About - Calamares

<!doctype html>  <html lang="en" class="no-js"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>About - Calamares</title> <meta name="description" content="The idea of Calamares arose from a desire of several independent Linux distributions to come together and work on a shared system installer. Instead of everyone working on their own implementation and forking forks of forks, why not work together on something that can be used by many?"> <meta property="og:type" content="website"> <meta property="og:locale" content="en_US"> <meta property="og:site_name" content="Calamares"> <meta property="og:title" content="About"> <meta property="og:url" content="https://calamares.io/about/"> <meta property="og:description" content="The idea of Calamares arose from a desire of several independent Linux distributions to come together and work on a shared system installer. Instead of everyone working on their own implementation and forking forks of forks, why not work together on something that can be used by many?"> <meta property="og:image" content="https://calamares.io/images/banner.webp"> <link rel="canonical" href="https://calamares.io/about/"> <script type="application/ld+json"> { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Person", "name": "Calamares", "url": "https://calamares.io/" } </script>  <link href="/feed.xml" type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" title="Calamares Feed">  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"> <script> document.documentElement.className = document.documentElement.className.replace(/\bno-js\b/g, '') + ' js '; </script>  <link rel="stylesheet" href="/assets/css/main.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@fortawesome/fontawesome-free@5/css/all.min.css">     </head> <body class="layout--single"> <nav class="skip-links"> <h2 class="screen-reader-text">Skip links</h2> <ul> <li><a href="#site-nav" class="screen-reader-shortcut">Skip to primary navigation</a></li> <li><a href="#main" class="screen-reader-shortcut">Skip to content</a></li> <li><a href="#footer" class="screen-reader-shortcut">Skip to footer</a></li> </ul> </nav>  <div class="masthead"> <div class="masthead__inner-wrap"> <div class="masthead__menu"> <nav id="site-nav" class="greedy-nav"> <a class="site-logo" href="/"><img src="https://raw.githubusercontent.com/calamares/calamares/calamares/src/branding/default/squid.png" alt=""></a> <a class="site-title" href="/"> Calamares <span class="site-subtitle">The universal installer framework</span> </a> <ul class="visible-links"><li class="masthead__menu-item"> <a href="/news/"><i class='fas fa-newspaper'></i> News</a> </li><li class="masthead__menu-item"> <a href="/about/"><i class='fas fa-sitemap'></i> About</a> </li><li class="masthead__menu-item"> <a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares"><i class='fab fa-github'></i> Code</a> </li><li class="masthead__menu-item"> <a href="/issues/"><i class='fas fa-bug'></i> Issues</a> </li><li class="masthead__menu-item"> <a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/wiki"><i class='fas fa-graduation-cap'></i> Wiki</a> </li><li class="masthead__menu-item"> <a href="/docs/users-guide/"><i class='fas fa-book'></i> Guide</a> </li></ul> <button class="greedy-nav__toggle hidden" type="button"> <span class="visually-hidden">Toggle menu</span> <div class="navicon"></div> </button> <ul class="hidden-links hidden"></ul> </nav> </div> </div> </div> <div class="initial-content"> <div class="page__hero--overlay" style="background-color: #000; background-image: linear-gradient(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)), url('/images/banner.webp');" > <div class="wrapper"> <h1 id="page-title" class="page__title" itemprop="headline"> About </h1> </div> </div> <div id="main" role="main"> <div class="sidebar sticky"> <nav class="nav__list"> <input id="ac-toc" name="accordion-toc" type="checkbox" /> <label for="ac-toc">Toggle menu</label> <ul class="nav__items"> <li> <a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/releases"><span