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User Guide

Welcome to Dagric OS

Everything you need for your first week. This page works offline.

Coming from Windows? Everything is still here

Ten years of habits don't need relearning — almost everything has a direct equivalent, usually on the same keys. This table is the whole trick to feeling at home in an afternoon.

Where things went
On WindowsOn Dagric
Start menu Launcher — press Meta, the ⊞ key, and type
File Explorer Files — Meta+E, same keys
Control Panel / Settings System Settings — one place, searchable
Task Manager System Monitor — Ctrl+Shift+Esc, same keys
Microsoft Edge Firefox — import your bookmarks from its menu
Notepad Text Editor
Photos Gwenview — opens pictures on a double-click, same as ever
Snipping Tool Spectacle — Meta+Shift+S grabs a region, same keys as Windows
Windows Update the tray icon when updates are ready — security fixes install themselves
Recycle Bin Trash — in the Files sidebar
Defender / antivirus built in: the firewall is on from the first boot and apps are confined. Nothing extra to buy, nothing nagging you to renew
Word / Excel / PowerPoint LibreOffice Writer / Calc / Impress — opens and saves the same files
Outlook Thunderbird PRO — on the free edition, open your webmail in Firefox
Command Prompt / PowerShell Terminal (Konsole)
Every app here also answers to its Windows name: search the launcher or the Manual for Task Manager or Notepad and the right app appears.

Your first day, as a checklist

Nine small things, in a sensible order. Tick them off — this page remembers where you got to, even after you close it.

Installing apps

Open the Software Store (the bag icon in the taskbar — it is called Discover underneath, and that name still finds it). Search, click Install, done. Everything is free, checked, and removable. Removing an app actually removes it — nothing comes back on its own.

Updates

Security updates install silently in the background. When bigger updates are ready, a tray icon appears — apply them whenever you like. Dagric never restarts your computer for you.

Wi-Fi, sound, displays

All in the system tray (bottom right). Click the network icon to join Wi-Fi, the speaker for volume and output device, and the display icon when you plug in a monitor or projector.

Printers

Plug the printer in (or have it on the same Wi-Fi), then open System Settings → Printers → Add Printer. Most printers are detected automatically.

Keyboard shortcuts worth knowing

Meta
Open the app launcher — Meta is the ⊞ key
Ctrl+Shift+Esc
Task Manager — the same keys as Windows, when something stops responding
Meta+E
Files — your file manager
Meta+Shift+S
Grab part of the screen — same keys as Windows; Print Screen takes the whole thing
Meta+L
Lock the screen
Alt+Tab
Switch between windows — exactly as on Windows
Meta+V
Clipboard history — the last things you copied, same keys as Windows
Meta+←/→
Snap a window to half the screen — same keys as Windows
Meta+P
Switch displays when a projector or second monitor is plugged in

The setup wizard is still there

The first time you signed in, Dagric walked you through six short screens — light or dark, an accent color, a wallpaper, how big the text should be, where the taskbar goes, and bringing your files over from Windows. That was Set Up Dagric, and it did not vanish after the first run. Press the launcher, type Set Up Dagric, and go through it again whenever you like (it is also in the Hub, under Get started).

Everything in it applies as you click, so you see the real desktop change rather than a preview. If you go too far, the Undo my changes button at the top of the window puts back the colors, wallpaper, text size and taskbar you started with.

It is also the shortest route to Migrate from Windows if you skipped that step the first time.

Making it yours: Looks and Styles

Two tools shape the desktop, both one click and both reversible. Dagric Looks changes the layout — where the taskbar, panels and menus sit. Dagric Styles changes the mood — light or dark colors, accent color, wallpaper, and window effects like glassy blur. They combine freely: a centered taskbar in deep Midnight, a classic taskbar in warm Dawn. Pro adds the Command, Duo, Horizon and Unity layouts — side docks and top menu bars. Find both in the launcher or the Hub, and pick Reset in Styles any time to return to standard Dagric.

If you would rather see a change before you commit to it, open Dagric Appearance (launcher, or Hub → Appearance gallery). It shows every style and layout as a picture. Click one and the desktop changes immediately, but nothing is saved yet: a bar appears offering Keep or Revert, and if you answer neither — or the change made the screen unreadable — the desktop puts itself back on its own after twenty seconds. Trying things costs nothing, so try everything.

