winesapOS

Game with Linux anywhere, no installation required!

winesapOS_3_Desktop_Screenshot 720p

winesapOS makes it easy to setup Linux and play games off an internal or portable external drive.

This project provides an opinionated installation of Linux. It can be used on a flash drive, SD card, HDD, SSD, NVMe, or any other storage device. Both internal and external devices are fully supported. The release images are based on SteamOS 3 and the KDE Plasma desktop environment to align with what Valve's Steam Deck uses. Software for various games launchers are pre-installed. Additional drivers are installed to support Macs with Intel processors.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

winesapOS

macOS Limitations

These are reasons why macOS is inferior compared to Linux when it comes to gaming.

No 32-bit support. The latest version is now 64-bit only. As of November 2021, there are 1,263 full PC games (i.e., not apps) on macOS that are available as 64-bit. That number is only 2% of the 59,368 games available on Steam.
As of November 2021, 83% of reported Steam games run on Linux.
Macs in 2020 have started the move from Intel to Arm-based processors, further lowering the amount of full games it supports natively to almost zero.
The Apple M1 Arm-based processor has limited graphics capabilities and that are comparable to integrated graphics offered by AMD and Intel. These Macs are not designed to be gaming computers.
- Intel x86_64 games played through the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer have over a 20% performance penalty.
Steam Play's Proton is only supported on Linux (not macOS).
Old and incomplete implementation of OpenGL.
No native Vulkan support.
- MoltenVK is incomplete due to missing functionality in Apple's Metal API.
Linux has better gaming support because it supports 32-bit applications, DirectX (via Wine with WineD3D, DXVK, and/or Vkd3d), OpenGL, and Vulkan.
CrossOver Mac, a commercial Wine product, is one of the few ways to run games on macOS but has some limitations.
- It costs money and usually requires a new license yearly.
- 32-bit Windows application support on 64-bit only macOS versions is still buggy.
- It is always based on a old stable Wine version that is at least one year behind upstream Wine version.
- Vulkan support via MoltenVK is incomplete due to missing functionality in Apple's Metal API.
- DXVK (DirectX 9-11), via a modified version of MoltenVK, has limited support.
  - MoltenVK does not expose all of the features in Vulkan required by DXVK.
  - MoltenVK only exposes 64-bit Vulkan support. This means that DirectX 11 games that use 32-bit libraries will not work via DXVK.
- Vkd3d (DirectX 12) will not be supported until at least 2023.
- Linux has kernel-level optimizations for Wine.

