Making axos unique

[Byson94]

Hello,

I have been exploring axos recently and i feel that axos is pretty much pointless and like every other arch based distro. If the goal of axos is for simplicity and ease of use, then distro's like endeavoros and manjaro already makes it easy.

So, lets take this opportunity to discuss about ideas for making axos better! if you have any ideas, please do share it below!

[LeVraiArdox]

Hello

Yeah, i agree with you, AxOS is not what we can call unique for now. That's why i'm taking every suggestions. The first ambition I had for AxOS was to make it fully integrated with AI (basically everywhere), but then I realized that this isn't a "good thing" for multiple reasons. I still continued to maintain it and improve it in multiple aspects, but like you said it's not very different from the others distros except for a unique window manager.

If anyone have an idea, I would love to discuss about it and realize it if it is possible.

[Byson94]

What if we make axos more focused towards specific group of people? like for creators, developers or even make it to be super secure?

[LeVraiArdox]

That could be an interesting possibility but i don't want AxOS to be too focused on that. I want to make it usable for every tasks. However, I could add a page to Axinstall to chose one or multiple usages, so the parameters, preinstalled apps and other stuff can come out of the box. That could be done for the next release.

[Byson94]

Fair enough, that would be great too!

[Byson94]

I have some ideas that i would like to share:

(i dont know much about how a linux distro works exactly under the hood so the ideas could not be much practical but i'd like to share them)

Some kind of check that would mostly prevent breaking the system during a system update.

• We can maybe make a new argument for epsilon that would like take a snapshot of the system before running a system update.

Giving users full control and maybe also preventing harmful commands.

• Maybe we can do something to prevent harmful commands like rm -rf / etc.
• We can also try make tools to give user more control over axos.

Making axos more secure.

• We can provide tools like calamav out of the box without making much bloat? or even make some change that would improve the security of axos users.

If you think any of these ideas match your vision then i would be happy to help prototype any of these ideas!

[LeVraiArdox]

We can maybe make a new argument for epsilon that would like take a snapshot of the system before running a system update.

That's a good idea, but only in some specific cases. I could do it but it will not be for the next release. Expect this for the end of the year, if i do it. Making snapshots is complicated as it means having a snapshot partition or huge files on the system. I have a lot to think about. The best i could do currently is to make third party apps like timeshift come out of the box.

Maybe we can do something to prevent harmful commands like rm -rf / etc

This kind of command already have basic security to prevent it, but I understand the need. The problem is that a lot of commands are harmful, i can't make a list of these commands, and even if i do, how would I make the prevention without modifying bash's code or the terminal's ? I will think about it but same as the snapshots, I need to analyze the strategy to make this possible, so do not expect it very soon.

We can also try make tools to give user more control over axos.

What do you mean ?

We can provide tools like calamav out of the box without making much bloat? or even make some change that would improve the security of axos users.

This kind of antivirus is bloat. The best antivirus is the user, and i have bad memories about these. I understand that security is important but I don't think including an antivirus is the good way. I hope you understand what I mean.

---

If you want to prototype your ideas for Epsilon, be free to open a discussion about the details or directly a pull request that I will review. For your harmful command prevention, I'd like to know the details about the strategy. If you need me to create a repo for your ideas, you can ask.

Thanks for your ideas.

[Byson94]

Thanks for the thoughtful reply! i understand your concerns and you're right, some of the ideas would need careful planning or might be better suited for later stages of axos.

Here is what i am thinking of:
for snapshots: I'll look into how timeshift or snapper works and ill see if i can make a script or an epsilon argument that could potentially trigger timeshift.
For harmful commands: for the harmful commands one, ill try making a tool that can warn users when a pattern of potentially harmful command is found. Nothing fancy but just a protection system that can be turned off as well according to the users preference.
For tools that give more control: By this i was thinking of a tool which can change axos configs and other stuff. Maybe giving users an easy command like axosTool remove-splash-screen to remove the splash screen shown during booting.

And if i am able to make a tool that can create the snapshot system ill let you know by opening a pull request!

[LeVraiArdox]

Thanks! I'm waiting for your PRs.

For the axTools (absolutely not the official name), I think that's a great idea! I will probably make this for the next release and, maybe later, a GUI version. If you want to contribute, be free to do so.

[Byson94]

Yep, i finished making the snapshot feature. You can review it when you are free.

