---
title: Understand what you are signing up for
description: 
published: true
date: 2021-11-23T16:00:15.866Z
tags: 
editor: markdown
dateCreated: 2021-11-13T11:19:38.215Z
---

# Is Phyllome OS right for you?

## Understand the Phyllome OS philosophy

> *Phyllome OS has one goal: to let users bring their favorite operating system and to run them well. Eventually, users should be able to reach **the state of virtual enlightenment** (tm), and stop worrying about the fact that their favorite operating system is running inside a virtual machine, just as humans should stop worrying about living in a computer simulation* ([perhaps?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis)).

By definition, the host, Phyllome OS, is trying to be as discrete as possible, so that users won't actually have to spend much time to manage it. Users should be able to spend their time using their favorite personal computing environment, rather than messing around with Phyllome OS itself. Although, we very much encourage you to [hack it](https://github.com/PhyllomeOS/phyllomeos#how-to-hack-phyllome-os).

However, if the host is meant to be a great place for guest operating systems to thrive, it is up to the user to manage the lifecycle of their guest operating system. Phyllome OS provides an optimized virtual machine model tuned to host modern operating systems, but, at the exception of some RPM-based guests operating systems including Phyllome OS itself, does not intent to provide automated ways to deploy guest operating systems (at the moment [Infrastructure as code solutions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_as_code) or instance initialization software like [cloud-init](https://github.com/canonical/cloud-init) do not seem generic enough to satisfy every modern desktop-based operating systems' idiosyncrasies).

In other words, contrary to end-to-end operating systems like [Qubes OS](https://www.qubes-os.org/) or the upcoming [Spectrum](https://spectrum-os.org/), which are offering ready to use templates or/and applications isolated in virtual machines by default, Phyllome OS delegates to end-users the task to install their favorite operating system, while trying to provide the best possible underlying defaults for each operating system. In this regard, its model is closer to [Promox](https://www.proxmox.com/en/), which doesn't make assumptions about how a guest operating system will be deployed.

## Limitations

Phyllome OS makes a few assumptions, including the following ones: 

* **Virtual machines have become viable personal computing environments, including for desktop computing** 
	* Due to their software-based nature, virtual machines are extremely flexible, and can for instance emulate features that their physical host may lack. 
* **The host operating system should not be modified, in general**
	* Two Phyllome OS hosts should barely differ, allowing virtual machines to be migrated from one host to the next.
  
Some limitations directly result from these assumptions.

Relying on a virtual machine as its primarily personal environment has key advantages, such as the ability to more easily migrate to a new host computer or the ability to create multiple virtual computers out of a single physical computer. However, it also comes with several limitations in comparison to using a bare-metal operating system.  Some of these limitations will be tackled or greatly reduced one day, others might not.

### Performance-related

* **Performance overhead**. Phyllome OS requires resources to run, resources that will not be accessible to guest operating systems.

* **Suboptimal guest performance**. In most cases, running a virtual machine instead of using the physical hardware directly will come with a performance penalty. This penalty can be greatly reduced by using some techniques, such as letting the virtual machine access the underlying hardware directly, but this particular solution is by definition not scalable to multiple virtual machines.

### Usability-related

* **Limited features set**. Some operating systems are designed to leverage hardware features that may not be accessible to an operating system installed on a virtual machine, or that would require specific developments to be taken advantage of. 

* **Increased general complexity**. Instead of running just an operating system on top of some physical hardware, any Phyllome OS user would need to manage it as well as their primarily guest operating system. As a result, it might be more difficult to troubleshoot an issue, and it will add a pile of code that the user has to trust.

* **Decreased general usability**. Any physical device attached to a computer won't automatically be made to a guest virtual machine. For some users, it might be considered a hindrance. Phyllome OS relies on Linux drivers. Not all hardware fully supports Linux well, which may force users to rely on device or controllers passthrough. Finally, the use of Phyllome OS will severely reduce your laptop battery-life. 

## Phyllome OS versions

### Versions

Phyllome OS exists in two main editions: **Phyllome OS Desktop**, which features a graphical desktop environment, and **Phyllome OS Server**, which does not. Phyllome OS Server is made for power users. It includes all virtualization enhancements that Phyllome OS Desktop provides. 

