First boot

At the first GNOME login, AIMS OS does three things on its own:

The systemd aims-firstboot.service adds your account to the docker and wireshark groups. That unlocks docker run without sudo and lets wireshark capture without root for the Ethical Hacking course.
The HTML welcome page opens in Firefox, branded AIMS, bilingual FR/EN.
Plymouth + GDM already applied the terracotta theme at boot.

Check the version

Open a terminal and type:

aims-version

Prints the OS name, base Debian version, kernel and desktop. Variants:

aims-version --json (machine-readable)
aims-version --verbose adds python3 / R / node / docker / Cursor / RStudio
aims-version --plain (no ANSI colour)

Re-open the welcome page

aims-welcome          # opens the GUI if never shown
aims-welcome --force  # forces it open
aims-welcome --text   # text version in the terminal

Activate the docker group for the current session

Group changes (docker, wireshark) only take effect on the next session. To use them right now:

newgrp docker
docker run hello-world  # should work without sudo

Or just logout / login.

Locale and keyboard

The system defaults to fr_FR.UTF-8, Africa/Dakar timezone, keyboard fr (France). To change:

Keyboard: Settings → Keyboard → Input Sources
System locale: sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales

Network

On Wi-Fi, manage the connection through GNOME Settings → Wi-Fi. NetworkManager OpenVPN is pre-installed for AIMS VPNs.

On Mac M-series under UTM, ICMP ping is blocked by UTM’s NAT. Use curl https://google.com or Firefox to test. TCP connectivity works normally.

Update the system

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Pulls Debian Security patches and new AIMS OS stack versions if you added the apt repo.

Install third-party tools (Cursor, RStudio, etc.)

Starting with AIMS OS v2.1, the ISO no longer ships Cursor, RStudio, DBeaver, VSCodium, Node 22, Bun, Deno or uv by default. We cut those ~1.5 GB to slim the download. The aims-os-welcome metapackage (already installed) provides install scripts:

ls /usr/share/aims-os/install/
# cursor.sh  dbeaver.sh  nodejs.sh  rstudio.sh  runtimes.sh  vscodium.sh

# Install one at a time (sudo prompted)
sudo /usr/share/aims-os/install/cursor.sh
sudo /usr/share/aims-os/install/rstudio.sh
sudo /usr/share/aims-os/install/nodejs.sh
# ...

# Or all at once
for s in /usr/share/aims-os/install/*.sh; do
    sudo "$s" || echo "FAILED: $s"
done

Each script fetches the tool from its official upstream (cursor.com, posit.co, dbeaver.io, NodeSource, GitHub releases). Plan for ~30-45 min on a typical connection to install everything.

For the full tracks:

sudo apt install aims-os-bigdata          # Coop Big Data
sudo apt install aims-os-security         # Coop Computer Security
sudo apt install aims-os-math-extras      # Full maths stack (Maxima, full Octave, R tidyverse, multilingual LaTeX, GeoGebra)
sudo apt install aims-os-desktop-extras   # Chromium, GIMP, Inkscape, non-free codecs
sudo apt install aims-os-desktop-dev      # Java, Docker, Rust

A future AIMS OS release will ship a first-boot wizard that asks your track and tools, then runs these commands for you. Until then, it’s manual.