class="nav__sub-title"><i class='fas fa-download fa-2x'></i> Download</span></a> </li> <li> <span class="nav__sub-title"><i class='fas fa-stream fa-2x'></i> Documents</span> <ul> <li><a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/wiki/Deploy-Guide">Deploy Guide</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/blob/calamares/CONTRIBUTING.md#dependencies">Dependencies</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/blob/calamares/src/branding/README.md">Branding</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/blob/calamares/src/modules/README.md">Modules</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares-extensions">Extensions</a></li> </ul> </li> <li> <a href="/team/"><span class="nav__sub-title"><i class='fas fa-users-cog fa-2x'></i> Team</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="https://www.transifex.com/calamares/calamares/"><span class="nav__sub-title"><i class='fas fa-globe fa-2x'></i> Translate</span></a> </li> <li> <a href="https://webchat.kde.org/#/room/%23calamares:kde.org"><span class="nav__sub-title"><i class='fas fa-comments fa-2x'></i> Talk</span></a> </li> </ul> </nav> </div> <article class="page" itemscope itemtype="https://schema.org/CreativeWork"> <meta itemprop="headline" content="About"> <div class="page__inner-wrap"> <section class="page__content" itemprop="text"> <aside class="sidebar__right "> <nav class="toc"> <header><h4 class="nav__title"><i class="fas fa-file-alt"></i> Content</h4></header> <ul class="toc__menu"> <li><a href="#what-is-calamares">What is Calamares</a></li> <li><a href="#what-calamares-is-not">What Calamares is not</a></li> <li><a href="#what-does-calamares-look-like">What does Calamares look like</a></li> <li><a href="#who-develops-calamares">Who develops Calamares</a></li> <li><a href="#who-ships-calamares">Who ships Calamares</a></li> <li><a href="#what-is-calamares-made-of">What is Calamares made of</a></li> <li><a href="#contact-us">Contact us</a></li> </ul> </nav> </aside> <p>The idea of Calamares arose from a desire of several independent Linux distributions to come together and work on a shared system installer. Instead of everyone working on their own implementation and forking forks of forks, why not work together on something that can be used by many?</p> <h2 class="offset" id="what-is-calamares">What is Calamares</h2> <p>Calamares is an installer framework. By design it is very customizable, in order to satisfy a wide variety of needs and use cases.</p> <p>Calamares aims to be easy, usable, beautiful, pragmatic, inclusive and distribution-agnostic.</p> <p>Calamares includes an advanced partitioning feature, with support for both manual and automated partitioning operations. It is the first installer with an automated “Replace Partition” option, which makes it easy to reuse a partition over and over for distribution testing.</p> <p>Got a Linux distribution but no system installer? <a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares" target="_blank">Grab Calamares</a>, mix and match any number of <a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/tree/calamares/src/modules" target="_blank">Calamares modules</a> (or write your own in Python or C++), throw together some <a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/tree/calamares/src/branding" target="_blank">branding</a>, package it up and you are ready to ship! The <a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares-extensions" target="_blank">Calamares extensions</a> repository holds more branding examples and specialized modules.</p> <h2 class="offset" id="what-calamares-is-not">What Calamares is not</h2> <p>Calamares is not an installer for any specific Linux distribution. It is <strong>used</strong> by Manjaro and KaOS and Maui and Netrunner Linux, but it isn’t “the Manjaro installer”. Calamares is an independent product. The Calamares team works closely with Linux distributors to provide the very best experience to their users.