dalixOS

Developer Info

Warning!

A Rust rewrite is currently underway due to technical debt, expect changes!

Clarification note: Package is used to describe a system package. Application is used to describe a user installed application. libsqsh is a system package. LibreOffice is an application. Just to get that out of the way. :)

A good OS should…

  1. Be usable by a 4 year old
  2. Be easily managable (Apps, settings, etc)
  3. Have wide package availibility
  4. Have backward compatability (lots!)
  5. Look nice
  6. Never require the terminal (though it should exist)
  7. Have a global menu bar
  8. Handle an app existing in multiple versions
  9. Be stable
  10. Have understandable folder names

dalixOS will attempt to implement this in the following ways

  1. Making a custom DE
  2. Using AppBundles, and having simple and straight to the point settings
  3. Port Linux apps, and if a user tries to install a .deb file it should automatically generate an AppBundle for it
  4. FIXME
  5. Mac OS like theme
  6. Have a graphical tool for many config options (but not too many)
  7. TODO
  8. Use AppBundles
  9. FIXME
  10. Solved by dalixd

When a user drags a .deb File into /Applications

dalixd will recognize it and extract the deb into tmp/* where * is the name and version of the package. It will then simulate installation into a root. tmp/*/root Then it will read the dependencies of the application, and place that in its own meta-data file alongside other important information. It then copies tmp/* into /Applications/*.app Each of these steps will get described in more detail

Implementation detail.

When dalixd converts a .deb into a AppBundle it creates AppRun point to the .desktop file in /usr/share/applications/ If there is multiple .desktop files there or if there are non then dalixd will display an error message saying “Error installing app *. Multiple Desktop files exist. This functionality is planned to be implemented in the future. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

App and Package difference

Applications are not/should not be aware of each other, but packages are.

Applications

Packages

Base FS heiarchy.

/
├── Applications
│	└── LibreOffice.app
├── System
│	├── Packages
│	│	└── libsqsh---1.2.3
│	├── Cache
│	│	├── Packages
│	│	│	├── index
│	│	│	├── 0
│	│	│	├── 1
│	│	│	└── 2
│	│	└── Packages.bak
│	│		└── ...
│	├── Binaries -> ../../bin
│	├── Devices -> ../../dev
│	├── Sys -> ../../sys
│	├── Temporary -> ../../tmp
│	└── Config -> ../../etc
└── Volumes
	└── USB3.0

In the Cache/Packages directory each file of xxxxxxxx will be the Packages file of the distro for each url specified in /etc/apt/sources.list file. Each seperate xxxxxxxx file is for a different URL. The index file in that directory will be in the format:

filename url codename subtype

e.g.

0 http://deb.debian.org/debian stable main
1 http://yeb.yebian.borg/whatever v1 non-free-firmware
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