AxOS-project/epsilon#1

[AiODillen]

Hey guys,

One thing I've noticed is that there are no big distros out there that ship a good and thought through hyprland (or in our case sleex) setup that is ready to use. Sure there are dotfiles, many many dotfiles, but these tend to break.

We could be one of the first to ship an environment like this.

The most common distros are common because they "just work", like Mint or Ubuntu or Fedora. Unlike them we can actually decide to start fresh with a new DE like sleex and be unique while still stable, if we do a good job with package management and configuration.

Cheers

[LeVraiArdox]

Hi there

That's the casse. When you install it, the installer will ask what desktop you want. Also, in the next release, Sleex will replace Plasma in the live env.

[aehimself]

This is EXACTLY what made me to try, now to dual-boot AxOS. I really couldn't care less if the appearance is stock if it looks good and runs well.

I'm really looking forward to some more user-friendly settings (screen lock, turn off timeout, enable/disable touchpad when mouse is present, SDDM background changing, etc). I think that would make AxOS (+ SleeX) truly unique.

[Byson94]

Hey, it seems that you are in wrong discussion. This discussion is about making axos unique and not for talking about the problems that you are facing. So please create an issue on the problem that you are facing in the axos repository.

[clinta715]

it's very unique, i can't even figure out how to open or close programs, sometimes after a lot of clicking different things, a program that i didn't click on opens, and i can't close it

[LeVraiArdox]

There is a complete doc about how to use Sleex

https://www.axos-project.com/docs/guides/sleex/

But people don't read it, that's why they sometimes struggle to do stuff.
To open an app, just open the overview and search for what you want

Sleex doesn't have the same behaviors and usages than others. It's just a habit question, but when you master it (which shouldn't take a while) it will be easy

[Somnius]

I find it quite nice and refreshing having tested/contrib. to Garuda Hyprland and and ml4w, AxOS setup just works as expected, portals xdg work properly, no complaints so far (just one issue I've started). It feels unique among the flavors out there, gonna keep testing it and try to contribute more 😊💪🔥

[guguss-31]

It can be cool if AxOS support Android and/or Windows apps without emulator.

[LeVraiArdox]

Uhhh... Don't ask too much 😅
These are not made for the same architecture at all, so it is almost impossible for me to do this

[Somnius]

It can be cool if AxOS support Android and/or Windows apps without emulator.

You need to work around solutions that run android and windows apps..

[Byson94]

These are not made for the same architecture at all, so it is almost impossible for me to do this

You can try making the Android one. It almost is the same architecture beneath.

[dbones]

If it helps, I thought the Axos + sleex, has a good angle, as a easy to get up and running hyprland based OS (especially for people who are new to all of these things)

I'm looking to set it up tomorrow, I'll be installing vscode, intellj, devpod, and a couple of games)steam, customizing the terminal (possibly setup oh my zsh), discord, VLC etc

Personally I hope it can complement productivity (keyboard focused workflow) and gaming (my goal is to replace windows)

[Somnius]

Why ext4 as default for disk instead of btrfs and then include timeshift that does wonders when combined with a btrfs filesystem. Now it can only rsync/copy stuff. . 😑

[LeVraiArdox]

Because ext4 is the boring, responsible adult of Linux filesystems. Reliable, fast, and doesn't throw a tantrum when your power goes out.

More seriously though:

Feature	ext4	btrfs
Stability	Rock solid, battle-tested	Mostly stable, but had "oops I ate your data" moments in the past
Performance	Very good, especially on HDDs and simple SSDs	A bit slower for basic operations, especially on older hardware
Recovery	Simple, predictable tools	More complex, snapshots can be a lifesaver or a nightmare
Advanced Features	Minimal	Copy-on-write, snapshots, compression, RAID, checksumming

Why AxOS uses ext4 by default:

• Grandma’s computer shouldn’t suddenly corrupt because someone unplugged it mid-update.
• Tools like fsck for ext4 are like defibrillators: ugly but effective.
• Ext4 doesn’t need features like built-in RAID or deduplication for most users.
• Sysadmins trust it because it’s predictable.

[Somnius]

Because ext4 is the boring, responsible adult of Linux filesystems

Now that you mention it in that way, yeah.. i had the "oops I ate your data" moment once.. and it wan't fun.. 😑