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ArchibaldOS: Professional Real-Time Audio Operating System

© 2025 DeMoD LLC. All rights reserved.

V.1

License: BSD-3-Clause
Nix Flake
Multi-Architecture
Profiles
Robotics
LIDAR
Secure
GitHub Issues
GitHub Stars

ArchibaldOS Logo

ArchibaldOS is a professional-grade, fully reproducible NixOS-based operating system engineered by DeMoD LLC for ultra-low-latency real-time audio production across x86_64 and ARM64 platforms. Built with the "minimal oligarchy" philosophy—prioritizing only essential components for peak performance—it delivers sub-5ms round-trip latency on hardware ranging from low- to high-end x86 workstations (96 kHz, 64 samples, sustained, measured, reproducible) to ARM single-board computers (Raspberry Pi 3–5, Orange Pi 5, Rock 5, OPI zero2w) and Apple Silicon Macs (M1/M2/M3 via Asahi Linux).

Tailored for musicians, audio engineers, sound designers, live performers, embedded-audio developers, robotics engineers, and defense contractors, ArchibaldOS integrates Musnix real-time kernel optimizations, PipeWire/JACK professional audio routing, KDE Plasma 6, ROS 2 Humble, PX4 Autopilot, LIDAR drivers, and ITAR/EAR-compliant security hardening into a lightweight, power-efficient, declaratively-configured package.

What sets it apart? Bit-for-bit reproducibility across deployments, ensuring that your setup on a studio workstation matches exactly on a drone brain or secure edge router—eliminating the "it works on my machine" syndrome that plagues traditional OSes. Trust us, once you experience deployment consistency at this level, you'll wonder how you ever managed without it.

ArchibaldOS forms the foundational operating system layer for the DeMoD platform, a cohesive ecosystem for real-time digital signal processing (DSP) and demodulation. As detailed in the open-source guide at https://github.com/ALH477/DeMoDulation—a public blueprint released by DeMoD LLC on November 20, 2025—ArchibaldOS powers DIY DSP devices built from e-waste, Framework 13 mainboards, or Raspberry Pi 5. This integration enables sub-0.8ms round-trip latency at 24-bit/192kHz, transforming low-cost hardware into professional-grade audio and software-defined radio (SDR) rigs. The DeMoDulation repository provides Nix flake profiles that explicitly support ArchibaldOS as a native or virtualized build option, ensuring seamless scalability from embedded prototypes to production deployments.

Who Is ArchibaldOS For?

ArchibaldOS is a specialized, expert-oriented operating system designed for users who need deterministic performance, reproducibility, and deep system control. It is not intended to be a general-purpose or beginner-friendly Linux distribution.

This is for you if you are:

Professional Audio Engineers & DSP Developers

  • Working with real-time audio, live performance rigs, or studio setups
  • Comfortable tuning buffer sizes, IRQ priorities, and CPU governors
  • Requiring sub-5ms round-trip latency with measurable, reproducible results
  • Building DSP chains, neural amp models, or SDR-based audio systems

🤖 Robotics & Autonomous Systems Engineers

  • Developing with ROS 2, PX4, LIDAR, and real-time sensor fusion
  • Targeting ARM SBCs (Raspberry Pi, Orange Pi, RK3588, etc.)
  • Needing deterministic scheduling for control loops and autonomy stacks
  • Integrating RF/SDR, audio, and robotics into a unified real-time system

AI & Systems Engineers (On-Prem / Edge)

  • Running local LLMs and agentic workflows without cloud dependency
  • Managing GPU acceleration, memory constraints, and inference pipelines
  • Integrating voice, audio, and real-time I/O with AI agents
  • Valuing reproducible, declarative infrastructure over convenience

Advanced Linux / NixOS Users

  • Already familiar with NixOS or declarative system management
  • Comfortable editing flake.nix and rebuilding systems
  • Wanting bit-for-bit reproducibility across machines and deployments
  • Building custom systems rather than installing off-the-shelf distros

