|/ |\ISS Tidbits Posts Answers Install Wiki Contact Donate+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | (Created by Dylan Araps) | | | | | | | | |/ | | |\ISS LINUX | | | | A Linux(R) meta-distribution for the x86_64 architecture | | with a focus on simplicity, sustainability and user freedom. | | | | | | ____ | | | | | | .--------------------------------------------------------.| | | | | | | | | | "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." | | | | | ._|____|_. | | '-------------------------------------------------------\\|o_o | | | |:_/ | | | // \ \ | | (| | ) | +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ * Overview ............................................................... [001] * Software Distribution Model ............................................ [002] * The-Official Repositories .............................................. [003] * Package System ......................................................... [004] * Package Manager ........................................................ [005] * Further Reading ........................................................ [006] [001] Overview ________________________________________________________________________________ Kiss Linux™ is a meta-distribution for the x86_64 architecture with a focus on simplicity, sustainability and user freedom. The project was created by Dylan Araps who also acts as its sole developer and BDFL [0]. The distribution is designed to be maintainable by a single person and to this end has no infrastructure, backend or monetary running costs. Further, all installations of KISS contain everything needed to continue its development. The user is provided with three things. 1. The Official Repositories - An extensible base including a fully X11-less Wayland environment, modern web browser, media player and everything needed for this system to rebuild (and update) itself (in under 120 packages). 2. The Package Management System - A pleasant to work with and concise package format powered by a small, portable and self-contained package manager (written in POSIX shell). 3. The Freedom To Go It Alone - Users can choose to maintain their system themselves thus freeing them from all external influence. The system then belongs to the user and they become totally self-reliant. [002] Software Distribution Model ________________________________________________________________________________ The distribution is "rolling release" [1] (install once, update perpetually) with the compilation process taking place on the user's machine. Updates to the distribution merely contain instructions for how each package is built. This model gives the user control over the compilation process while also removing the need for the distribution to have the necessary infrastructure to churn out and distribute binaries on a daily basis. [003] The Official Repositories ________________________________________________________________________________ The problem with monolithic repositories is that they have no clear end. They have infinite growth possibility, very broad scope and rely on volunteer effort to keep everything fresh. They become harder to maintain over time and unless their growth is checked, will eventually become unsustainable. Kiss Linux's repositories are instead designed to be small and understandable. Instead of attempting to package the world they act as an extensible base which users can build upon to suit their needs. To best illustrate, here is the entire thing (121 components) (24/09/2023). baseinit baselayout binutils bison bkeymaps busybox curl flex gcc git grub kiss linux-headers m4 make musl openssl pigz xz zlib adwaita-icon-theme alsa-lib alsa-utils atk bzip2 cairo cbindgen ccache clang cmake dhcpcd dosfstools e2fsprogs efibootmgr efivar eiwd expat ffmpeg firefox firefox-privacy fontconfig freetype-harfbuzz gdk-pixbuf glib gnugrep gnupg1 gtk+3 hicolor-icon-theme intel-vaapi-driver json-c kirc lame libass libelf libffi libjpeg-turbo libogg libpng libtheora libudev-zero libva libva-utils libvorbis libvpx libwebp llvm man-pages mandoc mdevd mesa meson mold mpv mutt nasm ncurses nodejs opendoas openresolv openssh opus pango pcre perl pkgconf python rust samurai scdoc sqlite ssu strace ttf-croscore tzdata util-linux vim wpa_supplicant x264 x265 xvidcore zstd foot foot-pgo grim libdrm libinput libpciaccess libseat libxkbcommon pixman slurp sway sway-no-seat sway-tiny wayland wayland-protocols wbg wl-clipboard wlroots wlsunset xkeyboard-config The distribution explicitly excludes logind, udev, dbus, systemd, polkit, pulseaudio, electron and all desktop environments. This software is either with lock-in, too complex or otherwise out of scope. Further reading: @/wiki [004] Package System ________________________________________________________________________________ The system is based around directories and files. A repository (directory) contains packages (directories) which contain information (files). Repositories can be stored anywhere and their use is determined by a search path. As software is compiled locally, there is no line drawn between the "frontend" and "backend", they are one and the same. Learning the package management system also teaches you how to develop the distribution. * repository/ * package-a/ * build * checksums * depends * sources * version * package-b/ * build * checksums * patches/ * 0001-fix-segfault.patch * 0002-no-x11.patch * sources * version Each file serves a specific purpose and files can be omitted when the package has no use for them. Files can be symbolically linked between packages to deduplicate otherwise identical information. Further reading: @/wiki/package-system [005] Package Manager ________________________________________________________________________________ The package manager (also named 'kiss') is a tiny, self-contained and POSIX compliant shell script written with portability in mind. It should run in all environments with a POSIX shell and core utilities. There is no configuration file and no weird arguments to memorize. Interaction is done via "actions" with each action taking a list of packages to operate on. Each action also has a single letter alias (build == b). * kiss [a|b|c|d|i|l|r|s|u|U|v] [pkg]... * alternatives List and swap alternatives * build Build packages * checksum Generate checksums * download Download sources * install Install packages * list List installed packages * remove Remove packages * search Search for packages * update Update the system and repositories * Upgrade Upgrade the system * version Package manager version Further reading: @/wiki/package-manager [006] Further Reading ________________________________________________________________________________ - @/answers - Answers to the most common questions. - @/wiki - General distribution documentation. - @/wiki/package-system - The package management system in detail. - @/wiki/package-manager - The package manager's documentation. - @/wiki/website - About the website itself. - @/contact - Get in touch with Kiss Linux. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_release ________________________________________________________________________________ Dylan Araps (C) 2019-2021 The registered trademark Linux(R) is used pursuant to a sublicense from the Linux Foundation, the exclusive licensee of Linus Torvalds, owner of the mark on a worldwide basis.