PikaOS is a gaming/optimization-focused Linux distribution that emphasizes ease of use and high compatibility. Built on a Debian base but with cherry picked and custom compiled packages ensures that Pika is stable whilst being bang up to date!
¶ What is PikaOS?
PikaOS is designed to provide:
- Gaming Out of the Box: Setup for pain-free Linux gaming from the start.
- Excellent Performance: Combines up-to-date drivers with a custom-tweaked kernel for speed. We also optimize every package with O3, LTO and avx2 for extra speed!
- High Compatibility: Debian sid base with custom patches ensures broad software and hardware support.
- Open Source: All code is available on our Gitea.
¶ Key Features
- 🐦 Cute bird mascot
- 🎮 Gaming-focused setup
- 🖥️ Included drivers for optimal hardware support
- 🚀 Performance-tuned for speed
- 🔗 High software and hardware compatibility
- 🌐 Open-source development
¶ Getting Started
¶ Download PikaOS
Choose your preferred version:
Last updated 03/08/2025
¶ GNOME Edition
- Standard ISO
- NVIDIA ISO
- Handheld ISO (coming-soon)
Nvidia ISOs should only be used for Nvidia RTX cards and GTX 1650 or later. GTX 1080ti and earlier should use the regular ISO.
¶ KDE Edition
- Standard ISO
- NVIDIA ISO
- Handheld ISO (coming-soon)
Nvidia ISOs should only be used for Nvidia RTX cards and GTX 1650 or later. GTX 1080ti and earlier should use the regular ISO.
¶ Hyprland Edition
- Standard ISO
- NVIDIA ISO
- Handheld ISO (coming-soon)
Nvidia ISOs should only be used for Nvidia RTX cards and GTX 1650 or later. GTX 1080ti and earlier should use the regular ISO.
¶ Niri Edition
- Standard ISO
- NVIDIA ISO
- Handheld ISO (coming-soon)
Nvidia ISOs should only be used for Nvidia RTX cards and GTX 1650 or later. GTX 1080ti and earlier should use the regular ISO.
¶ Changelog
Check out our changelogs page
¶ Installation
Please check our guide for installation instructions.
¶ Links
¶ Frequently Asked Questions
Please see our FAQs here.
¶ Technology Providers
We currently pay for all of these ourselves except for Ngrok which has an awesome OSS community license.
- Cloudflare - ISO hosting
- Ngrok - Awesome way to test dev, staging etc server environments without needing a full deployment. OSS License (THANK YOU)
- BunnyCDN - Main repo CDN
- Hetzner - Multi-country server hosting for web servers and build servers