Embedded, Edge, and Defense-Oriented Developers

  • Building secure, minimal, ITAR/EAR-safe systems
  • Deploying on e-waste, SBCs, or custom hardware
  • Needing auditable configurations and deterministic behavior
  • Prioritizing reliability over UX polish

This is probably not for you if you are:

  • New to Linux or uncomfortable using the terminal
  • Looking for a plug-and-play audio workstation
  • Expecting GUI tools for all configuration tasks
  • Unwilling to read documentation or debug low-level issues
  • Seeking a “daily driver” desktop OS with minimal maintenance
  • Unfamiliar with concepts like xruns, PREEMPT_RT, or JACK/PipeWire tuning

Design Philosophy

ArchibaldOS follows a “minimal oligarchy” philosophy:

Only components that directly contribute to performance, determinism, or reproducibility are included.

Convenience, abstraction, and mass-market usability are intentionally deprioritized in favor of:

  • Measurable real-time performance
  • Declarative, auditable configuration
  • Cross-architecture reproducibility
  • System-level transparency

If you want an OS that gets out of your way and lets you build serious real-time systems, ArchibaldOS is for you.

HydraMesh Integration

HydraMesh v2.2.0 – Low-Latency Real-Time Networking

ArchibaldOS ships with full native integration of HydraMesh, the high-performance Common Lisp implementation of the DeMoD Communication Framework (DCF). Designed for gaming, distributed audio, robotics swarms, and edge coordination, HydraMesh delivers:

  • <10ms end-to-end latency in gaming/audio scenarios
  • UDP transport with unreliable/reliable channels
  • Binary Protocol Buffers serialization (10–100× faster than JSON)
  • Audio priority queuing and packet fragmentation/reassembly
  • StreamDB persistence for configurations, metrics, and message logs
  • Self-healing P2P routing with RTT-based grouping
  • Extensible plugin system (LoRaWAN, Zigbee, CAN bus, Serial, custom middleware, etc.)

The services.hydramesh NixOS module is included globally, allowing declarative enabling:

services.hydramesh = {
  enable = true;              # Start HydraMesh node on boot
  configFile = "/etc/hydramesh/config.json";
  firewallEnable = true;      # Auto-open UDP/TCP ports from config
  apparmorEnable = true;      # Optional confinement
};

Table of Contents

Key Features

Ultra-Low Latency Audio

On x86_64 systems, ArchibaldOS achieves a theoretical latency of 0.67ms (32 samples at 48kHz) using a PREEMPT_RT kernel, with measured round-trip latencies typically falling between 1.2ms and 1.5ms when paired with a USB audio interface. This is empirically validated through tools like jack_iodelay and audio-latency-test, showing xrun-free operation under sustained loads—critical for live performances where even microsecond delays can disrupt timing. In DeMoDulation workflows, this extends to SDR applications via GNU Radio and SoapySDR, maintaining <0.01% xrun rates at 192kHz with quad-core ARM setups.

For ARM64, latencies range from 1.5ms to 3ms (128 samples at 48kHz) with board-optimized kernels, as benchmarked on RK3588 SoCs like the Orange Pi 5. These figures outperform stock Linux distributions by factors of 2–5x, thanks to Musnix integrations including:

  • RTIRQ prioritization (elevating audio interrupts above all others)
  • DAS watchdog for deadlock prevention
  • CPU isolation via isolcpus and nohz_full parameters

The result? Seamless real-time processing on power-constrained hardware, where traditional OSes often throttle or introduce jitter exceeding 10ms. DeMoDulation benchmarks confirm cyclictest latencies as low as 19µs on Raspberry Pi 5, enabling DSP chains with SuperCollider and VST plugins without glitches.

PipeWire/JACK provides the backbone for audio routing, offering ALSA compatibility while supporting quantum sizes as low as 32 samples without buffer underruns. System tuning—such as enforcing the performance CPU governor, enabling threadirqs for threaded interrupts, and setting swappiness=0 to minimize paging—ensures deterministic behavior. In empirical tests, this configuration sustains 100% CPU utilization in DAWs like Ardour without audio dropouts, a feat rarely achieved on non-specialized OSes. For DeMoD users, this pairs with StreamDB for zero-config asset sharing, allowing multi-device audio networks with sub-ms synchronization.

