KaOS aims to create the highest quality distribution possible. In April 2013, they decided to go with a Linux Kernel, pacman/makepkg for their package manager, KDE Plasma for the desktop environment, and Qt for the toolkit.
KaOS is a build from scratch distribution, every package in every repository is build by their team.
The repositories consists of three groups:
- Core contains packages needed for a system to boot-up, communicate with the BIOS, connect most hardware and set basic shell options. These are thoroughly tested since errors could greatly affect the stability of the system.
- Main contains all the needed libraries, extra drivers and firmware needed to make the Desktop and Applications function. Many of these can be fully rolling and will move to the end-user after a seven to ten days testing period.
- Apps contains all packages and tools seen and used by the users. These packages are fully rolling and you can expect updates to reach this repository after a short testing period unless it needed to be built on newer versions of Core or Main packages.
- Build contains new, rebuild and updated packages. Once these have been properly tested, they are than moved to the proper repository.
