I am Anduin, the current sole maintainer of AnduinOS.

Recently, I happened to see that AnduinOS has made it to the trending list on distrowatch, and my server has been overwhelmed daily by massive multi-threaded downloads. I am truly astonished and find myself wondering what merit I have to deserve such attention... After reading through many community reviews and opinions, I feel inspired to take this opportunity to share the journey and background story behind building this system, and to engage in some meaningful exchanges with the community.

First off, I am indeed a Microsoft employee; I work full-time as an engineer at Microsoft (though not on Windows-related projects), so my financial situation is currently stable. Therefore, I have no immediate plans to commercialize this project. Of course, from a more fundamental perspective, it is not a commercial project to begin with. It is purely a toy and a practice exercise that I spent an afternoon putting together.

I often immerse myself in developing one-click configuration scripts (I believe many Linux enthusiasts do the same), as manually customizing a system after every reinstall is a very painful process—I have to spend half an hour repeating operations just to make it fit my usage habits. Naturally, I use Microsoft Windows at work, and I have found that the interaction logic of Windows is indeed very efficient; it is only its Shell that is too prone to crashing and is plastered with ads like skin rashes.

Obviously, the freedom of Linux allows you to do almost anything. I use Linux exclusively in my spare time and also write some automation scripts. My friends and I often share and exchange our initial configuration automation scripts. Especially since I am also a user of Arch and NixOS, using them constantly reminds me to build things from scratch while being mindful of the history of what I have done.

I have found that building a distribution is actually not difficult, or rather, it seems that every NixOS and Gentoo user is, in essence, a distribution author. They are all capable of using formal languages to describe the desired state of their operating system, thereby bringing their personal terminal devices closer to a "stateless" condition.

With this mindset, I figured I could simply modify the official Ubuntu ISO directly and then recompress it to create my own customized distribution. Many people criticize AnduinOS for doing almost no work, claiming it merely changed the theme. But that is exactly the factual effect I aimed for. In reality, I am just like countless ordinary Ubuntu users, wanting to use Linux comfortably in my spare time, and that's all. Interestingly, many also consider this a strength, because AnduinOS even identifies itself as Ubuntu in /etc/os-release. It is Ubuntu. This is to avoid introducing too many new concepts, allowing for maximum reuse of Ubuntu's knowledge and ecosystem.

Of course, I eventually learned the Debian build toolchain, using tools like debootstrap to build it. The source code for AnduinOS is actually more like a packaging and integration tool. Users can place their own logos, dconf settings, etc., into it and then generate their own ISO. I am proud that it has a very usable builder and is currently relatively easy to maintain.

So, AnduinOS did not consume too much of my energy; it is more of a hobby project for my leisure time (many people know that my main profession is developing .NET applications). The strange thing is: my main job always goes unnoticed, while my hobby projects always turn out very successful. This always feels absurd to me, as if the project with the most Stars is a recipe book.

I was very surprised that AnduinOS gained recognition and attention from the community. I think the secret to its success lies precisely in the fact that it did not do much work. Many people were simply curious about an Ubuntu with a Windows theme. I know this success is inevitably short-term, and I should not be proud of it. I am standing on the shoulders of so many giants that so many problems have already been solved well; I merely packaged and integrated them.

In the beginning, I did not pre-install an app store for it, and many people criticized this point primarily. In fact, many people over-speculate about why I didn't pre-install an app store; they might be thinking too much... There are no complex guesses or concerns at all. It was purely because I personally didn't need it. As I just mentioned, this is an ISO I made for my own use, not intending to spend too much time on it, and I just happened to share it with the community. It being able to meet my personal needs is perfect enough for me. Of course, nowadays it pre-installs flatpak, which also happens to fit my personal needs. Although flatpak brings many issues (for example, apps have difficulty selecting files on the host), I am happy to use flatpak to install applications with unknown behavior, giving them a nice layer of isolation.

There are actually quite a few more reasons. I also learned a fair amount about package management during the build process. What struck me most deeply is that currently, whether it's apt, rpm, flatpak, snap, or appimage, none of them can perfectly solve the problems of application dependency resolution and version reproducibility. I still hold great respect for Nix. Perhaps one day, once I have fully committed to Nix, I might use it to build my own operating system.

Many people ask me why I don't accept donations, how I make a living, or whether I have any plans for commercialization. Strictly speaking, I haven't really thought these questions through. After all, for me, on one hand, it is not my main career, and I have no plans to make a living from it. I just spend a few hours each month maintaining it, and that's all. On the other hand, I have my regular job. Perhaps I might consider offering some AnduinOS-based solutions to enterprises in the future, but I won't let AnduinOS mix in too much that doesn't belong to it just because of that. Its creation has always maintained its initial goal: to give me an Ubuntu that feels familiar with my theme, and that's all.

Currently, amid the rapidly changing global landscape, I always feel like I might lose my job at any moment, especially since the relationship between China and the US changes literally every day. But for me, I don't really care much about the job aspect. As an engineer, losing a job mostly just means spending a few months grinding algorithm problems for interviews at the next company. AnduinOS might be able to provide some technical support for enterprises, or I could customize some devices for fun. There are still ways to make money if I wanted to. Some venture capital firms have wanted to invest in this, but I mostly declined. I told them this is not a commercial project; it's just something I tinkered with in my spare time and has no future.

I've also noticed that many communities criticize AnduinOS, claiming it comes from China, is evil, and will collect people's information and upload it to the Party! I believe it is impossible to communicate with conspiracy theorists, because conspiracy theories cannot be falsified. But after all, I provide the source code. Users can easily run this source code themselves to get an identical ISO. It is completely impossible for me, and there is no need to take the risk of being discovered by planting backdoors.

Of course, right now, for many people, the biggest drawback of AnduinOS is that it is too new, too young and immature, and I am the only one maintaining it. There is a legitimate concern that I might suddenly pass away or be too busy to fix bugs one day. This concern is undoubtedly reasonable. However, considering that my life is currently quite orderly and maintaining it doesn't require too much energy, I will continue to work on it. If there were some sponsorship or opportunities for enterprise cooperation, that would naturally be even better. Maybe then I could maintain it full-time.

On the contrary, its interesting story today also perfectly illustrates that an operating system maintained in one's spare time might actually be even more appealing. As I have said: it is not a commercial project; it is a hobby. There is currently no reason to add anything unpleasant to it. I think the most important thing I should do is stay true to this original intention!

Thank you for the community's support!