If everything looks too small

On a laptop with a very sharp screen, text can come out tiny. Open Text Size from the launcher (or the Hub → Text size and night light) and pick a size between 100% and 200%. Dagric only offers sizes that still leave room for windows and buttons on your screen, so you cannot pick one that makes the desktop unusable.

The change happens straight away and then asks whether to keep it. If you answer nothing, it puts itself back after twenty seconds — so if the new size made everything unreadable, or the question ended up off the edge of the screen, just wait and the desktop returns to how it was. Dagric also measures your screen when you first sign in and picks a sensible size on its own, the way Windows does.

The same tool has a night light — Windows calls it the same thing. It warms the screen's colors so late-evening reading is easier on your eyes. Pick evenings only (on from 8pm to 7am), all the time, or off, and forget about it.

Accessibility

All of it is already on this computer — nothing to download, no account, no extra edition.

Reading the screen aloud. The Orca screen reader is installed on every edition, together with its speech engine and voice — a screen reader with no voice installed is a common and useless outcome, so Dagric pins both deliberately. Turn it on with Meta+Alt+S, or in System Settings → Accessibility → Screen Reader. The manual has a full page on Orca, including what has to be installed first if you use a Braille display — the driver for those, brltty, is not part of Dagric.

Making things bigger. Text Size (above) scales the whole desktop between 100% and 200% and puts itself back if you say nothing. For a magnifier that follows the mouse instead, System Settings → Accessibility switches on the screen zoom; the same page lists the keys that drive it.

Keyboard and mouse. Sticky modifier keys (for pressing Ctrl+C one key at a time), a visible flash instead of the system beep, and moving the pointer with the number pad are all in System Settings → Accessibility. Colour filters for colour blindness are there too.

This guide and the manual are built to be read with a screen reader and driven from the keyboard: press Tab on any page and the first stop is Skip to content, which jumps you past the sidebar.

One thing Dagric cannot do yet, said plainly: the login screen cannot read itself aloud. The screen reader starts with your session, not before it, and the login screen Dagric uses has no screen-reader support of its own. Two ways round it: the live USB signs itself in automatically, so you can try the whole system with Orca before installing; and on an installed machine you can switch on automatic sign-in (System Settings → Startup and Shutdown → Login Screen). That is a real security trade-off on a shared computer, and it is yours to make.

Bringing your files from Windows

Open the Dagric Hub and pick Migrate from Windows (or run dagric-migrate). It finds the Windows still on this PC, shows your Documents, Pictures, Music, Videos, Desktop and browser bookmarks, and copies what you pick into your new home folder.

Windows is only ever read — nothing there is touched, so you can always boot back into it.

Your Windows drives and USB sticks

They just work. Plug in a USB stick or external drive (including NTFS-formatted Windows drives) and it appears in Files — the folder icon in the taskbar, and what Windows called File Explorer. If you read a forum post that calls it Dolphin, that is the same program: Dagric labels apps by what they do, and the original name still finds them when you search the launcher.

The full manual

This page is your first week. For every application on the computer — what it is, what it replaced on Windows, and the five things you will actually do with it — open the Dagric Manual from the launcher, or run dagric-manual. It is in the Hub too, under App manual.

It works offline exactly like this page, and its search knows the Windows names: type Notepad and you get the Text Editor, type Task Manager and you get the system monitor, type PDF and you get everything that opens one.

Two help entries, on purpose. This guide is the short read for your first week. The manual is the reference you come back to when you need one specific app.

Pairing your phone PRO

KDE Connect links your phone to this PC for notifications, file transfer and clipboard sharing. For your safety its ports are open only on networks you mark as Home — never on café or airport Wi-Fi. If pairing doesn't find your phone, open System Settings → Firewall and set the current connection's zone to home.

USB Protection PRO

Open the Hub and choose USB Protection to block malicious USB devices (the kind that pretend to be a keyboard and type commands). Plug in everything you normally use first — Dagric remembers those and blocks only strangers. Run it again any time to refresh the list or switch protection back off.