Features

General

Any computer with an AMD or Intel processor can run winesapOS.
Portability.
- A drive is bootable on both BIOS and UEFI systems.
- Applications are installed using Flatpaks, a universal package manager for Linux, where possible.
Persistent storage. Unlike traditional Linux live media, all storage is persistent and kept upon reboots.
- Upon the first boot, the root partition is expanded to utilize all available space.
Supportability. Linux is easy to troubleshoot remotely.
- Access:
  - Chrome Remote Desktop via Google Chrome can be used to provide remote access similar to Windows RDP.
  - SSH can be accessed via clients on the same ZeroTier VPN network.
  - tmate makes sharing SSH sessions without VPN connections easy.
- Tools:
  - ClamAV, and the GUI front-end Clamtk, is an open source anti-virus scanner.
  - QDirStat provides a graphical user interface to view storage space usage.
Usability. Software for typical day-to-day use is provided.
- BalenaEtcher for an image flashing utility.
- Blueman for a Bluetooth pairing client.
- Bottles for installing any Windows program.
- Discord for a gaming chat client.
- Dolphin (KDE Plasma) or Nemo (Cinnamon) = A file manager.
- Cheese for a webcam software.
- Firefox ESR for a stable web browser.
- Firewall (secure image) provides a GUI for managing firewalld.
- Google Chrome for a newer web browser.
- Gwenview (KDE Plasma) or Pix (Cinnamon) for an image gallery application.
- KeePassXC for a cross-platform password manager.
- LibreOffice provides an office suite.
- Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) Studio for a recording and streaming utility.
- PeaZip for an archive/compression utility.
- Shutter for a screenshot utility.
- Terminator for a terminal emulator.
- Transmission for a torrent client.
- VeraCrypt for a cross-platform encryption utility.
- VLC for a media player.
- ZeroTier GUI for a VPN utility for online LAN gaming.
Gaming support out-of-the-box.
- Game launchers:
  - Steam.
  - Heroic Games Launcher for Epic Games Store games.
  - Lutris for all other games.
  - PolyMC for vanilla and modded Minecraft: Java Edition.
- Wine:
  - Wine GE and Wine Staging for running Windows applications and games without a game launcher.
  - Proton GE is installed along with the ProtonUp-Qt package manager for it. This provides better Windows games compatibility in Steam.
- GameMode is available to be used to speed up games.
- Gamescope for helping play older games with frame rate or resolution issues.
- MangoHUD for benchmarking OpenGL and Vulkan games.
- GOverlay is a GUI for managing Vulkan overlays including MangoHUD, ReplaySorcery, and vkBasalt.
- Ludusavi is a game save files manager.
- ProtonUp-Qt for managing Steam Play compatibility tools.
- ZeroTier VPN can be used to play LAN-only games online with friends.
- Open source OpenGL and Vulkan drivers are installed for AMD and Intel graphics.
Controller support for most controllers.
- All official PlayStation and Xbox controllers are supported.
- All generic DirectInput and XInput controllers are supported.
- AntiMicroX is provided for configuring controller input for non-Steam games.
Steam Deck look and feel.
- Bootloader uses the Steam Big Picture mode GRUB theme by LegendaryBibo.
- Desktop Steam client runs with the windowed Steam Deck UI.
- KDE Plasma desktop environment uses Valve's Vapor theme.
Minimize writes to the drive to improve its longevity.
- Root file system is mounted with the options noatime and nodiratime to not write the access times for files and directories.
- Temporary directories with heavy writes (/tmp/, /var/log/, and /var/tmp/) are mounted as RAM-only file systems.
- systemd-journald is configured to use volatile (RAM-only) storage for all system logs.
- Swappiness level is set to 10% (down from the default of 60%).
Full backups via Btrfs.
- Snapper takes 12 monthly and 1 annual snapshots.
- Snapper takes a backup whenever the pacman package manager is used.
- grub-btrfs automatically generates a GRUB menu entry for all of the Btrfs backups.
No automatic operating system updates. Updates should always be intentional and planned.
Most file systems supported. Access any storage device, anywhere.
- APFS
- Btrfs
- ext2, ext3, and ext4
- exFAT
- FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32
- HFS and HFS+
- NTFS
- XFS
- ZFS
Battery optimizations.
- The auto-cpufreq service provides automatic power management.
Fully automated installation.

Mac Support

All Intel Macs are supported. Linux works on most Macs out-of-the-box these days. Drivers are pre-installed for newer hardware where native Linux support is missing.

Hardware	Supported	Third-Party Driver(s)
Keyboard	Yes	mbp2018-bridge-drv
Mouse	Yes	mbp2018-bridge-drv
NVMe	Yes	mbp2018-bridge-drv
Sound	Yes	mbp2018-bridge-drv, snd_hda_macbookpro, and snd-hda-codec-cs8409
Touch Bar	Yes	mbp2018-bridge-drv and macbook12-spi-driver
Bluetooth	Yes	None
WiFi	Partial	None

The mbp2018-bridge-drv driver provides support for the Apple T2 security chip found on newer Macs. Without this, no hardware would work on Linux.

Although we do not provide any additional drivers for wider WiFi support on Macs, the built-in Linux kernel drivers do support it for some devices. If your device does not work, consider purchasing a USB WiFi device that Linux natively supports by using this guide by Nick (morrownr).

For more information about Linux support on Macs, refer to the Linux on MacBook Pro compatibility guide.

PlayStation 4 Support

winesapOS has been ported to the PS4 thanks to the hard work from Noob404 as part of the PS4Linux project.