</p> <p>Calamares does not aim to be the ultimate “standard” installer of the Linux desktop. Many distributions already have more mature system installer solutions, but some don’t, and that’s where Calamares can be of use. A herd of Arch derivatives uses Calamares, as does a family of Debian and Ubuntu spins, Fedora remixes and openSUSE flavors.</p> <h2 class="offset" id="what-does-calamares-look-like">What does Calamares look like</h2> <p>Since Calamares is designed to be customized, themed and branded by individual distributions, it <a href="/#gallery">can look very different</a> when used by specific distributions. There will be distinct color schemes, welcome graphics, and while-you-wait slideshows. It is very unlikely that you will encounter a “plain” version of Calamares. The source code <strong>does</strong> have a default configuration, which looks like these screenshots:</p> <div class=""> <figure class="third "> <a href="/images/gallery/page-welcome.png" title="Welcome Screen"> <img src="/images/gallery/page-welcome-th.png" alt="Welcome Screen" /> </a> <a href="/images/gallery/page-locale.png" title="Locale Screen"> <img src="/images/gallery/page-locale-th.png" alt="Locale Screen" /> </a> <a href="/images/gallery/page-partition.png" title="Partitioning Screen"> <img src="/images/gallery/page-partition-th.png" alt="Partitioning Screen" /> </a> </figure> </div> <h2 class="offset" id="who-develops-calamares">Who develops Calamares</h2> <p>Calamares is maintained by <a href="/team/">the Calamares team</a>. Most of us are also <a href="https://kde.org" target="_blank">KDE</a> developers, and we have received contributions from BBQLinux, <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/" target="_blank">Fedora</a>, <a href="http://kaosx.us/" target="_blank">KaOS</a>, <a href="http://kubuntu.org" target="_blank">Kubuntu</a>, <a href="http://manjaro.org/" target="_blank">Manjaro</a>, <a href="http://www.maui-project.org/" target="_blank">Maui</a>, <a href="http://www.netrunner.com/" target="_blank">Netrunner</a> and <a href="https://www.openmandriva.org/" target="_blank">OpenMandriva</a> developers as well.</p> <p>We gladly accept contributions from everyone, and we have no exclusive association with any Linux distribution. Calamares is not a KDE project, or a KaOS project, or a Manjaro project, we are just a bunch of people dumping some code on <a href="https://github.com/calamares" target="_blank">GitHub</a>.</p> <h2 class="offset" id="who-ships-calamares">Who ships Calamares</h2> <p>Many Linux distributions are in varying stages of adopting Calamares as their primary system installer.</p> <p>Operating systems that already ship Calamares:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://desktop.aims.ac.za/" target="_blank">AIMS Desktop</a></li> <li><a href="https://archcraft-os.github.io/" target="_blank">Archcraft</a></li> <li><a href="https://archman.org/" target="_blank">Archman Linux</a></li> <li><a href="https://arcolinux.info" target="_blank">ArcoLinux</a></li> <li><a href="https://argentlinux.io" target="_blank">Argent Linux</a></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/Athena-OS/athena-iso" target="_blank">Athena OS</a></li> <li><a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/bluestarlinux/" target="_blank">Bluestar Linux</a></li> <li><a href="https://endeavouros.com/" target="_blank">EndeavourOS</a></li> <li><a href="https://ferenos.weebly.com/" target="_blank">Feren OS</a></li> <li><a href="https://garudalinux.org/" target="_blank">Garuda Linux</a></li> <li><a href="http://geckolinux.github.io/" target="_blank">GeckoLinux</a></li> <li><a href="https://kannolo.sourceforge.io/" target="_blank">Kannolo</a> (Fedora Remix)</li> <li><a href="http://kaosx.us/" target="_blank">KaOS</a></li> <li><a href="https://neon.kde.org/" target="_blank">KDE Neon</a></li> <li><a href="http://lubuntu.me/" target="_blank">Lubuntu</a></li> <li><a href="http://manjaro.org/" target="_blank">Manjaro</a></li> <li><a href="https://neptuneos.com/en/start-page.html" target="_blank">Neptune</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.netrunner.com/" target="_blank">Netrunner</a></li> <li><a