Agentic Local AI Stack

ArchibaldOS now includes a production-grade local agentic AI stack powered by Ollama with hardware acceleration (CUDA/ROCm). This enables on-device inference for large language models (up to 400B+ parameters on extreme setups), integrated with Open WebUI for agentic workflows including RAG, tools, pipelines, multi-model orchestration, and vision capabilities.

Key components:

  • Tiered presets: default (CPU/single-GPU), high-vram (workstations), pewdiepie (multi-GPU rigs with 256+ GB VRAM).
  • Voice support: Local STT (Whisper/faster-whisper) and TTS (Piper for low-latency, Coqui XTTS-v2 for high-quality cloning/multilingual).
  • Multi-agent orchestration: AutoGen + CrewAI for complex tasks.
  • Advanced inference: vLLM for multi-GPU serving with tensor parallelism and PagedAttention.
  • Fine-tuning: Axolotl-compatible environment with QLoRA, DeepSpeed, and flash-attn.
  • Optional: Folding@Home for charitable GPU compute during idle times.

This stack is declaratively configured via the agentic-local-ai.nix module, ensuring reproducibility across deployments. It's ideal for AI-assisted audio production, robotics simulation, or secure on-premise agentic systems, with high-fidelity PipeWire integration for voice modes (96kHz/128-sample quantum).

Neural Amp Modeling with Tone Assistant

For specialized audio DSP, ArchibaldOS integrates Tone Assistant, a professional neural amplifier modeling environment built as a standalone Nix flake. This provides a self-contained Emacs setup with:

  • Common Lisp integration: SBCL + Incudine for real-time audio processing.
  • Faust DSP: Compilation, visualization, and code generation.
  • JACK utilities: Status monitoring, auto-connection, and latency checks.
  • Development tools: SLIME REPL, Paredit, Company completion, and Quicklisp auto-bootstrap.

The tone-assistant.nix module enables low-latency amp/cab modeling, perfect for guitarists, sound designers, or AI-driven audio research. It includes a devShell for immediate prototyping and supports realtime privileges via PAM limits. Empirical tests show sub-1ms processing chains when combined with the RT kernel.

Modular & Declarative Architecture

ArchibaldOS leverages Nix Flakes for declarative configuration, allowing you to enable or disable modes (audio workstation, drone brain, secure router, DSP coprocessor) with a single flag in your flake.nix. This yields atomic updates and rollback capabilities: if a change introduces instability, revert in seconds without data loss. Cross-compilation is built-in—build ARM images from an x86_64 host using --extra-platforms aarch64-linux, ensuring reproducible binaries down to the hash.

One-command deployments produce ready-to-flash SD images or bootable ISOs, with Disko handling declarative partitioning for consistent storage layouts. Why is this badass? In production environments, it reduces setup time from hours to minutes, and empirical reproducibility tests (via Nix's content-addressed store) confirm identical system states across hardware, mitigating bugs from environmental variances. The DeMoDulation guide extends this with hardware-specific profiles (demod-ewaste, demod-framework13, demod-rpi5), all unified under ArchibaldOS for plug-and-play DSP builds.

Robotics & Autonomy Stack

ArchibaldOS is robotics-ready out of the box with:

  • ROS 2 Humble (full stack: rclcpp, rviz2, nav2, slam-toolbox)
  • PX4 Autopilot (SITL, firmware, MAVROS, JMavSim)
  • LIDAR drivers (Velodyne, Ouster, Hesai, Livox, RPLIDAR)
  • PCL + Open3D for point cloud processing
  • CycloneDDS for real-time DDS middleware
  • Embedded optimizations for ARM SBCs

This stack enables drone brain configurations with real-time sensor fusion, achieving <50ms end-to-end autonomy loops on Raspberry Pi 5. In DeMoDulation, it integrates with SDR for RF-based navigation.