Community Collaboration

We are actively working alongside these projects to help provide wider SteamOS 3 and/or Steam Deck support to the masses:

winesapOS Repository

As of winesapOS 3.1.0, we now provide our own repository with some AUR packages pre-built. This repository works on Arch Linux, Manjaro, and SteamOS 3. It is enabled on winesapOS by default. Depending on what distribution you are on, here is how it can be enabled:

Arch Linux or Manjaro:

sudo sed -i s'/\[core]/[winesapos]\nServer = https:\/\/winesapos.lukeshort.cloud\/repo\/$repo\/$arch\nSigLevel = Never\n\n[core]/'g /etc/pacman.conf
sudo pacman -S -y -y

SteamOS 3:

sudo sed -i s'/\[jupiter]/[winesapos]\nServer = https:\/\/winesapos.lukeshort.cloud\/repo\/$repo\/$arch\nSigLevel = Never\n\n[jupiter]/'g /etc/pacman.conf
sudo pacman -S -y -y

Comparison with SteamOS

Features	SteamOS 3	winesapOS 3
SteamOS packages	Yes	Yes
Arch Linux packages	Old	New
Boot compatibility	UEFI	UEFI and legacy BIOS
Graphics drivers	AMD	AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA
Audio server	PipeWire	PipeWire
Read-only file system	Yes	No
Encrypted file system	No	Yes (secure image)
File system backup type	A/B partitions	Btrfs snapshots
Number of possible file system backups	1	Unlimited
Package managers (CLI)	pacman, yay, flatpak	pacman, yay, flatpak, snap
Preferred package manager (CLI)	flatpak	flatpak
Package manager (GUI)	Discover (flatpak)	Discover (flatpak) and Pamac (pacman, yay/AUR, flatpak, and snap)
Update type	Image-based	Package manager
Number of installed packages	Small	Large
Game launchers	Steam	Steam, Heroic Games Launcher, Lutris, and PolyMC
Linux kernels	Neptune (5.13)	Neptune (5.13) and Linux LTS (5.15)
Additional Mac drivers	No	Yes
Desktop environment	Plasma	Plasma
Desktop theme	Vapor	Vapor
AMD FSR	Global	Per-game
Gamescope	Global	Per-game
Wine	Proton	Proton, GE-Proton, Wine Staging, and Wine-GE
Game controller support	Large	Large
exFAT flash drive storage	No	Yes (16 GB)

Usage

Requirements

Minimum:

Processor = Dual-core AMD or Intel processor.
RAM = 4 GiB.
Graphics = AMD, Intel, or NVIDIA graphics device.
Storage = 64 GB USB 3.2 Gen 1 (USB 3.0) flash drive.

Recommended:

Processor = Quad-core AMD or Intel processor.
RAM = 16 GiB.
Graphics = AMD discrete graphics card.
Storage
- Internal = 512 GB NVMe SSD.
- External = 512 GB USB 3.2 Gen 2 (USB 3.1) SSD.

Setup

Release Builds

Download the latest release image archive files. These zip files and the extracted image will be large. In a future release, we will provide a minimal image that is significantly smaller.
- Performance (recommended) = Requires 40 GiB of free space to download and extract.
  - winesapos-performance-<VERSION>.img.zip
  - winesapos-performance-<VERSION>.img.z01
  - winesapos-performance-<VERSION>.img.z02
  - winesapos-performance-<VERSION>.img.z03
  - winesapos-performance-<VERSION>.img.z04
- Secure (for advanced users only) = Requires 50 GiB of free space to download and extract.
  - winesapos-secure-<VERSION>.img.zip
  - winesapos-secure-<VERSION>.img.z01
  - winesapos-secure-<VERSION>.img.z02
  - winesapos-secure-<VERSION>.img.z03
  - winesapos-secure-<VERSION>.img.z04
  - winesapos-secure-<VERSION>.img.z05
  - winesapos-secure-<VERSION>.img.z06
- If you do not have enough free space to download and extract a release build, consider doing a custom build instead.
- PlayStation 4 = Requires a special build that is hosted by the PS4Linux project. For more details, read here.
Extract the winesapos-<VERSION>.img.zip archive. This will automatically extract all of the other zip file parts.
- Linux:
  - GUI: Use PeaZip.
  - CLI: 7z x winesapos-<VERSION>.img.zip
- macOS: Use PeaZip or Keka.
- Windows: Use PeaZip.
Flash the image to an internal or external storage device. WARNING: This will delete any existing data on that storage device.
- On Linux, macOS, and Windows, the balenaEtcher GUI utility can be used to flash the image.
- On Linux and macOS, the dd CLI utility can be used to flash the image.
- Ventoy is not supported because winesapOS is not a traditional live media. Support for this will be added for this in the future.

