How can you help?
I've been asked this very question in different ways already. Let's see if we can put it down a little more concrete for everyone.
How can you help?
Doing a Linux distro is a lot of work. Even more so when I'm really building a distro factory thing that is meant for everyone to build stuff with, and share those things. So the question as to "how can I help?" is loaded.
Fortunately, it's not super complicated. You can start with something simple, and, depending on how that goes, you can help in different ways. Every project needs different people to help in different ways. The diversity is what makes a project stronger and more resilient. And much more creative.
Number 1: Try it!
Really, it's that simple. Pick one of the images that you could try, and use it. Try the Live USB image and maybe install it onto an actual system. Try the Live USB image inside a VM (like Gnome Boxes, or virt-manager). Or try the ISO image in your cloud provider. Heck, you can try the WSL image on Windows (people have!).
Obviously, if you like what you see - tell someone else. If you have a problem, tell us. Hop in Discord and share your experience. Even if it's not good, we want to know. If you're done and you don't like it, you don't have to tell us, but if you do take the time to do so, we will appreciate it. If you don't want to spend any more time to try and work around problems, feel free to just say so. Your time is yours to spend.
Ideally, you try and also exercise the distro like a normal user. Leave it installed. Update it a few times a week. Install new things. Maybe remove and try out some software you know how to use, but normally wouldn't use. Or try some new software.
Number 2: Read up!
Pull up the documentation site at Docs and see if any of the guides posted there are right. Try some new things following them. Hit up the one that explains how to build your own package. Try and do the offline air-gapped upgrade.
Getting the documentation tested by real people shows where the problems are in the designs and where I missed things. Code also can just break over time. The package manager is a complex piece of code with perhaps too many functions, but that does mean you can really do all those neat and easy things right on your own box with them, like just casually making your own container image.
Number 3: Tell me what is missing!
You're installing a completely new Linux distro, and the first thing you try to install or run is ... something not available in the distribution. Tell me what it is that you are missing. I can't guess what you're going for. Is it some console app that I forgot? Or a totally reasonable desktop application that just wasn't on the radar when I worked on the GNOME Circle set?
We're all different people. We like our own stuff most. You can see from the applications that we added that I have certain preferences. But, that's not always good. Diversity again here is good for the ecosystem. Up to a point, of course. It's not going to be a lot of fun if people are constantly asking for applications that rely on outdated software stacks or just painful components that don't play nice. I'm looking at you, wxwidgets. But anyway, you're always welcome to ask for something to be added.
Number 4: Try the bug tracker
It's easy enough to ask for something on Discord, but some things need to be planned out and may require that some other work happens first. That sort of change request belongs in the bug tracker. Now, I've not had anyone file any bugs yet (and I'm 100% sure there are bugs!) so it totally helps if people go ahead and file new bugs. Even better if people help tracking bugs and test issues. Or work on fixes. But I'll take whatever help people are willing to offer.
Number 5: Contribute with publicity
If you like what you see, tell everyone. Post something about your experience, or even like the social media updates (Mastodon, Bluesky, LinkedIn) that we're making several times a week. Or repost them. Any exposure helps. This also could mean you take a closer look at our messaging and what we're trying to show to people. So a critical look at the project goals and our communication are just super valuable things right now.
The biggest resource that a good Open Source project has... is its people. You are the thing that drives it. I am here pulling the boat. But ultimately the project isn't mine forever, anyway. My hope is that others come and advocate for a community driven project that allows everyone to start a secure and compliance-first Linux OS, and open new doors. Those doors need opening by others besides me.
Number 6: Hold your horses
The project has just barely released public images and code two or so weeks back. Things are rolling, which is amazing. Updates are coming out and reviewed every day. Security updates are coming out fast. Bug fixes and new software are being included daily.
But it's a long drive, kids. Settle down and buckle up. Pretend we're going on a road trip and we've just left 20 seconds ago, and it's a two day drive. This project isn't going to cease in a few months. It's not going to cease in a few years, either. We don't need to solve all the problems this week.
How do I know this? Well, for one, I started in early May. You can check the commit history if you want. I set out to see if I could build something that let me control the flow of a Linux Distro and do all the good things that a distro needs to be professional, secure, fun, fast, and all that. I went public when I knew it worked. I published the code and images when I knew it worked well. And now we can ride the station wagon to our goal. The mile counter sits at 00002 and it ain't rolling over any time soon. All the things I'd like to still do with the distro are things we'll write out on the issue tracker.
But there's no rush. Write down what you think we'll need to do in the future, without worrying about whether we'll get to it.
Number 7: Contribute other resources or hardware
Upfront: Right now I am _not_ looking for monetary contributions. At this time, running this as a private person, I am fortunate enough that I do not have a need to ask for monetary donations. On top of that, I feel that I don't want to start doing this until there is some sort of legal entity that people can donate to. I like what the Open Source Collective (OSC) is doing. This might be a way forward.
But what is absolutely right now a hindrance is access and availability of specific hardware. First, I would absolutely LOVE to start chomping at building out Aarch64 and RISC-V ports of the distribution. While possible, cross compilation would still mean I have no access to actual hardware, so it just postpones the cost, and it would mean I'm not standing behind the quality promise that I'm making (that it's tested).
Putting RISC-V aside, there is ample Aarch64 EFI horse power available in high-core count build machines. These would be mostly useless as generic purpose computers because of the low core speeds, but as a build host and test runner they would 100% solve the whole Aarch64 port problem in a single host.
A second issue is that I have no new NVIDIA GPU hardware to test integration of the proprietary graphics drivers on. A card like an RTX 2060 would allow me to at least validate CUDA for the foreseeable future. But even an older T400 would allow me to validate basic GPU drivers.
Ideally, this is hardware that you have in a drawer or not something you're breaking your own bank for. I've sunk a fair amount of cash into building the infrastructure I have right now, so I'm not at a point where I'd shell out for hardware myself, but I'm also not asking you to do so. And, if you do want to go this route, please, do contact me first to discuss this and that I don't find a pile of hardware on my doorstep I can't actually use for some weird reason. I know it's Christmas soon, but, let's also not go overboard ;).
One last thought
Listen, your time is valuable. Very much so. Don't overdo it. Take care of yourself. There's always tomorrow. I'm very much happy with whatever people can contribute and I hate to impose. Let's keep it light.
Happy Halloween to those in the US. Stay warm.
--sofar (aka Auke)