on KDE Plasma, but not GNOME.

GNOME has finally caught up to KDE Plasma on the indexing front. I did a quick test on GNOME via the latest release of Fedora, and file search was just as fast. As for version, AnduinOS 2.0 ships with GNOME 50, but when comparing the speed of AnduinOS 2.0 versus GNOME on Fedora 44, AnduinOS 2.0 gets the edge. The difference between the two could be the default kernel. Whereas Fedora 44 uses kernel 6.19, AnduinOS 2.0 uses kernel 7.0.

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If I had to guess, the speed comes from all of the above, and I'm thrilled to see it. Also, I'm glad to see AnduinOS take the GNOME desktop and make it more user-friendly. That's not to say I mind the default GNOME layout, but for those who aren't familiar with the way of the Linux desktop, vanilla GNOME can be a bit confusing.

To make this happen, AnduinOS adds several GNOME extensions, such as Accent GTK Theme, ArcMenu, Blur My Shell, Clipboard Indicator, Dash to Panel, Notification Bottom Right, Removable Drive Menu, Tiling Assistant, and more.

All of this comes together to make a pretty special release of AnduinOS.

Who is AnduinOS 2.0 for?

When I reviewed the previous AnduinOS release, I said it made it easy to transition from Windows to Linux.

On the outside, AnduinOS 2.0 doesn't change much on that front. If you're looking to transition from Windows to Linux, you could do a lot worse than AnduinOS, and version 2.0 ups the ante with plenty of speed and polish. On top of that, the new approach the developers are taking for the building of ISOs means that you can trust the release even more -- and that's saying something (given that this is Linux).

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For those who are looking for an Ubuntu-based Linux distribution that guarantees not to track you in any way and that offers guaranteed ISO builds of a user-friendly Linux desktop distribution, AnduinOS is hard to beat.

Download an ISO of AnduinOS 2.0 beta, use it to create a live USB drive, boot it, install it, and experience next-level Linux.