If you don't know which one to choose, you should probably pick the Desktop edition. Each edition comes with several versions, optimized for a particular combination of hardware.

|  | Intel's graphics cards | AMD's graphics cards | Nvidia's graphics cards | 
|---|---|---|---|
| *Intel CPU* | Phyllome OS Desktop II | Phyllome OS Desktop IA | Phyllome OS Desktop IN |
| *AMD CPU* | Phyllome OS Desktop AI  | Phyllome OS Desktop AA | Phyllome OS Desktop AN |

> The first letter refers to the CPU manufacturer, the second letter to the GPU manufacturers.
{.is-info}

Depending on your hardware, you need to pick the right edition. For example, if you possess an Intel CPU and an AMD graphics card, you should pick either Phyllome OS Desktop IA or Phyllome OS Server IA.

> As of now, **only Phyllome OS Desktop II is supported**. In other words, you need to use a computer with both an Intel CPU and an Intel GPU to leverage Phyllome OS. Support for other other editions are expected for the Beta.  
{.is-info}

## Choosing a desktop-oriented OS

> This section might removed as it is confusing as of now. Phyllome OS is not really a replacement for bare-metal operating systems.
{.is-warning}

Here is a table to help you pick a **desktop-oriented** operating system. 

How to read this table? For instance: *If you care most about virtualization and put security first, you would be better off picking [Qubes OS](https://www.qubes-os.org/) or the upcoming [Spectrum](https://spectrum-os.org/) instead of Phyllome OS.*

|  | Security | Usability | 
|---|---|---| 
| *Virtualization* | [Qubes OS](https://www.qubes-os.org/) or [Spectrum](https://spectrum-os.org/) | **Phyllome OS Desktop** | 
| *Bare-metal* | [Sculpt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genode#Sculpt) or [Fuchsia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuchsia_(operating_system)) | [Linux](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions) or [BSD distro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_BSD_operating_systems), [macOS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS), [Windows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows) or [Chrome OS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrome_OS) | 

> In general, the vast majority of users will stick to the bottom-right corner of the table, because that is the operating system that ships with their hardware.
{.is-info}

This table is not meant to be clear-cut, or definitive. 

For example, Phyllome OS is intended to be easy-to-use, but still isn't, and Spectrum, which is based on Chromium OS, might well end up being easier to use. Out of the box, Chrome OS [^1], or even Windows [^2], might be considered  more secure than most Linux desktop-oriented distributions [^3], at the price of greatly limiting user freedom and privacy, however. Due to their tight integration, some BSDs distributions might be considered more secure than some Linux distributions. People might find Windows easier to use than, say, Ubuntu. Finally, just as Phyllome OS, Qubes OS is compatible with running Windows-based guest systems. In other words, using virtualization, a user might be able to access more usable operating systems, and in the case of Phyllome OS, one may even host Qubes OS inside Phyllome OS, for instance to test out Qubes OS.

Also note that macOS or Windows can also be used to host virtual machines, just as any Linux or BSDs distributions. 

[^1]: See for instance the paper [*Security of Google Chromebook* (PDF)](http://dhanus.mit.edu/docs/ChromeOSSecurity.pdf) by Katherine Fang, Deborah Hanus, Yuzhi Zheng. 

[^2]: A common pain point for Linux security are desktop environments (DE), which have a limited user base scattered across many different DE: there is a lot of complexity due to adding desktop environments atop the Linux kernel and its associated tools. Simple bugs might still lurk in the codebase for a long time. See for instance [*Is the Linux desktop less secure than Windows 10: Or how super mario music can own your system* (PDF)](https://archive.fosdem.org/2017/schedule/event/linux_desktop_versus_windows10/attachments/slides/1730/export/events/attachments/linux_desktop_versus_windows10/slides/1730/fosdem_linux_desktop_security.pdf), by M.Hanno Böck (2017).

[^3]: Take for instance the boot process, or before an operating system effectively takes control over the hardware. Major operating systems editors that are working directly with OEM integrators have a distinct advantage over editors that aren't: these major editors have almost unlimited resources, sometimes almost perfect control over hardware, and can therefore tame the underlying hardware, effectively controlling, measuring and attesting the entire boot process. To implement a user-backed root of trust on a particular hardware platform, one would need to take several extra measures, relying on something like [Heads](https://github.com/osresearch/heads) which, among other things, involves physically flashing a more open firmware to a motherboard, a complicated process. Fortunately, some hardware integrators like [Purism](https://puri.sm/) or [System76](https://system76.com/) are backing security measures straight into hardware platforms, while at the same time respecting user freedom. 

> **Still undecided?** You can give Phyllome OS a try, as a live system booting off from a USB thumb drive, without impacting the existing operating system on your machine.

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*Please go to [the next section](/deploy/prepare) to prepare your host computer.*