Backups & drive health

On Dagric Pro: Vorta makes encrypted backups to a drive or server, and rclone connects to Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and 70+ other services. Timeshift takes system restore points — if an update ever misbehaves, roll back to yesterday. On every edition, Dagric watches your drives' SMART health and warns you in plain language if one starts failing — and the Security Checkup shows each drive's status any time.

Running Windows programs

For games, install Steam with one click from the Dagric Hub (it is never bundled), then enable Proton under Settings → Compatibility. Heroic covers Epic, GOG and Amazon, and the dagric-gaming command adds the community Proton-GE build. For ordinary Windows software, Bottles — also one click from the Hub — keeps each program in its own tidy container. All of that works on either edition.

On Pro PRO the runtime underneath is already installed and tuned: Wine runs many .exe files on a double-click, and GameMode, MangoHud, Lutris and 32-bit Vulkan are in place for games. And for the rare app that will not run under Wine at all, Windows in a window: pick it in the Hub (dagric-vm) to enable virtual machines and run real Windows safely inside Dagric.

Terminal helpers

One command each
Every helper asks before doing anything.
sudo dagric-driversNVIDIA
dagric-migratebring files from Windows
dagric-get-resolveDaVinci Resolve
dagric-aiprivate local AI
dagric-gamingProton-GE
dagric-vmvirtual machines, Pro

When something goes wrong

The eight things that actually come up, each with the fix that actually works. Nothing here needs the terminal.

No sound

Click the speaker icon in the tray and check the output device — after plugging in a monitor or TV, sound often moves to it over HDMI while your speakers sit silent. Pick the right device from the list. The same panel has a per-application mixer, so check the app itself isn't muted.

My Windows drive won't open, or is read-only

This one isn't Dagric — it's Windows. Its Fast Startup feature doesn't fully shut the computer down; it hibernates, and a hibernated Windows keeps its drives locked. Boot into Windows, and either shut down while holding Shift, or turn Fast Startup off for good: Control Panel → Power Options → Choose what the power buttons do → untick Turn on fast start-up. After a real shutdown, the drive opens normally here.

Wi-Fi won't connect

Click the network icon in the tray and check Wi-Fi isn't switched off or in airplane mode. If your network is listed but won't take the password, click the connection's settings icon and choose Forget, then join it fresh. If nothing is listed at all, run the Hardware Check from the Dagric Hub — it reports whether the Wi-Fi chip needs anything and says so in plain language.

A program stopped responding

Dagric notices on its own and offers to close it — wait a few seconds for the dialog. To do it yourself: Ctrl+Shift+Esc, find the program, end it. Your other windows are unaffected.

The printer isn't found

Make sure it's on the same Wi-Fi as this computer — the most common cause by far. Then System Settings → Printers → Add Printer. Most modern printers need no driver at all. If yours is an HP, the Hub's Finish setting up entry installs HP's full support with one tick.

I downloaded a file and can't find it

It's in Downloads — open Files (Meta+E) and it's in the sidebar. In Firefox, Ctrl+J lists recent downloads, and each one has a show in folder button.

I experimented with the looks and want out

Open Dagric Styles and pick Reset — the standard Dagric look comes back in one click. And remember the Appearance gallery's changes undo themselves after twenty seconds if you don't confirm them, so an unreadable screen fixes itself if you simply wait.

The disk is filling up

To find what is eating the space, open a terminal (type Konsole in the launcher) and run du -h --max-depth=1 ~ | sort -h. It lists your home folders smallest to largest, so the culprit is the last line — almost always Downloads or a forgotten video folder. No terminal? Right-click a folder you suspect in Files and choose Properties to see its size. Both work on every edition.

PRO Pro also has Filelight — type it in the launcher — which draws the whole disk as rings so the big blocks jump out at a glance. The Manual has a page on it.

If an update or experiment ever leaves the system genuinely unwell, restart and choose the snapshots entry in the boot menu. On any standard install it starts the system exactly as it was before the change — this is built in, on every edition, and it is automatic. On Pro PRO Timeshift then makes that rollback permanent from a window, and adds restore points on your own schedule.

Getting help

Try the Dagric Manual first — it is on this computer, it needs no internet, and it has a page for every app here. After that, visit dagric.com/support. Your system details for any support request: open the Terminal (Konsole) and run cat /etc/os-release.