Carbonos – GNU / Linux.ch

Monday, March 20, 2023, Ralph Hersel

Most GNU/Linux distributions are not independent, but they stand on the shoulders of Debian (eg Ubuntu), Red Hat (eg Fedora) or Arch Linux (eg Manjaro). However, the list of indie distributions is not short. There you can find: NixOS, Gentoo, Void, Solus, Mageia, Clear, PCLinuxOS, 4MLinux, Tiny Core, Linux from Scratch, Slackware, Alpine, and KaOS to name the most famous ones. Well dive carbonose As a new standalone distribution with an early alpha release.

There is no need to argue about the diversity of distributions; more is better. This is especially true when development teams (?) have a specific direction in mind. This is exactly the case with CarbonOS. The creature of the new operating system belongs not only to the independents, but also to the stable ones.

Behind the project is a young student, namely him Adrian Vovk From Cleveland, Ohio. Adrian introduces himself:

Welcome! My name is Adrian, and I’m a third year computer science and engineering student at The Ohio State University. I am a supporter of free and open source software and have it supports For well-known open source projects such as systemd And gnome Finished. My passion is also developing operating systems and especially my Linux distribution carbonose.

He has a definite idea of ​​what his distribution should do. It was built from scratch by it and uses the GNOME desktop. It is an atomic distribution, which means that OS updates are always secure. System planning ensures the integrity of system files. Unlike other atomic distributions, CarbonOS doesn’t try to go beyond traditional package management features: CarbonOS is flatpak first for applications and container first for everything else. This allows CarbonOS to achieve unique features such as Assured/Secure Boot.

To achieve this, it uses CarbonOS liposture. OSTree is an upgrade system for Linux-based operating systems that performs atomic upgrades of entire file system trees. It is not a package system, but is meant to complement it. Infrastructure can be summed up as “Git for OS binaries”. It runs in userspace and can be deployed to any Linux file system. In essence, it’s a Git-like content-mapped object store with branches to keep track of meaningful filesystem trees within the store. One can use OSTree in a pure replication model; Another approach is to add a package manager, and create a hybrid tree/package system. This is exactly what CarbonOS does.

Adrian has a dream:

I want to make the GnomeBook dream come true: an operating system that’s as maintenance-free as Chrome OS, yet powerful as a real desktop operating system, all without sacrificing users’ ultimate freedom over their devices.

with whom Vanilla OS Right comes to mind. Both projects take a similar approach, with Vanilla OS being a few more steps in the lifecycle. I haven’t tried CarbonOS yet due to the early stage of development. If you want to have a first look at this new distro, go ahead, here it is Alpha ISO.

source: https://carbon.sh/