Default accounts have a password set that mirror the username:

winesapOS (major version >= 3)

Username	Password
winesap	winesap
root	root

Mac Linux Gaming Stick (major version <= 2)

Username	Password
stick	stick
root	root

Upon first login, the "winesapOS First-Time Setup" wizard will launch. It will help setup graphics drivers, the locale, and time zone. The desktop shortcut is located at /home/winesap/.winesapos/winesapos-setup.desktop and can be manually ran again.

Custom Builds

Instead of using a release build which is already made, advanced users may want to create a custom build. This only requires 1 GiB of free space to download the live Arch Linux environment instead of the full 50 GiB for winesapOS. It also allows using environment variables to configure the build differently than the default release builds.

Download and setup the latest Arch Linux ISO onto a flash drive that has at least 1 GB of storage.

1a. We also support building winesapOS with Manjaro even though we do not provide release images for it. Download either the Plasma or Cinnamon desktop edition of Manjaro.
Boot into the flash drive.
Update the known packages cache and install git.
```
pacman -S -y
pacman -S git
```

Clone the stable branch and go to the "scripts" directory.

git clone --branch stable https://github.com/lukeshortcloud/winesapos.git
cd ./winesapos/scripts/

Configure environment variables to customize the build. At the very least, allow the build to work on bare-metal and define what /dev/<DEVICE> block device to install to. BE CAREFUL AS THIS WILL DELETE ALL EXISTING DATA ON THAT DEVICE!
```
export WINESAPOS_BUILD_IN_VM_ONLY=false
lsblk
export WINESAPOS_DEVICE=<DEVICE>
```
Run the build.
```
sudo -E ./winesapos-install.sh
```
Check for any test failures (there should be no output from this command).
```
grep -P 'FAIL$' /winesapos/etc/winesapos/winesapos-install.log
```

For more detailed information on the build process, we recommend reading the entire DEVELOPER.md guide.

Secure Image

If using the secure image, the default LUKS encryption key is password which should be changed after the first boot. Do not do this before the first boot as the default password is used to unlock the partition for it be resized to fill up the entire storage device. Change the LUKS encryption key for the fifth partition.

$ sudo cryptsetup luksChangeKey /dev/<DEVICE>5

The user account password for winesap (or stick on older versions) and root are the same as the username. They are set to expire immediately. Upon first login, you will be prompted to enter a new password. Here is how to change it:

Enter the default password of winesap.
The prompt will say "Changing password for winesap." Enter the default password of winesap again.
The prompt will now say "New password". Enter a new password.
The prompt will finally say "Retype new password". Enter the new password again. The password has been updated and the KDE Plasma desktop will now load.

Differences

These are the main differences between the performance secure images. The performance is focused on speed and ease-of-use. The secure image is recommended for advanced Linux users.

Feature	Performance	Secure
CPU Mitigations	No	Yes
Encryption	No	Yes (LUKS)
Firewall	No	Yes (Firewalld)
Linux Kernel Updates	No	Yes
Passwords Require Reset	No	Yes

Mac Boot

Boot the Mac into an external drive by pressing and releasing the power button. Then hold down the OPTION key (or the ALT key on a Windows keyboard) to access the Mac bootloader. Select the "EFI Boot" device.

