Aqua Philosophy

AetherOS Aqua, shortened to Aqua, is the Fedora stable platform in the AetherOS family.

Aqua keeps Fedora’s native package ecosystem and stable-release cadence while adding AetherOS identity, shared tooling, repository integration, and reproducible build orchestration.

Why Aqua exists

Aqua provides a Fedora-based AetherOS option for users who want a modern stable Linux release rather than a rolling platform.

The platform emphasizes:

• upstream alignment
• intentional system composition
• explicit trust boundaries
• native Fedora package management
• repeatable image generation

Upstream contract

Aqua uses:

• Upstream: Fedora
• Release policy: stable release
• Package manager: dnf
• Native image tooling: Lorax and Fedora-native tooling

Exact release and architecture targets are defined by the AetherOS manifest.

What AetherOS adds

Aqua can include:

• product identity and branding
• AetherOS repository configuration
• shared utilities and integration tooling
• normalized build and artifact handling through AetherForge
• reproducible platform-specific image composition

Fedora’s repositories and package lifecycle remain authoritative.

What Aqua is not

Aqua does not introduce a separate Fedora release model, replace dnf, or silently fork upstream Fedora packages.

Theme identity

Inside the OS, the short form Aqua is used for identity and themes. The supported appearance names are Aqua Light and Aqua Dark.