Legal and privacy

Use at your own risk

Kettle Linux is free, community-made software in early, active development. It is not a product of, or supported by, the maker of your device. By downloading, installing or using it, you accept that you do so entirely at your own risk, and that you are responsible for any result.

Installing an operating system on a handheld is not risk-free. In particular:

• Your device may stop starting. Installing Kettle changes how your device starts up (bootloader settings, U-Boot or ABL images, partitions). A mistake, an interrupted write or a fault in the software can leave a device that doesn't start until it is restored with a computer, or at all.
• You can lose data. Writing an image erases the card or partition it's written to. Erase Everything, Reset and an internal install erase data on purpose. Back up anything you want to keep first, Android's data included.
• Your warranty may be affected. Changing your device's software or bootloader may void or limit the manufacturer's warranty or support. Check with the manufacturer before you install.
• Hardware settings are yours to choose. Kettle sets CPU and GPU clocks, power limits, fan speeds, the battery's charge limit and charge current, the screen's refresh rate and the lights. Settings outside a device's normal range can cause heat, instability, faster battery wear or damage. Kettle's defaults are chosen to be safe, but they are tested on a small number of devices.
• Test builds are tests. Builds marked as test builds have not been checked on every device, and some features are known not to work. Read the known issues and the release notes first.

Nothing on this site, in the documentation, on the wiki or in the community channels is professional advice. Follow it at your own risk.

No warranty, limitation of liability

Kettle Linux and everything on this site are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or that the software will work without errors or interruption.

To the fullest extent the law allows, the Kettle Linux project, its maintainers and its contributors are not liable for any damage or loss arising from the use of, or inability to use, Kettle Linux, this site or its downloads, however caused and on any theory of liability, including damage to or loss of use of a device, loss of data, loss of game progress or accounts, or any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, even if advised that such damage was possible.

Kettle Linux's own code is released under the BSD 3-Clause License, which contains the same disclaimer; each other component's license has its own. Some places don't allow certain warranties or liability to be excluded; there, these exclusions apply as far as the law permits.

Other people's software and services

Kettle Linux includes and connects to software and services run by others: Valve's Steam client and Proton, game stores (Epic Games, GOG, Amazon Games, Battle.net), Flathub, F-Droid, Android apps, emulators, and the projects listed in the README. They are covered by their own licenses, terms and privacy policies, which you agree to with their makers, not with Kettle Linux. Kettle Linux isn't responsible for them, for what they do with your accounts or data, or for any action they take against an account, such as a game's anti-cheat or a store refusing a device. Games and apps you install are yours to license; Kettle doesn't provide any.

Trademarks and affiliation

Kettle Linux is an independent project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Valve, AYN, Retroid, Qualcomm, AMD, Arm, Epic Games, GOG, Amazon, Blizzard, Google or any other company named on this site. Steam and SteamOS are trademarks of Valve Corporation; Snapdragon is a trademark of Qualcomm; the other names are trademarks of their owners. They are used only to say what Kettle runs on and works with. Screenshots show Kettle Linux's own interface; app and game names and icons in them belong to their owners.

Licenses and source code

Kettle Linux's own work is under the BSD 3-Clause License. Everything built from other projects keeps its upstream license, and the source for every package is in the repository or linked from it. If you believe something in Kettle Linux or on this site infringes your rights, please get in touch and it will be looked at promptly.

Privacy

This website

• No cookies, no analytics, no tracking, no ads. This site doesn't set cookies, doesn't use your browser's storage, and has no analytics or tracking scripts, so there is no cookie banner.
• The site is hosted on GitHub Pages. Like any web server, GitHub receives your IP address and browser details when you visit; see the GitHub privacy statement.
• To show live information, your browser fetches it directly from: api.github.com (latest issues), updates.kettlelinux.org (the download list, served through Cloudflare), discord.com (how many people are online in the Discord), and on the games page games.kettlelinux.org (the game database) and Steam's image server (game pictures). Those requests send your IP address and browser details to those services, under their own privacy policies. Nothing else about you is sent.

Kettle Linux on your device

• No telemetry. Kettle Linux doesn't collect usage data. It contacts Kettle's servers to check for and download updates (updates.kettlelinux.org), which, like any download, sends your IP address.
• Crash reports stay on the device unless you choose Share on one. A shared report contains: the system and kernel logs from before the crash and the game's output or the program's stack trace (the last 256 KB of each); selected environment variables (graphics, Proton, Wine, FEX, Steam's game ids, and ones such as LANG and LD_PRELOAD); the crashed program's path and command line; the versions of the main installed packages (Mesa, Steam, FEX, Wine, gamescope, Decky and Kettle's own); the game that crashed or was running (its name, Steam app ID and install folder name), the engine it's built on and the Kettle features turned on for it; and the device model, kernel, Kettle version, build and A/B slot. Before it's uploaded, the device removes your user name from paths, Steam IDs and account names, MAC and IP addresses, log lines naming networks, nearby devices or logins, and the device's name if you changed it from the default kettle; core dumps are never uploaded. A shared report can be read by anyone who has its link, and is deleted after 90 days.
• The game database receives something only when you share settings or answer whether they worked: the game, the settings, your device model and Kettle build, your rating and optional note, the game's engine, and a random ID for your install, which the server stores only hashed, so each device counts once. Shared entries are public. With Use verified settings automatically turned on (it's off by default), your device asks the database about your installed games by their Steam app IDs.
• Kettle's servers use your IP address only to limit how often uploads and votes can be made. They don't store it: to count uploads and votes per day they keep a one-way hash of it (with the day, or the database entry voted on) for at most two days. They run on Cloudflare, which processes requests under its own privacy policy.
• To have a crash report or a database entry you shared removed, get in touch with its link or the game and date.

Kettle Linux, this site and its services are not directed at children under 13, and don't knowingly collect their personal information.

Accessibility

This site aims to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 at level AA: text and controls meet its contrast ratios, everything works with a keyboard with a visible focus indicator, there's a skip link to the content, images have text alternatives, the screenshot tabs use standard tab semantics for screen readers, the layout works at any width and zoom level, and motion follows your system's reduce-motion setting.

Screenshots are pictures of Kettle's interface; what they show is also described in the text beside them. Kettle Linux itself runs Steam's Game Mode, whose accessibility features are Valve's. If something on this site is hard to use, please tell us and it will be fixed.

Contact

Kettle Linux is run by volunteers. For anything on this page, open an issue on GitHub or ask on Discord. For something that shouldn't be public, ask on Discord for a private channel.

This page may change as Kettle Linux does; the date at the top says when it last did.