Core System

Blue95 is based on the solid foundation of Fedora Xfce. We pull in tweaks from Universal Blue (e.g. codecs, automatic updates, etc) to produce a more usable out-of-the box experience.

Following the lead of Universal Blue, Blue95 embraces Flathub as the universal Linux App Store for GUI applications. For command-line applications, Homebrew is installed by default. Updates for Flatpaks and Homebrew applications are automatically enabled.

Aesthetic

Blue95 aims to provide an aesthetic rooted in a bygone era of computing that is intended to remind its users of design elements from the 1990s. Most of the heavy lifting is taken care of by Chicago95 and any changes to the visual elements of Blue95 should be upstreamed to that project where applicable.

However, Blue95 is not aiming to be a faithful reproduction of any particular decades-old operating system. Pixel perfect recreation of GUI elements is not within the scope of this project.

Whenever usability and exact replication are at odds, usability and accessibility will generally be preferred.

Batteries Included

Although Blue95 is not a Universal Blue project, we strive to follow the same philosophy. We take inspiration from the developer experience images from Aurora and Bluefin.

For Xfce enthusiasts, this "batteries included" approach may feel at odds with the lightweight reputation that Xfce has garnered over the years. If Blue95's defaults feel a bit bloated for you, we encourage you to consider winblues/vauxite which offers the lightweight Xfce image vauxite-minimal.