Everest preview: v4 is still in development

Abora OS v4.0 Everest is still in development and is not a released stable version. This post documents the preview work and should not be treated as a download announcement.

So what's different? We split the ISO into five editions (Cosmic, Hyprland, GNOME, KDE, and a console one called Other). You pick your desktop when you grab the ISO, but the full menu of 23 desktops is still there at install time. The edition just sets what you see in the live session. It's faster, cleaner on download, and way less confusing for people who don't want to wade through a thousand options. But you're not locked in. You can switch to whatever whenever.

GPU support actually works now. The installer checks what GPU you've got (using lspci) and picks sensible defaults. NVIDIA cards get nouveau out of the box, no licensing popup, it just works. If you want to switch later, it's one line: `abora config set gpu nvidia && abora config apply`. Done.

ANIX v2 is the big win here. You can write your config in ANIX Native, MKO, or ModuCPP, and they all compile to the same thing under the hood. New commands: `anix language list`, `anix run`, `anix diff-plan`, `anix apply-plan`. The diff command is the real gem. It shows you exactly what's about to change (ADD, CHANGE, or SAME for each setting) before you touch anything. No surprises.

We threw in our first GUI apps too. `abora welcome-gui` shows up once on first login, quick status check, update button, that sort of thing. `abora config-gui` is a settings editor for all the usual stuff (hostname, timezone, keyboard, desktop, wallpaper, GPU). But they're just calling the CLI underneath, so you're never forced to use them. `abora update --check` also exists now if you want to know about updates without installing them immediately.

Some real fixes landed too. The live ISO had this weird Wi-Fi issue where some cards would sit at 'unavailable' forever (but installed systems were fine, classic). That's squashed. The installer won't let you accidentally pick your boot USB as the install target anymore. `anix package remove` actually removes packages now (the regex was broken). Every config operation is atomic. Either the whole thing works or nothing changes. Also fixed a leftover 'denali' reference in `/etc/os-release` that had no business being there.

Everest sits on top of 3.14 Denali, so you get all that goodness. The TUI installer that actually feels good to use, COSMIC and MangoWM support, 23 total desktops (we test the whole matrix in CI so nothing breaks), TinyPM v4 for actual fast installs, the whole deal.

What's not done yet: MINT, our fancy Go/Bubble Tea installer, is built but not hooked up by default. If something goes sideways, `abora-support-report` or `abora-hardware-test --with-report` gives us the data we need to actually help. Stable channel tracks releases; unstable tracks main if you're into that.

Go grab one of the five editions from the download page. Or build from main if you want to tinker. Let us know what breaks.