SUSE Hack Week: Project Felis: A desktop Linux distribution with immutable root file system that uses Xfce desktop

Project Description

The aim is to create a desktop Linux distribution with immutable root file system and Xfce desktop as user interface. This is to offer an alternative to the already existing openSUSE MicroOS, Aeon and the independent project Greybeard.

This project which is code-named Felis, is a fork of Greybeard and while both share the same base concepts, Felis uses Xfce desktop environment instead of sway window manager (used by Greybeard)

Requirements

Wayland: only introduced as experimental feature in the yet to be released Xfce 4.19.
Xfwm4 window manager fork with Wayland support (https://github.com/adlocode/xfwm4/tree/wayland)
Flatpak as the default way to install desktop applications in userland

Goal for this Hackweek

Create a bootable image based on Greybeard using OBS and Kiwi - done
Successfully implement Xfce 4.19 in the image - done
Test the usability of the experimantal support of wayland in Xfce 4.19 - unsuccessful
Successfully install Flatpak desktop applications from Flathub - in progress
(if enough time remains) Fallback to Xorg should the Wayland implementation not be successful - in progress

Resources

https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/home:mauriziogalli:felis https://build.opensuse.org/project/show/home:mauriziogalli:felis-unstable

Download images

felis: https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/mauriziogalli:/felis/images/

felis-unstable: https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/mauriziogalli:/felis:/unstable/images/

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This project is part of:

Hack Week 23

Activity

5 months ago: dgedon liked this project.

6 months ago: mauriziogalli liked this project.

6 months ago: livdywan liked this project.

6 months ago: punkioudi liked this project.

6 months ago: otilloy liked this project.

6 months ago: mauriziogalli started this project.

6 months ago: mauriziogalli originated this project.

Comments

6 months ago by mauriziogalli | Reply

The achievements so far:
- Basic setup for the creation of the installation image is done
- Xfce packages are taken from the development repo X11:xfce:rat which pulls and build Xfce sources from the main git branch.
- Successfully built the window manager (xfwm4) with Wayland support

6 months ago by mauriziogalli | Reply

Hit a roadblock with failing to load Xfce with Wayland. As this is the last day of Hackweek and I would like to have a usable POC for the immutable root fs part, I decided to fall back to Xorg for the time being and figure out the Wayland implementation when it becomes better integrated upstream. According to the roadmap there is still a long way to go before having some basic usability across the various parts of Xfce: https://wiki.xfce.org/releng/wayland_roadmap

TO DO:
- Implement first-setup wizard setup to install Firefox as flatpak
- Enable flathub by default
DONE:
- Switch image builds from wayland to Xorg

5 months ago by mauriziogalli | Reply

Made some changes to the concept and split the project between felis and felis-unstable:
- home:mauriziogalli:felis builds stable Xfce packages that are released in Tumbleweed, now at version 4.18
- home:mauriziogalli:felis:unstable builds unstable Xfce packages from git main branch
TO DO:
- Fine tune default package selection
- Improve flatpak integration
- Implement first-setup wizard setup to install Firefox as flatpak
- Enable flathub by default home:mauriziogalli:felis

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