But hear me out.
This Arch-based project includes binaries for a lot of packages that aren't in the Arch repos (both from the AUR and otherwise), as well as some brand-new software made just for it. This is just another niche distro, but it's going to focus on things that nobody else has yet to focus on.
Here are the design goals and philosophy.
90's-inspired retro inferface. You'll swear you're gaming and developing on a machine from 1995 (with the fashion sense of a 90's antihero).
Ultra-minimalistic software core. When I say "ultra-minimalistic", I mean as much of a pure X environment as possible while still looking and feeling good. The default WM is IceWM, the file manager is Xfe (Midnight Commander also included), terminal is urxvt, and the graphics program is xpaint. The only browsers included are links and dillo. However, the great thing is, this runs like a dream on Qemu even with 256MB of RAM, meaning practically any x64 device is capable of using it. The idea is that you can run this on garbage hardware or even in an emulator on your phone. Of course, this is still fully compatible with Arch repos, so you're free to expand it however you like - you're only as limited as Arch allows you to be (which isn't much).
Support for retro shooters and their level editors, especially Doom. This will include installation scripts that allow supported DOS and WINE games to be installed within the start menu and launched like native applications, as well as binaries of any source port we can get working (with the possible exceptions of libGDX games, since these are perhaps too bulky for the scope of the project - we're probably pushing it with WINE support as it is).
Doom Doom Doom. Every level editor I can get working, plus every source port, plus a custom lightweight Doom launcher with a built-in idgames crawler - that is the dream (I'm aware that SSGL exists; however, it is too graphics-heavy to be incorporated into this project). Shareware and Freedoom are to be included, along with the other free IWADs.
Support for playing and making games with the classic RPG Maker series. This will include a built-in dual RTP that supports games made both with the pirated Don Miguel engines and the official English releases (this has never yet been done by anyone, anywhere). It will also support development with these through Wine. EasyRPG binaries are also included.
Support for retro games and development (within reason). This means NES/SNES emulators, at most, plus toolchains, and old school ROM hacking. No RetroArch or modern engines (although you are, of course, free to install whatever you like on top of the core OS).
Support for roguelike games and development. Several roguelike games are already included, and we plan to include all of the (free) good ones. libtcod binaries will also be included for streamlined development of roguelike games.
Ports of old X11 games that haven't made it into the Arch repos. Some of these have a hard time compiling on the 64-bit architecture. I'm going to figure out why.
IceWM overhaul. New themes, a wallpaper changing app that actually does what it's supposed to, a heavily customized menu... you know, the works.
ARM64 experimental support. If it gets that far. This is an Arch-based distro, so an ARM64 version will only be as good as Arch's unofficial support for it is, and it'll take some work. But I'd like to see it running on my Pi Zero W and on my cheap crappy Chinese Android phone.
Support for many filesystems and numerous command-line recovery tools. The idea for this distro comes from a 15GB recovery partition that I modeled after a 90's computer and then started to use as a retro dev environment after my ReactOS installation failed. I plan to use it both as a recovery distro and as a retro development tool, so its support for both will be robust.
Cool African word as the distro name. Ubuntu has one. Why not me? Shetani Linux is what I call it. I think it's a fitting name for a distro with so much focus on those edgy 90's games.
This is about me. I'm doing this because I want to have it. First and foremost, I want this to exist for me. I need something like this, so I'm going to make it happen, and I feel like most good software comes from a feeling like that. I want you to have it, too, but I have needs that no distro has yet to fulfill, so I'm making my own; that's what this is about. (And while you can argue than every Arch install is about that, I reinstall my operating system so much and use so much of this content - much of which has to be repeatedly compiled and recompiled - that making a full-fledged, self-installing distribution is worth it for me, and there are going to be enough unique aspects of it, including new software, that I feel it's worth sharing with you.)
...Right. The download. I always hate when I see a post like this, and there's no download link, so here you go:
BOOTABLE QEMU IMAGE - THE USER IS "USER" AND THE PASSWORD FOR BOTH "USER" AND ROOT ARE "PASSWORD".
I DO NOT RECOMMEND LESS THAN 256MB OF RAM FOR THE VM, AS PROBABLY IT WILL CRASH. 512MB OR 1GB ARE IDEAL. AND REMEMBER TO ADD A SOUND CARD.
This does not include even a fraction of the ports and packages that are on the partition that I used to create the original prototype, so a lot (hell, most) of things I think are really important (like some of the obscure X11 apps, EasyRPG, retro/roguelike development libraries, etc.) are nowhere to be found, and this is more of a proof-of-concept than anything.
However, this is a fully-featured Arch-based OS. It even has wifi and acpi support, so you could probably install it on a laptop if you wanted to, but you probably don't, since there's nothing in this release you probably couldn't do for yourself. It doesn't so much (yet!) but it boots into the desktop, has internets, graphics and sound, plays Chocolate Doom (shareware file included) and several roguelikes out of the box, and is fully compatible with Arch repos and pacman, so you can always add more onto it if you really want.
Google Drive is the best I can do for now. I may create a torrent when I have the time, but my upload speed is slow. I'll probably get to it tonight or tomorrow, but uploading to my seedbox will take hours.
I'm posting this here because I wondered if anyone would help me brainstorm ideas for it, and I may have to ask some questions (I've been using Linux casually for 14 years, but I've only recently compiled my first kernel - I think my experience level is intermediate).