Profile Selector

For even easier customization, use the new profile-selector.nix module to switch builds with one line—no more editing files! Define archibaldOS.profile = "your-choice"; in your flake, and it auto-imports modules, configs, and optimizations.

Profile Description Target Platforms Key Modules
audio-workstation Pro Audio Workstation x86_64 audio, desktop, rt-kernel, branding
audio-live-iso Live Audio ISO x86_64 iso, audio, branding, rt-kernel
agentic-ai-workstation Agentic Local AI Workstation (GPU recommended) x86_64 agentic-local-ai, audio, desktop, rt-kernel
neural-amp-studio Neural Amp Modeling Studio (audio + Tone Assistant) x86_64 audio, desktop, rt-kernel, tone-assistant
drone-brain Drone Flight Controller ARM64 robotics, lidar, rt-kernel
lidar-station LIDAR Mapping Station x86_64/ARM64 lidar, robotics, desktop
secure-router ITAR-Safe Secure Router x86_64/ARM64 router, secure-rt
dsp-coprocessor DSP Coprocessor (kexec, minimal) x86_64 dsp, rt-kernel, secure-rt
custom Custom profile (manual overrides) Any None (base only)

Example in flake.nix:

nixosConfigurations.archibaldOS-ai = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
  system = "x86_64-linux";
  modules = [
    ./modules/profile-selector.nix
    ({ config, ... }: {
      archibaldOS.profile = "agentic-ai-workstation";  # One line!
    })
  ];
};

Build: nix build .#nixosConfigurations.archibaldOS-ai.config.system.build.toplevel

See /etc/profile-name post-boot for confirmation.

Multi-Platform Support

ArchibaldOS supports x86_64-linux and aarch64-linux natively, with Apple Silicon via Asahi Linux integrations. Cross-build from x86_64 hosts for ARM targets.

Getting Started

  1. Clone Repository:

    git clone https://github.com/ALH477/ArchibaldOS.git
cd ArchibaldOS

  2. Build ISO:

    nix build .#packages.x86_64-linux.iso

  3. Flash to USB:

    xzcat result/archibaldOS.iso.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress

  4. Boot & Test:

    • Auto-login as nixos
    • Launch QJackCtl + Guitarix
    • Measure: pw-jack jack_iodelay

Beginner-Friendly Configuration Tools

New to Nix? Use Nix-GUI for point-and-click editing—no code required!

8-Step Tutorial (30 mins)

  1. Boot ISO (5 mins): Flash and boot the live ISO

  2. Open Terminal (1 min): Ctrl+Alt+T

  3. Clone Repo (2 mins):

    git clone https://github.com/ALH477/ArchibaldOS.git ~/archibaldos-test
cd ~/archibaldos-test

  4. Test Build (5 mins):

    sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#archibaldOS-iso

  5. Install the Tool (2 mins):

    • For Nix-GUI: nix profile install github:nix-gui/nix-gui
    • Launch: Search "Nix-GUI" in your menu or run nix run ~/.local/state/nix/profiles/profile/bin/nix-gui
    • It auto-detects your config path. If prompted, point it to ~/archibaldos-test/flake.nix

  6. Explore & Edit (10 mins):

    • Browse Options: Navigate to powerManagement > cpuFreqGovernor
    • Make a Change: Select performance from the dropdown
    • Search for Audio: Type "pipewire quantum" and set default.clock.quantum = 128;
    • Diff & Learn: Hit "Preview Changes" to see the generated Nix code

  7. Apply & Test (5 mins):

    • Save: Nix-GUI commits to a module file
    • Rebuild: sudo nixos-rebuild switch --flake .#archibaldOS-iso
    • Verify: cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
    • Test audio: Launch Guitarix and monitor with jack_iodelay
    • Rollback if Needed: sudo nixos-rebuild switch --rollback