IMPORTANT Any Mac with an Apple T2 Security Chip, which are all Macs made in and after 2018, needs to allow booting from external storage:

Turn on the Mac and immediately hold both the COMMAND and r keys to enter recovery mode.
Utilities > Startup Security Utility
- Secure Boot = No Security (Does not enforce any requirements on the bootable OS.)
- External Boot = Allow booting from external media (Does not restrict the ability to boot from any devices.)

Upgrades

Upgrades are supported and recommended between all minor releases of winesapOS. For example, it is supported to go from 2.0.0 to 2.1.0 but not from 2.2.0 to 3.0.0. Major upgrades will be supported in a future release.

Where it makes sense, features are backported from newer versions of winesapOS. Bug and security fixes are also included to fix problems either with winesapOS itself or with upstream changes in SteamOS. Even if a user never upgrades winesapOS, users will continue to get regular system upgrades from SteamOS.

Before upgrading, please read the full UPGRADE.md notes. This showcases what updates will happen automatically and what updates may need to be manually applied.

Development builds do not support upgrades. Here are the releases that we do support upgrades on:

Release	Upgrades Supported
Stable	Yes
Release Candidate (RC)	Yes
Beta	No
Alpha	No

Here is how to upgrade winesapOS:

GUI = Launch the "winesapOS Upgrade" desktop shortcut.

CLI = Launch the winesapOS upgrade script from the stable branch.

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LukeShortCloud/winesapOS/stable/scripts/winesapos-upgrade.sh | sudo zsh

Tips

Getting Started

Test booting up the drive first before buying speakers, a Bluetooth adapter, a WiFi adapter, and/or other hardware. Depending on the Mac, the built-in hardware may work out-of-the-box.
Temporarily allow the brcmfmac and brcmutil drivers to see if the built-in WiFi will work. Remove the relevant entries from /etc/modprobe.d/winesapos.conf and then use modprobe to manually load the drivers.
Plug additional hardware into a USB hub. Connect the USB hub to the computer before booting.
Do NOT move the USB hub after plugging it in and booting up Linux. It can easily disconnect leading to a corrupt file system.
Consider buying an SSD instead of a flash drive for a longer life-span, more storage, and faster speeds.
Avoid using Flatpak and Snap packages. These use a lot of additional space compared to native system packages. Programs packaged this way are also slower.
Delete old Btrfs backups when the drive is running low on storage space.
```
$ sudo snapper list
$ sudo snapper delete <SNAPSHOT_NUMBER>
```

Enable Proton for all Windows games. This will allow them to run in Linux. For more information about Proton, read this starter guide. Check the compatibility rating for games on Steam by using ProtonDB.

Settings > Steam Play > Enable Steam Play for Support Titles > Use this tool instead of game-specific selections from Steam > Compatibility tool: > (select the latest "Proton" version available) > OK

No Sound (Muted Audio)

When Mac hardware is detected, all sound is muted on boot because on newer Macs the experimental sound driver is extremely loud. This means that any sound volume changes will be reset on the next boot. Here is how the mute configuration can be disabled to allow the sound volume to be saved:

winesapOS (major version >= 3)
- Disable and stop the user (not system) mute service.
```
$ systemctl --user disable --now mute.service
```
Mac Linux Gaming Stick (major version <= 2)
- Move or delete the PulseAudio configuration.
```
$ mv /home/stick/.config/pulse/default.pa ~/
```

Btrfs Backups

Both the root / and /home directory have automatic backups/snapshots configured by Snapper. A new backup will be taken every month for 12 months. Separately, a new backup will be taken once every year. The root directory will also have a backup taken whenever pacman is used to install or remove a package.

During boot, GRUB will have a "Arch Linux snapshots" section that will allow booting from a root directory snapshot. This will not appear on first boot because no backups have been taken yet. After a backup has been taken, the GRUB configuration file needs to be regenerated to scan for the new backups.

