about
Nobody maintains Odyssey Linux. Nobody writes the code, builds the ISO, pays the servers, and answers the issues. If you are looking for a team, a company, or a foundation — there is none. There is only Nobody, and an honest commitment.
the origin
Nobody spent twenty years on Debian and its derivatives. Comfortable, reliable, well-supported — and increasingly complicated in ways that had nothing to do with the work. When systemd became unavoidable and the init system turned into an operating system of its own, the question became harder to ignore: is this still Unix?
Then came Void Linux. Rolling release. xbps. runit. No systemd. No corporate sponsor. A small, coherent team building a distribution that behaved the way Unix was supposed to behave. Nobody was, in his own words, struck by lightning.
There were already enough distributions. Every niche was covered. Void itself was excellent. But around it there was a specific gap — the same gap that exists around every principled Unix-like distribution: the graphical layer. The non-systemd world had CachyOS and Bazzite on the other side. Nobody thought: why not here?
the reality
Nobody does not sell smoke. This is the most important thing to understand about Odyssey, and it is the thing most projects of this kind refuse to say clearly.
Odyssey is maintained by a single person. If Nobody gets sick, Odyssey gets sick. If Nobody disappears, Odyssey disappears — and your data stays exactly where you put it, because Odyssey does not touch your data, but the distribution stops receiving updates. This is the honest version of what "maintained by one person" means, and you deserve to read it before you decide to use it as your primary system.
Nobody takes the idea of a distribution seriously. Seriously enough to say this.
Odyssey is one person. That person has a life, obligations, and finite time. The project can slow down, pause, or end. This is not a disclaimer — it is the truth.
If you need a primary system backed by a team, a company, or a long-term institutional commitment, use Void Linux directly. Void has a coherent, experienced, multi-person team with a long track record. They are reliable in a way that one person cannot promise to be.
Odyssey is a serious project run honestly within its real limits. Those limits are real.
Nobody's recommendation: use Void Linux as your primary system.
Void is what Odyssey is built on. If Odyssey ever stops, Void continues. If you are not sure, start with Void — you will be in good hands with a group of people who have been building this for years.
the commitment
Independence. Freedom. Honesty. And a specific, time-bounded commitment — because a promise without a limit is not a promise, it is a wish.
support the project
Somebody pays for the servers. Somebody pays for the hosting. Somebody spends hours building, testing, and maintaining this. That somebody is Nobody, and it is fair to acknowledge that work — even if it is just ten cents.
A donation does not buy a feature, a priority response, or a guarantee. It buys more time — specifically, the time Nobody needs to keep doing this instead of something else. The project exists because of this. Be honest about it.
Every amount helps. Ten cents. Ten euros. Whatever you decide is fair for the value you get. There is no subscription, no tier, no reward beyond knowing the project continues.
in closing
You will not be the proudest person in the room. Some setups are flashier. Some window managers are more impressive at first glance. But you will know something that not everyone in that room knows: underneath your shiny WM, Unix is running. Actually running. Not emulated, not abstracted, not managed by a service supervisor that is secretly a dependency manager that is secretly an everything-daemon.
runit is PID 1. xbps is managing your packages. The kernel Nobody tuned for x86-64-v3 with BORE scheduling is handling your processes. You are not just using a Linux distribution that looks good. You are using one that is good — from the ground up.
That is what Odyssey is. That is what Nobody built it to be. And that is why it is worth the honesty this page required.
Download the ISO. Boot it. Install with Calamares. If you decide it is not for you, your system goes back to being pure Void in one command. No drama.