Simon Peter, the creator of the AppImage self-contained package format, has published the release of the helloSystem 0.8 distribution, based on FreeBSD 13 and positioned as a system for ordinary users that macOS lovers who are dissatisfied with Apple's policies can switch to. The system is devoid of the complications inherent in modern Linux distributions, is under complete user control and allows former macOS users to feel comfortable. To get acquainted with the distribution kit, a boot image has been generated, 941 MB in size (torrent).
The interface resembles macOS and includes two panels - the top with the global menu and the bottom with the application bar. The panda-statusbar package developed by the CyberOS distribution kit (former PandaOS) is used to form the global menu and status bar. The Dock application bar is based on the work of the cyber-dock project, also from the developers of CyberOS. To manage files and place shortcuts on the desktop, the Filer file manager is being developed, based on pcmanfm-qt from the LXQt project. The default browser is Falkon, but Firefox and Chromium are optional. Applications are delivered in self-contained packages. To launch applications, the launch utility is used, which finds the program and analyzes errors during execution.
The project develops a series of its own applications, such as a configurator, an installer, a mountarchive utility for mounting archives into a file system tree, a utility for recovering data from ZFS, an interface for partitioning disks, a network configuration indicator, a screenshot utility, a Zeroconf server browser, an indicator for configuration volume, a utility for setting up a boot environment. For development, the Python language and the Qt library are used. Supported application development components include PyQt, QML, Qt, KDE Frameworks, and GTK, in descending order of preference. ZFS is used as the main file system, and UFS, exFAT, NTFS, EXT4, HFS+, XFS, and MTP are supported for mounting.
Main innovations of helloSystem 0.8:
- Migration to the FreeBSD 13.1 codebase has been made.
- The launch command, which is used to launch applications in self-contained packages, has been switched to using the database of installed applications (launch.db). Added initial support for launching AppImage files with the launch command (requires Debian runtime to be installed).
- VirtualBox guest add-ons are included and activated, allowing you to use the clipboard and control the screen size when running helloSystem in VirtualBox.
- Implemented prompt for language selection, displayed if language information is not set in prev-lang:kbd EFI variable or received from Raspberry Pi keyboard. Keyboard settings are saved to the prev-lang:kbd EFI variable.
- Implemented support for connecting MIDI controllers.
- Updated initgfx package to add support for NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 GPUs. To support new Intel GPUs such as TigerLake-LP GT2 (Iris Xe), drm-510-kmod is included.
- The file manager implements the display of icons for files in the AppImage, EPUB and mp3 formats. Display of AppImage files in the menu is provided.
- Added the ability to copy files to a disk or recycle bin by moving them with the mouse to the icon with a disk or recycle bin on the desktop. Provided support for opening documents by dragging them into the application.
- Menu search now works for submenus as well, and results are shown with icons and labels. Added support for searching in the local file system from the menu.
- The menu provides the display of icons of active applications and the ability to switch between them.
- An option has been added to the system menu to force close the application.
- Disabled dock-panel autostart (must be started manually or by setting a symbolic link in /Applications/Autostart).
- When trying to launch an already active application, instead of launching another copy, the windows of an already running program are brought to the foreground.
- Added support for the TrojitΓ‘ mail client to the menu (must be downloaded before first use).
- WebEngine based browsers such as Falkon have GPU acceleration enabled.
- By double-clicking on files with documents (.docx, .stl, etc.), the ability to load the applications necessary to open them, if they are not yet installed in the system, is implemented.
- A new utility has been added to track running processes.
Source: opennet.ru