... but cohost.org is soon going to be shut down.

For one thing, we are probably the first, and will be the last, Linux distro and/or operating system and/or utility software project to use cohost.

Wait. What's a cohost again?

If you've never heard of cohost: It is a rather interesting and independent personal blog/social media site that, unusually for places nowadays, has no third-party cookies, tracking, analytics or network advertising (they had an "artist alley", a sort of classifieds page), and has exhibited a keen and sharp focus on user trust, safety, and creativity.

Currently, In the past, our blog at https://styx-os.org/ was a mirror of our cohost blog, at https://cohost.org/styx-os/ - which, with the lovely cohost-blogger software by oatmealine, has been a fantastic way to put up posts and comments on our own site, in a way that is moderated and minimally-impactful.

We will be moving this blog onto our own servers over the coming month, We have moved this blog onto our own servers, as cohost's posting deadline (October 1) looms, and the final site shutdown (December 31) nears.

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Why'd you bother with cohost, if the site was going down anyway?

We held out hope that cohost would remain a thriving platform of creatives, tech-minded folks and people who find themselves frustrated with everything their software and OS-of-choice does, whether that's constant rampant violations of privacy, consent and attention (usually in the name of advertising), or on the other side, dire, difficult software configuration and installation by software written for programmers, with user experience in the backseat (or, dangling from a belt in a shopping cart, more realistically.)

Unfortunately, it's become clear that there is no path forward for cohost. The operation of the site, and its continued funding, have not been sustainable. The post linked at the top of this explains a lot of it.

I thank the staff of cohost, the many users who have contributed to cohost Plus or Artist Alley postings, and the 'mystery funder' who had piloted the financial operations, and set reasonable and clear goals and approaches for such a website to thrive in, including salary investments to enable the staff here to continue. I'm aware there's been controversy over that very thing, but without a full-time staff, something like this would likely have been infeasible, or prone to community issues, far beyond any drama the site's seen.

And give it up for eggbug. :eggbug-classic: <- (TODO: there would normally be an eggbug here.)
I'm sure I'll see fit to give a nice easter-egg to eggbug and the site we opened this blog on, in the future.

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styx forward, onward and upward.

In other news, I've (@sirocyl - hi!) been working on some foundational software and governance adaptations to the styx project. I don't have much to say on the governance front, but it will no longer be a "BDFL" project if that plan goes 'according to keikaku'. (1)

We'll be setting up four major software components of styx: "infra", "builder", "installer", and "daemon".

• The styx "infra" will be a suite of utilities, including NSD for DNS, for propping up our central, authoritative repositories.
  • If you set up a styx software repository or package, you can use this, but it may be a lot more complicated - you can simply put the package file on a server instead, _optionally_ pointing to it from a styx.community package posting, or on your own server through a DNS entry, /.well-known/ entry, or other discovery mechanisms to be determined.
• The styx "builder" is a series of utilities, scripts and tooling for pulling, patching, compiling, packaging, and signing software for the styx package format.
  • A styx package is a GPT partition table-based disk image with compatible data and metadata partitions included, and a "Fixed"/classic Connectix VHD footer, for Windows compatibility.
• The styx "installer" is a cross-platform application for downloading, installing and upgrading the styx operating system.
  • The installer is also in charge of preparing systems security features (secure boot, e.g.,), bootstrapping (UEFI loader), the user accounts, and styx profile storage for a bootable styx OS; as well, as the GUI for managing styx packages (and, eventually, orchestration of your other machines with styx)
• The styx "daemon" is another cross-platform (but Linux first) app, which runs either on demand or in the background as a system service, and responds to the styx installer, and does the actual job.
  • These tasks include sandboxing and namespace management (where necessary), attaching and mounting packages, and/or running applications in a package, and making commandline utilities or other environmental changes in a package available to the system.
  • It also watches for package files in the styx directory, and manages user storage/session management.

Finally, in case you missed it in the list above: styx packages may be able to package Windows and Mac applications/binaries, as well, and be well-supported on both platforms, in addition to general Linux and styx OS installations.

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Wrapping up

Anyway, that's been a long one. Thank you for reading on our new self-hosted blog. 🙂

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Footnotes:

TL note: keikaku means 'plan'.

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Original post, reply-chain and comments:

mirrored from our cohost post: https://cohost.org/styx-os/post/7684871-the-styx-project-isn
published 2024-09-11 at 6:54PM America/New_York time
No known replies. Not a reply to another post.
1 comment on cohost:

from A happy isomorphism, 2024-09-19 at 10:32 AM America/New_York time
this looks really cool

as someone who is having a lot of fun with nixOS

and feeling that "hanging off the shopping cart belt" experience with nix/nixpkgs/nixos

excited to see where goes