Fellow open-source enthusiasts,
We all have that mental backlog of promising projects — those distros, tools, and systems we keep tabs on but haven’t yet deployed. Perhaps you’re waiting for that mythical free weekend, lacking a spare/compatible device or just holding out until that one killer feature drops.
FWIW, my ‘someday’ list includes:
Operating Systems/Distros:
- Gentoo – Source-based meta-distribution driven by Portage and USE-flags for near-granular control; binary packages also available if you’d rather skip marathon compile sessions.
- Guix System – GNU’s functional, declarative distro built with Guile Scheme.
- MocaccinoOS – Image-based, container-built distro that originated from Gentoo/Sabayon but now uses the Luet package manager and OTA-like updates.
- NixOS – Declarative Linux distribution using the Nix package language.
- Qubes OS – Security-focused OS that uses Xen virtualization to compartmentalize your digital life into isolated environments with a unified desktop.
- Spectrum – In-development security-oriented OS built on Nixpkgs using KVM-based microVMs for compartmentalization.
Desktop Environments/Window Managers:
- COSMIC - System76’s comprehensive Wayland-native desktop environment written in Rust.
- Hyprland – Dynamic tiling Wayland compositor with scriptable layouts and impressive animations.
System Security/Firmware:
- coreboot – Open source alternative to proprietary BIOS/UEFI firmware (though recent x86 still needs vendor blobs such as FSP/AGESA).
- Heads – coreboot + Linux payload providing TPM-measured, tamper-evident boot for select laptops.
- nix-mineral - NixOS module for convenient system hardening.
- TrenchBoot – Framework for dynamic root-of-trust (DRTM) launches via Intel TXT, AMD SKINIT, or SEV-ES.
Applications/Tools:
- Android Translation Layer - Run Android apps natively on Linux (still in early development).
- Emacs – The self-extensible Lisp machine masquerading as a text editor; someday I’ll embrace the config rabbit hole.
- Olive – FOSS non-linear video editor in alpha.
- systemd-sysext – Overlay read-only
/usrand/opt(or/etcvia confext) with extra images; extensions auto-activate at boot or can be merged/unmerged/refreshed live with a single command. Handy for immutable distros, though it’s additive-only and not a full package manager.
What open-source projects are you admiring from afar? Time to compare notes!
I also want to use Hyprland after seeing the pewdiepie video get talked about so much. Tried it out but it needs a lot of tweaking. So far I honestly don’t get why people like this over basic gnome. I can easily open any program and put it where I want in a second with the super key. I do want my system to look cooler though.
I run Hyprland, I love it but I find it very hard to recommend to other people.
Hyprland is basically unusable out of the box (by design). You don’t have wallpaper, notifications, system menu, task bar, lock screen, screen saver, idle lock, a launcher… You have to install, configure and style all these components by yourself.
Why do it, then?
Personally I wish they’d invest into a meta-package “Hyprland DE” where it’d install all the components with some sane defaults. It takes a lot of time to make your system look decent, especially if you have no sense of style like myself heh. I found it to be very worth it, but I haven’t personally met anyone willing to do all this work.
This is where I feel COSMIC will shine in the future. The tiled experience with sane defaults.
You have to be prepared to dive deep into configs and set a lot up yourself if you want to get into any tiling WM, but the payoff is crazy customization with nearly every shortcut designed by you to fit your needs. Its something you do if you want to be keyboard-centric. If you know how to touch type, it’d be well worth the time invested.
I went as far as making my own waybar in CSS on NixOS using home-manager. Crazy stuff, but its not too hard once you can understand what you’re looking at. Which honestly doesn’t take long at all. Bare minimum a couple weeks, really (unless you go NixOS and want to learn Nixlang and home-manager, then I’d say a month or so learning time).