href="https://nixos.org/" target="_blank">NixOS</a></li> <li><a href="http://openmamba.org/en/" target="_blank">OpenMamba</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.openmandriva.org/" target="_blank">OpenMandriva</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.parabola.nu/" target="_blank">Parabola</a></li> <li><a href="https://parchlinux.com/" target="_blank">Parch Linux</a></li> <li><a href="https://www.pisilinux.org/" target="_blank">Pisi Linux</a></li> <li><a href="http://redcorelinux.org/" target="_blank">Redcore Linux</a></li> <li><a href="https://salientos.github.io/" target="_blank">Salient OS</a></li> <li><a href="https://siduction.org/" target="_blank">Siduction</a></li> <li><a href="https://teloslinux.org" target="_blank">TeLOS Linux</a></li> </ul> <p>Operating systems that are evaluating Calamares in pre-release builds:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://frugalware.org/" target="_blank">Frugalware</a></li> <li><a href="http://www.pclinuxos.com/" target="_blank">PCLinuxOS</a></li> </ul> <p>Operating systems that ship Calamares in their package repositories for third-party derivatives to use:</p> <ul> <li><a href="https://debian.org/" target="_blank">Debian</a></li> <li><a href="https://fedoraproject.org/" target="_blank">Fedora</a></li> <li><a href="https://gentoo.org/" target="_blank">Gentoo</a></li> <li><a href="https://opensuse.org/" target="_blank">openSUSE</a> (from Leap 15)</li> </ul> <h2 class="offset" id="what-is-calamares-made-of">What is Calamares made of</h2> <p>Calamares is mostly written in C++17, with Qt (6, but the code is still Qt5-compatible) as general purpose library and UI toolkit.</p> <p>Calamares is modular by design, and Python 3 was chosen as the main scripting language. The Python 3 interface is implemented with pybind11 (Boost.Python is available as an alternative), and all Calamares configuration is done in YAML.</p> <p>For a complete list of dependencies, see <a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/blob/calamares/README.md" target="_blank">the README file</a>.</p> <h2 class="offset" id="contact-us">Contact us</h2> <ul> <li><a href="https://webchat.kde.org/#/room/%23calamares:kde.org">Matrix</a></li> <li>Bugs: <a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares/issues" target="_blank">Calamares issues, bugs and feature requests</a></li> <li>GPG: Calamares release tarballs are signed with a <a href="/pk-7FEA3DA6169C77D6.txt">GPG signing-subkey</a>: <ul> <li>Calamares 3.2.3 - 3.2.25, E7C31EAE243D798415BCEF00128F00873E05AF1D</li> <li>Calamares 3.2.26, 57E14BD1CD6C198BC11BF18D61A7D26277E4D0DB (one release only!)</li> <li>Calamares 3.2.27 - 3.2.49.1, 86B8EDB6ED8E3F96A9BAECB5CFDDC96F12B1915C</li> <li>Calamares 3.2.50 - 3.2.62, 4947400F3746A038900BB178328D742D8807A435 (with some exceptions)</li> <li>Calamares 3.3.0 - 3.3.9, 3.3.11, 4947400F3746A038900BB178328D742D8807A435</li> <li>Calamares 3.3.10, 3.3.12, 3.3.13, 6D98B995A1CA6CE4BB906518C7AA337DFA13881E (but release announcement says 4947..)</li> <li>Calamares 3.3.14 - <em>current</em>, 6D98B995A1CA6CE4BB906518C7AA337DFA13881E</li> </ul> </li> </ul> </section> <footer class="page__meta"> </footer> </div> </article> </div> </div> <div id="footer" class="page__footer"> <footer>   <div class="page__footer-follow"> <ul class="social-icons"> <li><strong>Follow:</strong></li> <li><a href="https://github.com/calamares/calamares" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><i class="fab fa-fw fa-github" aria-hidden="true"></i> GitHub</a></li> <li><a href="https://webchat.kde.org/#/room/%23calamares:kde.org" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><i class="far fa-comments" aria-hidden="true"></i> Matrix</a></li> <li><a href="/feed.xml"><i class="fas fa-fw fa-rss-square" aria-hidden="true"></i> Feed</a></li> </ul> </div> <aside class="back_to__top"> <a href="#site-nav"> <i class="fas fa-angle-double-up fa-2x"></i></a> </aside> <div class="page__footer-copyright">© 2014 - 2025 . 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