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GnomeOS.md

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Gnome OS

Bootstrapping info

Upstream: https://os.gnome.org/

Bootstrapping documentation: No full docs, but:

Requirements: A few common packages, and BuildStream

Automation: Mostly automated (BuildStream), but manual intervention needed to avoid binaries

Integration testing: Yes, with Gitlab CI

What you get: A full desktop

Can install further software from source: Yes, by building Flatpaks

Manual testing

Version: Git commit 56b22734 (after Gnome 48)

Architecture: x86_64

Date: 2025-06-18

Build time: About one day with i7-9750H

Testing process

  • Using Fedora 42 host. But it's just to run docker/podman, you could use anything
  • Start a minimal Debian 12 container to build in
    • mkdir -p buildstream-cache
    • podman run --privileged --name gnomeos -v $PWD/buildstream-cache:/root/.cache/buildstream -p 8080:8080 -ti debian:12
      • We need privileges for bubblewrap and FUSE
  • Install dependencies
    • apt update
    • apt install -y bubblewrap fuse3 git lzip patch python3-dev g++ pipx make nano curl gpg caddy
  • Install BuildStream
    • pipx install buildstream
    • pipx inject buildstream dulwich requests tomlkit
    • export PATH=/root/.local/bin:$PATH
  • Build the binary seed
    • git clone https://gitlab.com/freedesktop-sdk/freedesktop-sdk-binary-seed.git
      • We're at git commit ad06e5e4
    • cd freedesktop-sdk-binary-seed
    • bst --log-file ~/live-bootstrap.log build -ignore-project-artifact-remotes bootstrap/base-sdk/live-bootstrap.bst
    • bst --log-file ~/binary-seed.log -o target_arch x86_64 build --ignore-project-artifact-remotes binary-seed.bst
    • bst -o target_arch x86_64 artifact checkout binary-seed.bst --directory /built_seed
  • Setup gnome-build-meta
    • cd /
    • git clone https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-build-meta.git
    • cd gnome-build-meta
    • We'll use the last known good build: git checkout 56b22734
    • make -C files/boot-keys clean
    • make -C files/boot-keys
  • Use our built seed as the basis for binary-seed-x86-64
    • This prevents a fetch of the binary data from a Docker registry
    • bst workspace open --directory work_fdsdk freedesktop-sdk.bst
    • cp -a /built-seed work_fdsdk/built_seed
    • nano work_fdsdk/elements/bootstrap/base-sdk/binary-seed-x86_64.bst
    • Edit the sources section to read:
sources:
- kind: local 
  path: built_seed
  • bst build --ignore-project-source-remotes --ignore-project-artifact-remotes freedesktop-sdk.bst:bootstrap/base-sdk/binary-seed-x86_64.bst
  • bst workspace close freedesktop-sdk.bst
  • rm -rf work_fdsdk
  • Continue building
    • bst --log-file ~/gnomeos.log build --ignore-project-artifact-remotes gnomeos/live-image.bst
  • Try in qemu or a virtual machine
    • bst artifact checkout gnomeos/live-image.bst --directory ./iso
    • Back outside the container: podman cp gnomeos:/gnome-build-meta/iso/disk.iso .
    • Run in qemu with UEFI, or an equivalent like Virt-Manager or Boxes
    • In the VM, install onto the virtual hard drive and reboot
    • Login, start a Console window, and setup ssh: systemctl enable --now sshd. Then you can SSH in
  • Software installation
  • Install the devel extension from source
    • Back in the container, in gnome-build-meta, build the sysupdate images: bst build --ignore-project-artifact-remotes gnomeos/update-images.bst
    • Serve it: ./utils/run-sysupdate-repo.sh --devel --same-version &
    • Configure sysupdate for the VM:
      • SSH in while forwarding the port: ssh -R8080:localhost:8080 gnomeos (or whatever your VM's IP/hostname is)
      • sudo mkdir -p /etc/sysupdate.d
      • sudo cp /usr/lib/sysupdate.d/*.transfer /etc/sysupdate.d/
      • sudo perl -i -pe 's,^Path=https.*,Path=http://localhost:8080/,' /etc/sysupdate.d/*.transfer
    • In the VM, run the update: sudo updatectl enable --now devel
    • Reboot the VM, and now we have development tools like "gcc"
    • Notably, we can run bst, so we're self-hosting!
      • It emits a whole bunch of warnings, but they don't break anything
  • What about installing Flatpaks from source?
    • First, disable existing Flatpak remotes, so we don't accidentally install binaries
      • sudo flatpak remote-modify --disable flathub gnome-nightly
      • sudo flatpak remote-modify --disable flathub flathub
    • Setup our VM for building from gnome-build-meta
      • Clone the repo, at the same commit ID
      • Copy the contents of files/boot-keys from the build container
      • Copy the contents of ~/.cache/buildstream from the container to the VM with a tool like rsync, so we don't have to rebuild them
      • Test that things are working: bst artifact show sdk.bst from inside gnome-build-meta should say it's "cached"
    • Build and install the Gnome Flatpak SDK:
      • bst build --ignore-project-artifact-remotes flatpak-runtimes.bst
      • bst artifact checkout flatpak-runtimes.bst --directory ~/flatpak-repo
      • sudo flatpak remote-add --no-gpg-verify local ~/flatpak-repo
      • sudo flatpak install org.gnome.Sdk org.gnome.Platform
    • Build and install a Flatpak app. Let's build Extension Manager
      • git clone https://github.com/flathub/com.mattjakeman.ExtensionManager.git ~/extension-manager
      • cd ~/extension-manager
      • Edit the JSON manifest file to remove the runtime-version key, since we have Gnome nightly
      • flatpak-builder --repo ~/flatpak-repo build com.mattjakeman.ExtensionManager.json
      • sudo flatpak install com.mattjakeman.ExtensionManager
      • It runs!
    • Other Flatpaks may be easy or hard to install
      • Anything that uses just the Gnome or Freedesktop SDK, as well as flatpak-builder, will probably be pretty easy
      • If other SDKs/bases/extensions are used, eg: KDE or Wine or ffmpeg, you'll have to figure those out
      • Some Flatpaks don't use flatpak-builder normally at all, but expect a prebuilt binary, eg: Firefox. Good luck!