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Bluefin LTS (Beta)

Achillobator giganticus

achillosmall

Larger, more lethal Bluefin. bluefin:lts is built on CentOS 10.

warning

Bluefin LTS is in Beta, and is in progress, some things in this document are aspirational but will be completed by GA.

Purpose​

Bluefin LTS is a workstation designed for people who prefer Long Term Support. This species of raptor is for users who prefer a slower release cadence, about a three-to-five year lifespan on a single release.

Bluefin LTS is composed of:

  • Mostly the same packages of Bluefin and Bluefin GTS, but built with CentOS Stream 10 and EPEL
    • The same features since they share the same source RPMs, just built on CentOS
  • ARM (aarch64) based images
  • The Nvidia version of Bluefin LTS is branded as Bluefin GDX and designed for AI and other GPU heavy workflows and includes CUDA

Bluefin LTS also offers a hardware enablement branch with:

  • Updated, but gated Linux kernel, usually one minor point release behind Fedora
  • Backported GNOME desktop from Fedora
  • Toggle between branches with ujust toggle-hwe

Pasted image

Rationale​

Bluefin LTS ships with Linux 6.12.0, which is the kernel for the lifetime of release. It is for change-averse users.

However ...

The classic definition of "LTS" or "Enterprise Linux" was to ship older, known good working versions of software. And for a long time it felt like your options were old and working, or new and shiny but may break. But in order to be a good desktop, you have to have good hardware support, and that means newer kernels, etc. Bluefin LTS is more about how regressions are handled more than a strict definition of "things must be old." In our world the applications are always up to date, so the "pace" of the base image isn't as important. This is why ujust toggle-hwe exists, so users can adjust to their needs.

warning

While our payload is less churny than Fedora, note that this is still a new image, this project is still in beta.

Blockers​

  • Secure Boot

Next Up​

  • ZFS support

Status​

  • There are instances when something from Bluefin is not implemented in Bluefin LTS. Please file an issue and tag it with parity and the team will investigate. They'll never exactly but we can get the important ones done
  • Appimages are hard unsupported (those fuse packages aren't even in CentOS)
  • Local Layering is disabled by default

Due to its nature Bluefin LTS is stable in practice, the reason it is tagged as Beta is that we want to let it cook for a while. After a few major upgrades and the community feels like it's been enough then we'll be done. Exciting times ahead!

Installation​

danger

Do NOT rebase to this image from an existing Bluefin, Aurora, Bazzite, or Fedora system. This warning is in red for a reason.

Download​

Check the downloads page to download the correct ISO.

The only Bluefin LTS available with Nvidia drivers is Bluefin GDX. If you select Nvidia on the website it will download this ISO. Read this documentation first since it applies to Bluefin GDX.

warning

The ISO uses Fedora to install Bluefin LTS, this is confusing because it will say Fedora but install a CentOS based image. We're working on fixing the branding to hide this from you because that's just bonkers.

Do not rebase to this from an existing Fedora image, ain't no one testing that.

Images​

The following images and tags are available:

  • bluefin:lts - base LTS experience, kernel 6.12.0 with long term maintenance from CentOS.
  • bluefin-gdx:lts - includes Nvidia drivers and associated CUDA tooling. This is the only image with Nvidia drivers. See Bluefin GDX
  • bluefin:lts-testing - Adds GNOME backports and gated Linux kernels, the latest patch version of the previous minor kernel release.
  • bluefin-gdx:lts-testing - GDX with GNOME backports and gated Linux kernels, the latest patch version of the previous minor kernel release.

Note that -testing will be rebranded as -hwe in the future. All images offer Bluefin's Developer Mode.

ARM Support​

Using it in a VM on an Apple Silicon Mac​

UTM can boot these images if suitably configured:

  • File → New, then select Virtualize
  • Select Linux, then enable "Use Apple Virtualization" (The QEMU virtualization backend can also work, but this works better on Apple Silicon.)
  • Browse for the Bluefin LTS ISO.
  • It should default to 4GB of RAM; this is a good minimum value.
  • On the Summary screen, it is not necessary to check the "Open VM Settings" box; while you may wish to adjust the configuration of the VM before first boot, the defaults are sensible.
MacOS setups wanted

If there are other ways to set this up on MacOS please considering sending a pull request!

Other features​

  • Rebasing: We will explicitly not support rebasing from the Fedora based images and ensure the rebase helper keeps users protected.
  • Releases: Builds publish weekly on Tuesdays, the images will update as often as the team is developing and will settle down into weeklies as the project matures

Schedule​

  • General Availability: Summer 2025

Building Locally​

To build locally and then spit out a VM:

git clone https://github.com/ublue-os/bluefin-lts
cd bluefin-lts
just build
just build-qcow2 ghcr.io/ublue-os/bluefin:lts # if you want to build an ISO just change qcow2 to iso instead

The qcow2 file will be written to the output/ directory. Default username and password are centos/centos

Hibernation Enabled by Default​

Hibernation is on by default in a suspend-then-hibernate configuration. Here is the exact config. The device will suspend then go into hibernation after two hours. See the systemd-sleep.conf documentation.

Note that secureboot and hibernation are mutually exclusive. We do not yet offer secureboot enabled images of Bluefin LTS, if you need that functionality now we recommend the normal Bluefin and Bluefin GTS images.

Supporting Bluefin LTS​

The team appreciates your support!