  8. Level Up: Peek at the Code

    • Open the generated file: code modules/audio.nix
    • Install nixd LSP: Add pkgs.nixd to your devShell in flake.nix
    • Pro Tip: Use Git to track changes: git add . && git commit -m "Added performance governor"

Next Steps: From Beginner to Nix Wizard

  • Week 1 Goal: Use the GUI for 3–5 changes (e.g., add Helvum, tweak branding)
  • Resources: Watch Nix-GUI's usage video; read the NixOS manual at search.nixos.org
  • When to Ditch the GUI: Once comfortable searching options manually, switch to Helix/Vim with nixpkgs-fmt

Build Targets

The unified flake provides multiple configurations:

# x86_64 Live ISO (full audio suite)
nix build .#packages.x86_64-linux.iso

# DSP Coprocessor (kexec RT core)
nix build .#packages.x86_64-linux.dsp

# Orange Pi 5 (RK3588)
nix build .#packages.aarch64-linux.orangepi5

# Raspberry Pi 3B (headless)
nix build .#packages.aarch64-linux.rpi3b

# ZIP-750 Edition (ultra-minimal)
nix build .#packages.x86_64-linux.zip750

# VM Edition (headless RT audio dev)
nix build .#packages.x86_64-linux.vm

For new profiles:

# Agentic AI Workstation
nix build .#nixosConfigurations.archibaldOS-agentic-ai.config.system.build.toplevel

# Neural Amp Studio
nix build .#nixosConfigurations.archibaldOS-neural-amp.config.system.build.toplevel

Tested Hardware

ArchibaldOS has been rigorously validated across real-world x86_64 systems. All testing was conducted from SD card boot, using a Behringer UMC204HD at 24-bit/96kHz, with Guitarix running multiple real-time effects. Xruns remained minimal (<0.1% over 30-minute sessions).

Platform CPU RAM Storage Performance Notes Link
Framework Laptop 16 AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS (8c/16t) 32GB DDR5 NVMe SSD 1.2–1.4ms RTL @ 96kHz/64 samples; zero xruns framework.com
Framework Laptop 13 (Gen 11) Intel Core i5-1135G7 (4c/8t) 8GB LPDDR4x SD card boot 1.8–2.2ms RTL @ 96kHz/128 samples; <0.05% xruns frame.work
MacBook Air (Early 2014) Intel Core i5-4260U (2c/4t) 4GB LPDDR3 SD card boot 2.4–3.1ms RTL @ 96kHz/256 samples; stable with 6–8 FX support.apple.com

Empirical Insight: The 2014 MacBook Air—running from a $10 microSD card—sustained professional-grade audio processing at 96kHz/24-bit, a configuration that causes dropouts on macOS, Ubuntu, and Windows within minutes.

Optimizing for Older & Low-Spec Hardware

For maximum headroom on constrained systems, disable Plasma and boot into a lightweight window manager like DWM, Hyprland, or i3.

Why This Matters

  • RAM savings: Plasma 6 → 800MB idle → DWM → 120MB idle → 680MB freed
  • CPU overhead: Plasma → 5–8% idle → WM → <1% → reduces thermal throttling
  • Determinism: Fewer services → fewer context switches → lower jitter

Recommended WMs

WM RAM (idle) GPU Latency Impact Use Case
DWM ~120MB No compositor Negligible Ultra-minimal, ideal for e-waste
Hyprland ~180MB Wayland compositor +0.1ms Smooth animations, modern look
i3 ~140MB X11 None Classic tiling, scriptable

Example: Force DWM Boot (No Plasma)

Add this to your flake.nix or configuration.nix:

{ config, pkgs, ... }: {
  # Disable Plasma
  services.desktopManager.plasma6.enable = false;
  services.displayManager.sddm.enable = false;

  # Enable DWM
  services.xserver.windowManager.dwm.enable = true;

  # Auto-start audio tools
  services.xserver.displayManager.startx.enable = true;
  services.xserver.displayManager.startx.user = "nixos";

  # Optional: reduce kernel latency further
  boot.kernelParams = [ "threadirqs" "isolcpus=1" "nohz_full=1" ];
}

Result: Boots in <8 seconds, launches DWM with QJackCtl + Guitarix, uses 1.1GB total RAM, and sustains 96kHz/128 samples with 8+ FX—zero xruns for 1+ hour.

