Another approach to Arch Linux
Labor of Love
© Photo by Michael Fenton on Unsplash
SDesk aspires to be the Fedora of Arch Linux. We talk to Stephen Byrne about his passion project.
These days, distributions are large-scale projects. Major distributions such as Debian and Fedora are often the size of medium-sized corporations, with dozens of middle management roles, thousands of contributors, and well-developed methodologies. By contrast, SDesk [1] is reminiscent of the earliest days of free software, when distributions were often a labor of love for a single developer. Based on Arch Linux, SDesk is full of individual small design choices, including the option to add parental controls to an account during installation, the Marwaita icons and themes, Gnome extensions enabled by a single click, and the default Swirl Web Browser. Many of SDesk's idiosyncratic choices are enhancements to Arch Linux, such as the inclusion of SELinux. Here, Stephen Byrne, SDesk's developer, talks about his ongoing solo project.
Figure 1: The Arch-based SDesk delivers an easy-to-use, modern desktop.
Linux Magazine (LM): Tell readers about yourself and your involvement with free/open source software.
[...]
Buy this article as PDF
(incl. VAT)
Buy Linux Magazine
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Digital Autonomy
• How the Fediverse Found Parts for Its Platforms
• The Answer Was Already on the Shelf
• Changing the Chip Industry: How Public Investment Has Grown Open Silicon
• United Nations Open Source Portal Goes Live
• EU Open Source Strategy Plays Key Role in Tech Sovereignty Package
• France Says “Au Revoir” to Microsoft
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Epic Games Targets Linux for New Launcher
The Epic Games new launcher is still in preview, but it looks to land on several Linux distributions.
-
Fedora 45 Now Available
The latest iteration of Fedora has arrived with Gnome 51 and KDE Plasma 6.8.
-
Linux 7.4 is "Much Healthier" Thanks to AI
At nearly 42 million lines, Linux 7.4 is the largest merge in the kernel’s history.
-
Working Exploit for a Linux Kernel Flaw Made Public
Even before a bug received its CVE identifier or an upstream fix, the local privilege escalation vulnerability exploit found its way into the wild.
-
r/opensource Bans AI-Assisted and AI-Related Projects
The de facto subreddit for all things open source has not only banned AI-related projects but also users who "don't speak English."
-
Bottlenecks Discovered by Meta Engineers Lead to Scalability Improvements
Thanks to a small group of engineers at Meta, the Linux kernel module kernfs has been improved, which has led to some serious gains.
-
PwnEscape Poses VM Vulnerability
A guest-to-host escape flaw in Linux KVM, named PwnEscape, might be yet another means of attacking Linux.
-
Linux Mint 27 Set for a Christmas Release
The developers behind Linux Mint have announced a Christmas release, and it looks like Santa's sack will be brimming with features.
-
Is Linus Torvalds Vibe Coding?
The creator of Linux has added AI into his process for Linux kernel development, and it's more than just for debugging.
-
openKylin 3.0 Released with Expanded AI Integration
The latest release features a pre-installed AI agent to help perform tasks.