Overview
Boréal OS
Overview
Platform
Technical
Download
Setup
FAQ
About
FR

The OS designed for the age
of artificial intelligence

A minimalist, sealed, sovereign operating system — its code produced, optimized, and secured by agents, under human architectural supervision. Designed to carry the ProductivIA platform all the way into the hardware, as client or server, with Matania in residence when the user chooses to install it locally.

An operating system built for the agentic era.

Linux has everything it takes to be an excellent modern OS — except one thing: it has always required a competent human to keep it in good shape. Boréal OS starts from a different rule: no human touches the operational code. The human supervises the architecture, the requirements, and the outcome; agents produce, verify, optimize, and harden it through successive passes. What appears on screen is radically simple because what lies behind it was built in that spirit.

hub

Agentic stewardship

Boréal OS is not maintained by hand: its configuration, optimization, and hardening come from iterative agentic passes, under human supervision. If Matania is installed in residence, it can then observe usage, propose adjustments, and personalize the OS according to needs.

lock_person

Inviolable by design

No superfluous component, no telemetry, no imposed updates, no monitoring sent elsewhere. The attack surface is reduced to what the mission requires, and what remains is sealed. What the machine does stays in the machine.

all_inclusive

Built to last

No race for the latest generation of hardware. No stack that bloats with each update. A 2014 machine feels as responsive as a 2026 machine under Boréal OS, because the OS was crystallized around a precise mission and everything that could weigh it down has been stripped out.

Three ways to enter the ecosystem

One common platform — ProductivIA, currently invitation-only — three entry points depending on the level of depth desired.

language

1 — The platform in the browser

With an active ProductivIA account, the ProductivIA platform opens from any machine. It gives access to the Assistant, the Factory, and all applications. The agent works inside the browser sandbox: it can reason, create, and deliver within the page — it does not touch the machine hosting it.

desktop_windows

2 — Boréal for Windows

The Windows counterpart of Boréal OS, distributed as a native application. Once installed, an existing Windows machine becomes a complete agentic workstation: screen capture, files, devices, system automations — the agent gets every host capability of the platform.

hub

3 — Boréal OS

Same agentic capabilities as the Windows version, but on an operating system designed to carry them. An active ProductivIA account should be in place before installing it. Boréal OS can act as a client machine or, from the interface, switch to server mode to serve the ProductivIA platform. This is where the architectural benefits appear — privacy, security, performance, durability, sovereignty — because nothing in the system works against them.

Boréal OS or Boréal for Windows:
the same power, two philosophies

Boréal for Windows and Boréal OS expose exactly the same capabilities to the platform. Agents do exactly the same work on either one. The difference is not in what can be done; it lies in what the system itself does behind the scenes.

desktop_windows

Boréal for Windows

Full agentic capability is gained without changing environment. But Windows-specific constraints remain: constant telemetry streams to the vendor, updates scheduled by others, a background ecosystem of services, gradual system drift over time. It is the simplest option for joining the ecosystem — not the purest.

hub

Boréal OS

The system itself is aligned with the mission. No telemetry, because there is no one to report to. No forced updates, because the schedule is set locally. No outbound monitoring, because the machine has nothing to justify. Performance regained, because nothing runs for no reason anymore. The gap is not functional, it is philosophical — and it is felt every day.

tuneTechnical detailsWhat materially differs between the two distributions

From the platform's point of view, the two distributions are equivalent: screen capture, file system access, shell and keyboard control, audio, Wi-Fi, camera, microphone, web sandboxes, on-demand admin access — everything is aligned to the letter. An application that works on one works on the other, unmodified.

Below the application contract, however, the two worlds have nothing in common. Boréal for Windows rests on a third-party vendor's system: constant telemetry, imposed updates, several gigabytes of system services running at all times, boot times measured in tens of seconds, inherited attack surface, unavoidable cumulative drift.

Boréal OS, by contrast, emits no telemetry at all. It updates through a complete, signed image, adopted at its own pace. Its idle memory footprint runs to a few hundred megabytes — the rest of the RAM goes to the platform and, if enabled, to Matania in residence. It reaches the platform in about ten seconds. Its service surface is deliberately reduced and documented. It can switch into a full ProductivIA server, and run Matania locally when the hardware allows it.

Client or server, depending on the machine's role

Boréal OS is not just a sovereign client for ProductivIA. The same system can also become a complete server: the user activates server mode from the interface, and the machine moves from an application workstation role to that of a local host for the platform.

desktop_windows

Client mode

The machine boots directly into the ProductivIA platform in full screen. It exposes machine capabilities to agents — screen, files, devices, shell, audio, network — while keeping the OS minimal, sealed, and telemetry-free.

dns

Server mode

From the interface, Boréal OS can be activated as a ProductivIA server. It then serves the platform on the local network or in an on-site deployment. If the GPU allows it, Matania is served locally as well; for this server role, aim for 16 GB of VRAM.

Matania in residence: the local option

When the hardware allows it — a dedicated GPU or a capable iGPU — Matania, ProductivIA's LLM model, can be installed in residence on Boréal OS. It is optional: the OS works without it, but its local presence adds two capabilities. In server mode, Matania can also be served to the local platform if the GPU has at least 16 GB of VRAM.

precision_manufacturing

System steward

Matania observes the machine: memory profiles, disk latency, network behavior, service logs. It proposes adjustments, applies those that have been pre-approved, and personalizes the OS based on actual usage. The human keeps supervision of the architecture and the outcome; day-to-day tuning becomes agentic.

model_training

Local inference provider

Everyday requests — rewriting, summarizing, document analysis, image reading, short text generation — are served from the local GPU by Matania. No outbound call, no data sent to a third-party provider, no token consumed. Inference becomes a system service, on par with networking or audio.

routeTechnical detailsLocal / remote routing: sobriety by design

When installed in residence, Matania covers the large majority of everyday inferences — the short, frequent ones that make up most of the real work. When a request exceeds its capabilities — video production, high-fidelity generation, very long reasoning, or a specific model requested by the user — it takes the orchestrator role and delegates to a ProductivIA partner provider, chosen from about a dozen ethical, geopolitical, and technical options.

