Fedora Sway Atomic User Guide

Welcome to the Fedora Sway Atomic user guide!

Fedora Sway Atomic logo

Fedora Sway Atomic is an immutable desktop operating system. It aims to be extremely stable and reliable. It also aims to be an excellent platform for developers and for those using container-focused workflows.

Introduction to Fedora Sway Atomic

Fedora Sway Atomic is a variant of Fedora Sway Spin. It looks, feels and behaves like a regular desktop operating system, and the experience is similar to what you find with using a standard Fedora Sway Spin.

However, unlike other operating systems, Fedora Sway Atomic is immutable. This means that every installation is identical to every other installation of the same version. The operating system that is on disk is exactly the same from one machine to the next, and it never changes as it is used.

Fedora Sway Atomic’s immutable design is intended to make it more stable, less prone to bugs, and easier to test and develop. Finally, Fedora Sway Atomic’s immutable design also makes it an excellent platform for containerized applications as well as container-based software development. In each case, applications (apps) and containers are kept separate from the host system, improving stability and reliability.

Fedora Sway Atomic’s core technologies have some other helpful features. OS updates are fast and there’s no waiting around for them to install: just reboot as normal to start using the next version. With Fedora Sway Atomic, it is also possible to roll back to the previous version of the operating system, if something goes wrong.

About this guide

In most cases, Fedora Sway Atomic behaves like a standard Fedora Sway Spin installation, and the standard Fedora documentation can be used. This guide covers those areas where Fedora Sway Atomic differs from a standard Fedora Sway Spin, including:

The primary audience for these docs are new users, who aren’t expected to have specialist knowledge or technical knowledge about Fedora Sway Atomic’s internals. However, some background technical information is provided, for those who are interested and want to learn more.