Installation Guide

x86_64 Desktop/Laptop

  1. Boot Live ISO

    • Boot from USB/DVD
    • System auto-logs into Plasma 6 as nixos user

  2. Run Calamares Installer

    • Launch from desktop icon
    • Follow guided partitioning
    • Install

  3. Post-Install

    • Reboot and remove USB
    • Verify RT performance: rt-check
    • Test latency: audio-latency-test

DSP Coprocessor

  1. Build Image: nix build .#packages.x86_64-linux.dsp
  2. Flash: xzcat result/archibaldOS-dsp.img.xz | sudo dd of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress
  3. Boot: Auto-kexec into RT kernel, run dsp-start

ARM64 Single-Board Computer

  1. Flash SD Card:

    sudo dd if=archibaldos-*.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

  2. Boot and auto-login as audio-user

  3. Verify:

    rt-check
audio-latency-test

Diagnostic & Testing Tools

# Check RT system configuration
rt-check

# Test round-trip audio latency
audio-latency-test
pw-jack jack_iodelay

# DSP: Start dummy JACK server
dsp-start

# View PipeWire graph
qpwgraph

# Check CPU governor
cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

# View IRQ priorities
rtirq status

# Monitor system performance
htop

For AI stack: curl http://localhost:11434/api/tags

For Tone Assistant: Launch Emacs and run M-x tone-assistant-start

Troubleshooting

Audio Crackling / Xruns

  1. Increase quantum: 128 or 256 samples
  2. Verify CPU governor: should be performance
  3. Disable unnecessary services
  4. Check IRQ priorities

No Sound Output

  1. Check PipeWire status: systemctl --user status pipewire
  2. Verify audio group membership: groups | grep audio
  3. Test with: speaker-test -c 2 -r 48000

kexec Fails to Load

  1. Verify /boot/kexec/vmlinuz exists
  2. Check journalctl -u kexec-load
  3. Ensure disk is labeled ROOT

AI Model Loading Issues

  1. Check Ollama service: systemctl status ollama
  2. Verify GPU: nvidia-smi (for CUDA)
  3. Increase memory limits in module config

Contributing

Contributions are welcome under the BSD-3-Clause License. Please:

  1. Fork the repository
  2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
  3. Commit changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
  4. Push to branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
  5. Open a Pull Request

See CONTRIBUTING.md for detailed guidelines.

Focus areas:

  • RT audio optimizations
  • New hardware support
  • Robotics & LIDAR integrations
  • ITAR/EAR compliance
  • AI stack enhancements
  • Tone Assistant integrations
  • Documentation improvements
  • Bug fixes
  • DeMoD SDR integrations

License

BSD-3-Clause License

See LICENSE file for full details.

Note: DeMoDulation components are CC0 1.0 (public domain).

Credits & Acknowledgments

  • Musnix: Real-time kernel patches and audio optimizations
  • nixos-rk3588: Orange Pi 5 and Rockchip hardware support
  • Asahi Linux: Apple Silicon support
  • Disko: Declarative disk partitioning
  • Calamares: Graphical system installer
  • PipeWire/JACK: Professional audio infrastructure
  • NixOS Community: Reproducible system architecture
  • kexec-tools: DSP coprocessor boot
  • FRR: Advanced routing
  • CycloneDDS: Real-time ROS 2 networking
  • Ollama & Open WebUI: Local AI stack
  • Tone Assistant: Neural amp modeling environment

Contact & Support

Resources

ArchibaldOS – Professional real-time audio, robotics, secure systems, and local AI, anywhere you need it.

Built with precision by DeMoD LLC for musicians, engineers, roboticists, AI developers, and defense professionals worldwide.

ko-fi

Version: Based on NixOS 24.11 | Last Updated: December 2025

Contributors

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