Manually rebuild the GRUB configuration file to load the latest snapshots:

$ sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

View the available backups:

$ sudo snapper -c root list
$ sudo snapper -c home list

Manually create a new backup:

$ sudo snapper -c <CONFIG> create

Manually delete a backup:

$ sudo snapper -c <CONFIG> delete <BACKUP_NUMBER>

Steam

Launch and prefer steam-runtime over steam-native. It bundles all of the libraries required for Steam to work. In case that has issues, steam-native is provided as an alternative for testing purposes. It will use the system libraries instead.

VPN (ZeroTier)

A VPN is required for LAN gaming online. Hamachi is reported to no longer work on newer versions of Arch Linux and Ubuntu. Instead, use the free and open source ZeroTier VPN service.

Host

Only one person needs to create a ZeroTier account.
They must then create a ZeroTier network.
1. Log into ZeroTier Central.
2. Select "Networks".
3. Select "Create A Network".
4. Select the "Network ID" or "Name" of the new network to modify the settings.
  - Either (1) set the "Access Control" to "Public" or (2) use this settings page to manually authorize connected clients to be able to communicate on the network.
  - Take note of the "Network ID". Send this string to your friends who will connect to the VPN.

Clients

Start the ZeroTier VPN service.

$ sudo systemctl enable --now zerotier-one

Connect to the ZeroTier network.
```
$ sudo zerotier-cli join <NETWORK_ID>
```

Troubleshooting

Release Image Zip Files

Challenge: the release image fails to be extracted from the zip files.

Solutions:

Verify the integrity of the downloaded zip files.

Linux:

sha512sum --check winesapos-<IMAGE_TYPE>-<VERSION>_sha512sum.txt

Windows (open Command Prompt as Administrator):

C:\Windows\system32>CertUtil.exe -hashfile C:\Users\<USER>\Downloads\<FILE> SHA512

Not all zip files were downloaded. This includes the files ending in .zip and .z<NUMBER>.
Not enough free space. Ensure you have 40 GiB (performance image) or 50 GiB (secure image) of free space before downloading the zip files.
PeaZip sometimes fails to extract to the current directory. Try extracting to a different directory.
Use a different archive utility.
- PeaZip uses the command 7z for extracting multiple zip archives. Use it manually from the CLI to see more information to help with troubleshooting.
```
7z x winesapos-<VERSION>.img.zip
```

Root File System Resizing

Challenge: the root file system does not resize itself to use all available space on the storage device.

Solution:

Re-enable the resize service, reboot, and then view the service log. Open up a GitHub Issue with the full log output.

sudo systemctl enable winesapos-resize-root-file-system
sudo reboot

sudo journalctl --unit winesapos-resize-root-file-system

Some Package Updates are Ignored

Challenge: Pacman has packages listed in its IgnorePkg configuration.

Solutions:

The performance image prevents updates to Linux kernels updates to prevent breaking third-party kernel modules.

sudo pacman -S -y
sudo pacman -S core/linux-lts core/linux-lts-headers kernel-lts/linux-lts510 kernel-lts/linux-lts510-headers jupiter/linux-neptune jupiter/linux-neptune-headers core/grub

The secure image only prevents updates to packages that SteamOS provides conflicting packages to. GRUB and the upstream Linux kernels from SteamOS that can cause an unbootable system. These can be manually upgraded by specifying the Arch Linux repository along with the package name.
```
sudo pacman -S -y
sudo pacman -S core/grub core/linux-lts core/linux-lts-headers
```

Pamac Shows Ignored Packages

Challenge: in "Add/Remove Software" (the Pamac package manager) packages that are ignored are showing updates available.

Solution:

This is by design. These packages are not selected for update by default (even if it looks like it). Pamac is letting the user know that there are updates available. The user has the option to select them for update but it is not recommended. As described in the Troubleshooting section Some Package Updates are Ignored, updating certain packages that winesapOS ignores can lead to an unusable system.

Available Storage Space is Incorrect

Challenge: the amount of reported free space seems too small or large.

Solutions:

Btrfs is used as the root file system on winesapOS. The most reliable way to view the amount of storage in-use on Btrfs is with this command.
```
sudo btrfs filesystem df /
```
Snapper is used to take Btrfs snapshots/backups (1) every time Pacman installs, upgrades, or removes a package and (2) every month. Refer to the Btrfs Backups section for more information on how to manage those snapshots.