Direct consequences. Sobriety: for standard usage, this local-first mode removes most of the outbound inference traffic — on the order of 70 to 90%. Latency: short answers appear in under a second, with no network round trip. Privacy: everything that can stay in the machine does, and whatever leaves is visible and can be adjusted. Cost: no token is consumed unless the task requires a specialization only a partner can offer.

On the hardware side, a recent GPU — dedicated or a capable integrated one — is enough to run a workstation-class Matania. The Matania server role, which serves the model to an entire organization, targets a higher hardware bar (around 16 GB of dedicated memory). Without a compatible GPU, Boréal OS remains fully functional and Matania stays accessible remotely — with no loss of functionality, simply without the benefit of local residence.

An architecture that holds together

Five design choices, inseparable from one another. It is their coherence that produces the difference, not their sum.

layers

Linux as raw material, AI as steward

The kernel, drivers, graphics compositor, browser — mature, audited, proven components. The innovation is not there. It is in the method: no human touches the code, the human supervises the architecture and the outcome, and successive agentic passes simplify, optimize, and secure the whole.

diamond

Component crystallization

Once the optimal configuration is validated for a usage family, it is baked into the image. No renegotiation at every boot. The OS arrives ready, identical from one machine to the next, predictable — and therefore supervisable at scale.

shield

Security by subtraction

No classic Linux desktop, no system store, no native office stack to maintain. The entire application experience is provided by ProductivIA in a single, ultra-optimized web layer generated by AI for efficiency. What remains on the OS side is minimal: display, networking, devices, security, logging.

memory

RAM as the primary disk

Critical components are preloaded into RAM at boot, the user profile lives there for the whole session, and disk persistence is event-driven and atomic. Disk access becomes rare, response times become constant, and SSD wear becomes marginal.

verified

Vertical coherence of inference

When Matania is installed in residence, the same model can assist agents in the platform and tune the OS from the inside. No split between the application layer and the system layer: local personalization knows both the work and the machine running it.

all_inclusive

Distribution by lifecycle, not by technical debt

Updates happen by re-flashing a new image, at whatever pace fits. There is no drifting system, no history of incompatible patches, no moment of looking at the OS and wondering what has accumulated there over three years.

A system that joins an ecosystem

Boréal OS is not a standalone product. It is the local embodiment of a platform — ProductivIA — and an orchestrator LLM model — Matania — designed together.

workspaces

ProductivIA

The agentic platform: Assistant, Factory, dozens of specialized applications, private business app store.

neurology

Matania

The sovereign orchestrator LLM model. 12 available providers, proprietary ProductivIA models, local execution possible.

memory

Boréal OS

The OS that makes all of this coherent down to the hardware. Client or server, built agentically, hardened through iteration, sealed, durable, sovereign.

Protected by the Open Invention Network

Boréal OS is built on Linux. ProductivIA, its publisher, is a member of the Open Invention Network (OIN 2.0): the sovereignty promised here also rests on solid patent defense.

verified_user

A defended Linux foundation

Linux and open source are the core of Boréal OS. OIN protects precisely this scope: the kernel, cloud computing, Kubernetes, Go, Python, and Rust libraries. What is built here rests on a covered foundation.

gavel

Freedom to operate

A royalty-free cross-license, shared by more than 4,100 members and over 3 million patents, shields Boréal OS, Matania, and the platform from patent disputes.

diversity_3

In good company

Alongside Google, IBM (Red Hat), Microsoft, SUSE, and Canonical, ProductivIA commits to never using a patent against the open source ecosystem.

Available for direct download

Boréal OS is available for direct download. The ProductivIA platform, however, is currently accessible by invitation only: an active ProductivIA account should be in place before downloading and installing the OS. To request access, use the form at the bottom of the page.

A single file needs to be downloaded for Boréal OS — the USB Maker utility, which then takes care of fetching and writing the image. Once installed, Boréal OS can remain a client machine or be switched to server mode from the interface. Boréal for Windows is also available through its signed native installer. Everything is on the Download page.

hub

Install Boréal OS on a PC

A machine is turned into a native agentic workstation, or into an on-site ProductivIA server if server mode is activated. USB Maker prepares the install stick from Windows, followed by a step-by-step procedure. About thirty minutes in total.

desktop_windows

Staying on Windows

Full agentic capability is added to an existing Windows machine through Boréal for Windows. A signed native installer, a few minutes, no reformatting. Ideal for evaluating the ecosystem without changing environment.

download

Access downloads
Boréal OS image, USB Maker, Boréal for Windows

To go further

workspaces

Understanding the platform

The platform in summary — Assistant, Factory, Matania, applications and gateways, without repeating ProductivIA's full documentation.

engineering

Diving into the system

Technical documentation — system architecture, host capabilities exposed to the platform, server mode, network posture, supported devices, local inference with Matania.

download

Getting the distributions

Download pageUSB Maker utility to prepare the Boréal OS install stick, and native installer for Boréal for Windows.