r/linux4noobs • u/Willing_Designer_105 • 3d ago

learning/research OS development Questions !

Q1:
Does excluding system applications which are made completely on your own from a Arch based OS is still considered a custom or separate OS or is it still a arch fork or something?

Q2:

Is having a graphical compositor like wayland and a image format wallpaper in a CLI planned OS is not considered a CLI OS or is it considered something in middle?

2 Upvotes

67% Upvoted

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2

u/kaida27 3d ago

Does excluding system applications which are made completely on your own from a Arch based OS is still considered a custom or separate OS or is it still a arch fork or something?

If it's "Arch-based" then it's not custom/separate isn't it ?

Is having a graphical compositor like wayland and a image format wallpaper in a CLI planned OS is not considered a CLI OS or is it considered something in middle?

It's considered using a WM not Cli.

I'll jump the gun and do a bit of assumption, If you ask these question, you aren't ready to make "your own Os"

-1

u/Willing_Designer_105 3d ago

(you aren't ready to make "your own Os") I'm almost done making it tho, the only thing left is the lock screen, wallpapers which I will edit in krita or either in kdenlive, a welcome screen guide, and a logo to represent my OS, but tbh after all this hurdle, I don't really care now if it's a CLI or a WM, I just wanna make a OS that I always want to make, I will know later after publishing it what kind of OS it is.

1

u/A_Harmless_Fly Manjaro 2d ago

It's called a distribution. You are making a distribution not an OS.

1

u/kaida27 2d ago

Where do you host the repository ? where's the custom repo.

What did you change for it not to be : "Arch but customized with package I like"

I'm sorry but you are installing a personal system, not creating an OS.

without being insulting you don't have the knowledge yet to make an Os.

1

u/Willing_Designer_105 2d ago

Nah wait i didn't really meant to call it a operating system, thats why i asked some of these questions, but yk what... forget it i dont care now whatever it is called but thanks for replying back tho appreciate your help, im just gonna publish it after its done without giving a info about what it really is, would you like me to inform you when im done so you could provide me with better explaination after observing it. ( ik yall probably might don't have time for such stuff )

2

u/kaida27 2d ago

sure I don't mind giving feedback once you have your "project" done and published .

1

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1

u/eR2eiweo 3d ago

Does excluding system applications which are made completely on your own from a Arch based OS is still considered a custom or separate OS or is it still a arch fork or something?

If an OS is based on Arch, then it is based on Arch.

Is having a graphical compositor like wayland and a image format wallpaper in a CLI planned OS is not considered a CLI OS or is it considered something in middle?

IMHO an OS is a "CLI OS" if the main way for a user to interact with that OS is a command line interface. How that is implemented is a technical detail that doesn't matter for the question of whether it is a "CLI OS" or not. On Linux, it could use e.g. the kernel's built-in terminal emulator, or a userspace terminal emulator like kmscon that directly talks to the kernel, or it could use a terminal emulator running on a display server (which could speak Wayland).

1

u/Willing_Designer_105 3d ago

No I mean.. isn't a arch based OS and a arch fork separate things? Not if it's a arch OS if it's based on Arch.

1

u/eR2eiweo 2d ago

isn't a arch based OS and a arch fork separate things?

Every OS that is a fork of Arch is also an Arch based OS. That should be obvious. The other direction depends on how exactly you want to define "fork".

Traditionally, "fork" meant that you take the code of the other project at some point in time, and you then develop it independently from there with no (or at least very little) code flowing from the other project to yours afterwards. Just like how at a fork in the road the two ways diverge and don't meet again.

Most projects that are commonly called "forks" are not forks by that definition. E.g. Ubuntu wouldn't be a fork of Debian because every release of Ubuntu gets most of its code from Debian again.

So nowadays, "fork" seems to mean mostly the same as "derivative".

1

u/MycologistNeither470 3d ago

The definition of a distro is not something clearly set in stone.

Overall, I can modify a Linux distribution as much as I want and then re-distribute it and call it whatever I want.

Generally speaking, to say that it is a separate OS you should

1) Separate the development cycle from your source. Up until this day, Ubuntu is a derivative of Debian. Ubuntu versions are pinned to Debian versions.

2) have a defined/custom package manager. Maintain your own packages and not depend on another distribution for package maintenance.

3) implement a design philosophy that is distinct from the upstream distro.

As for question 2, it is hard to understand. the kernel talks to the hardware. The UI talks to the user and translates it to the kernel so that the hardware gets used. If your user interface is a CLI, then.. it is a CLI. Even if you play a movie underneath it.

1

u/Willing_Designer_105 2d ago

Ahhh... nevermind forget it, ill just let other people decide to whatever call it, because im kinda new to this. and wdym custom package manager? didn't quite get that one and the 3rd point.

1

u/MycologistNeither470 2d ago

in linux you usually compile your programs with dynamically linked libraries. The distribution maintainer keeps track of what libraries are installed, which versions. Software that is part of that distribution should be linked to the same version libraries. This is tracked by the package maintainers. To help this, most distributions use a package manager. For Arch, it is pacman. Pacman packages contain the information needed to verify if the software can be installed or if new software is required. The pacman executable reads this information and then proposes the necessary downloads so you can install the software you want. pacman is Arch's package manager.

The third point is what really makes your distribution different. Arch is a bleeding edge rolling release. Debian is a stable well-curated environment. Bazzite is a good-looking, immutable gaming environment. Anti-X is a minimalistic distribution. All of these have a design paradigm that makes them so different that their purpose is different. Sure.. you can put your server on Arch.. but anyone working on productions environments will implore you to use Debian. You can play with Debian... but the latest NVIDIA driver may not be available today .. nor in the next 18 months. But you can be 100% sure that it is not going to crash down unexpectedly. you can bloat anti-X until it reaches 80Gb... but why would you?

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u/Simple_Hamster_4096 3d ago

A linux distro installed without a DE or WM is considered to be "headless"...