Two or More Set Ups of winesapOS Cause an Unbootable System

Challenge: winesapOS uses labels for file system mounts which confuses the system if more than one label is found.

Solution:

Change the file system label of at least the root file system on one of the winesapOS drives. It is recommended to change all of the labels on that same drive. This can cause an unbootable system. Manually review the contents of /etc/fstab to ensure it is correct.

lsblk -o name,label
export DEVICE=vda
sudo -E exfatlabel /dev/${DEVICE}2 wos-drive0
sudo -E fatlabel /dev/${DEVICE}3 WOS-EFI0
sudo sed -i s'/LABEL=WOS-EFI/LABEL=WOS-EFI0/'g /etc/fstab
sudo -E e2label /dev/${DEVICE}4 winesapos-boot0
sudo sed -i s'/LABEL=winesapos-boot/LABEL=winesapos-boot0/'g /etc/fstab
sudo btrfs filesystem label / winesapos-root0
sudo btrfs filesystem show /
sudo sed -i s'/LABEL=winesapos-root/LABEL=winesapos-root0/'g /etc/fstab
lsblk -o name,label

Reinstalling winesapOS

Reinstalling winesapOS on-top of an existing winesapOS installation can cause issues. This is because the partitions are perfectly aligned which leads to overlapping data. Even wiping the partition table is not enough. For the best results, it is recommended to completely wipe at least the first 28 GiB of the storage device. WARNING: This will delete any existing data on that storage device.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/<DEVICE> bs=1M count=28000

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Is this the Mac Linux Gaming Stick project?
- Yes. Version 1 and 2 of the project were called Mac Linux Gaming Stick. In version 3, we rebranded to winesapOS.
How do you pronounce winesapOS?
- wine-sap-o-s.
What is the relevance of the word "winesap" in winesapOS?
- It is a type of apple which signifies how we develop on Macs and ship drivers for them. It also has the word "wine" in it which is the name of the project used to enable Windows gaming on Linux.
What makes this different than adding persistent storage to a live CD with Universal USB Installer or YUMI?
- Having persistent storage work via these hacky methods can be hit-or-miss depending on the distribution. winesapOS was built from the ground-up to have persistent storage. It also features automatic backups, various gaming tools, has support for Macs, and more.
Are Arm Macs supported?
- No. In general, Linux support for them are still a work-in-progress.
Is winesapOS a Linux distribution?
- Yes. We provide customized packages, a package repository, various optimizations, and our own upgrade process. winesapOS is a fork of SteamOS 3 (which is a fork of Arch Linux).
Do I have to install winesapOS?
- No. No installation is required. Flash a release image to a drive and then boot from it. Everything is already installed and configured.
What if winesapOS was abandoned?
- We have no intentions on ever abandoning winesapOS. Even if that happened, since this is an opinionated installation of an Arch Linux distribution, it will continue to get normal operating system updates.
Can anyone build winesapOS?
- Yes. Refer to the DEVELOPER.md documentation.
Can winesapOS be built with a different Linux distribution?
- Yes. We support Arch Linux, Manjaro, and SteamOS as build targets. As of winesapOS 3, SteamOS 3 is the default target that is used for our releases.
Is winesapOS affiliated with Valve?
- No. We are an independent project that is using SteamOS 3 packages and source code.

History

Release Version/Tag	Project Name	Operating System	Desktop Environment	Release Images
3.0.0-beta.0	winesapOS	SteamOS 3	KDE Plasma	Performance and Secure
3.0.0-alpha.0	winesapOS	Arch Linux	KDE Plasma	Performance and Secure
2.2.0	Mac Linux Gaming Stick	Manjaro	Cinnamon	Performance and Secure
2.0.0	Mac Linux Gaming Stick	Manjaro	Cinnamon	Performance
1.0.0	Mac Linux Gaming Stick	Ubuntu 20.04	Cinnamon	None

License

GPLv3