Snakeware – Linux distro with Python userspace inspired by Commodore 64

snakeware

snakeware is a free Linux distro with a Python userspace inspired by the Commodore 64. You are booted directly into a Python interpreter, which you can use to do whatever you want with your computer.

Check out our latest demo on YouTube!

Motivation

The idea is that a Python OS would be fun to use and very easy to contribute to. Even relative beginners might be able to find ways to meaningfully contribute apps and other code to this distro.

Our window manager, snakewm, is based on pygame/pygame_gui. We do not use X11; snakewm draws directly to /dev/fb0 .

We also are not going to be using any other huge and opaque software such as systemd, etc. The goal is to eventually have a usable set of userspace apps and utilities written entirely in Python, because Python is fun and it Just Werks™.

Running

Download the latest release image.

Then, burn the image file to a flash drive and boot it, or launch it in QEMU. Here is how I start it in QEMU, it works pretty well for me:

qemu-system-x86_64 -drive format=raw,file=snakeware.img -m 2048 -soundhw hda -audiodev id=pa,driver=pa

Once you are booted into the Python environment, launch snakewm with these commands:

>>> from snakewm.wm import SnakeWM
>>> SnakeWM().run()

Press the Left WinKey to open the App Menu!

Building

The snakeware build system is based on buildroot. See the snakeware/ directory in this repo for resources and documentation on how to build your own snakeware distro image.

NOTE:If you are only contributing apps or other code to snakewm, you don't need to build a whole snakeware distro image to test your changes. Simply make your changes to snakewm then run sudo python wm.py in the snakewm/ directory. snakewm will then start drawing itself directly to the framebuffer and you can test out your changes. Press ALT+ESC to return to your normal desktop. (It would still be good to test your changes in an actual snakeware environment though.)

Contributing

Developers of all experience levels are welcome and encouraged to contribute to snakeware. Python enthusiasts that are familiar with pygame and pygame_gui will be able to write their own snakeware apps very easily. See existing apps in snakewm/apps/ for examples of how to get started, and feel free to ask questions if you need help.

Those with experience building Linux systems are encouraged to contribute to the underlying aspects of the distro, such as the build/package scripts and configuration for the kernel, GRUB, etc. The build system is currently not very streamlined or robust, and I am sure that there are better ways to do a lot of it.

I would also like to eventually stop using Busybox for intialization and find a way to perform all necessary init from the Python environment, so ideas about that are welcome.

TODO

This is an abridged list of future plans:

• Many more snakewm apps
• App menu for choosing apps to run
• Improved/streamlined build system
• Improved kernel config
• snake-games - full-screen user games separate from SnakeWM
• Modify partition scheme for faster boot - /usr on its own partition?
• Take advantage of pygame_gui's theme functionality
• Dynamic/interactive desktop backgrounds
• Sound support
• Networking -> web browser
  • snakechat - chat with everyone else who's using snakeware
  • Gopher client?
• Ditch busybox, init via Python somehow
• ...