Distro support matrix

SysKnife reports operating-system support by evidence, not by family name alone. Recognition in /etc/os-release means the planner can select the right action vocabulary; it does not prove that every action has passed on that release.

Status definitions

Tier	Meaning
Validated	The documented full story suite passed on a real VM.
Smoke-tested	Bootstrap and basic daemon/tooling checks passed; full action parity was not exercised.
Current validation required	An action backend exists, but the current distro release still needs its launch-gate VM run.
Experimental	Detection or partial code exists, but production support is not claimed.
Planned	No complete action backend exists.

Launch matrix

Distro	Action backend	Evidence	Launch tier
Ubuntu 24.04 LTS	apt, ufw, netplan, snap, AppArmor, systemd, containers	65/65 stories on a live VM with `gpt-4.1`	Validated
Ubuntu 22.04 LTS	Ubuntu/apt family	VM bootstrap and smoke tests	Smoke-tested
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS	Ubuntu/apt family	VM bootstrap, smoke tests, and sudo-rs sudoers verification (26.04 ships sudo-rs 0.2.x; `visudo -cf` parses the SysKnife sudoers and every grant — including the trailing-`*` wildcard grants — is honoured)	Smoke-tested
Fedora Silverblue 44	rpm-ostree, Flatpak, toolbox, firewalld, systemd, containers	Harness and fixture coverage; current live-VM run must be recorded before release	Current validation required
Other Fedora Atomic 41+ variants	rpm-ostree family	Detection and shared action tests	Experimental until variant-specific VM evidence exists
Fedora Workstation / Server	`dnf` family incomplete	Detection tests only	Experimental

The deterministic workspace baseline is 1,405 Rust tests plus 72 frontend tests. Those tests verify action construction, policy, approval, storage, and UI behavior, but they do not replace a real distribution VM run.

Important scope differences

Atomic rollback applies to rpm-ostree deployment changes. Ubuntu package operations are mutable and cannot offer equivalent deployment rollback.
Ubuntu Server may use netplan with systemd-networkd; Ubuntu Desktop often uses NetworkManager. SysKnife detects and routes those mechanisms.
apt can contend with unattended upgrades and needrestart; the Ubuntu actions use non-interactive execution and bounded lock handling.
Fedora Workstation and Server require a dedicated dnf action family. Falling through to rpm-ostree commands would be incorrect, so they are not reported as supported.

The complete Ubuntu action catalogue is in the Ubuntu action reference.

Distro detection

SysKnife parses /etc/os-release without evaluating it as shell code:

ID selects Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, or another exact distribution.
ID_LIKE supplies a family fallback for planning.
VERSION_ID determines the release.
VARIANT_ID distinguishes Fedora Atomic variants and Ubuntu Core.

Ubuntu Core is detected separately and is not supported. Unknown Debian- or Fedora-family systems receive a warning rather than a false support claim.

Planned systems

Distro	State
Debian stable/testing	Planned after Ubuntu hardening
Arch / EndeavourOS	Planned; requires a `pacman` action family
openSUSE Leap / Tumbleweed	Planned; requires `zypper` and transactional-update design
NixOS	Out of scope; configuration evaluation does not fit per-action mutation
macOS, Windows, WSL	Out of scope; SysKnife is a native Linux system daemon

Verify a host

sysknife doctor

doctor reports detected distribution, daemon reachability, provider, and audit-chain status. For release evidence, follow the current VM procedures in Testing and record the exact image, architecture, model, commit, and story results in the release checklist.

Adding support

Document the action mapping and unsupported semantics.
Add real /etc/os-release fixtures and detection tests.
Implement typed actions without raw shell strings.
Add policy, preview, and executor consistency tests.
Add a reproducible VM harness and record a full run before using the Validated label.