SmechOS Overview

SmechOS is an independent Linux distribution built entirely from source. It is not based on any existing distribution — no Gentoo, no Ubuntu, no Arch. The kernel, installer, package manager, and desktop are all maintained as first-party components.

Architecture

SmechOS is assembled by SmechDeploy — a pipeline of shell and Python scripts that compile upstream sources and write the result into raw disk images.

Layer	Component	Notes
Desktop	KDE Plasma 6.6.5	Built from source via SmechDeploy
Display server	Wayland (KWin compositor)	X11/XWayland available for legacy apps
Init system	OpenRC	No systemd — plain shell service scripts
Graphics	Mesa (compiled from source)	AMD RDNA / Intel / virtio-gpu
Toolkit	Qt 6	Built from source, no distro packages
Kernel	Linux 6.12.16	Compiled by `compile_kernel.sh`
Bootloader	GRUB 2.12	EFI + BIOS hybrid
Package manager	spk	Rust binary, fetches .tar.xz from GitHub Releases
Installer	smech-installer	Rust + Newt TUI, netinst

Note SmechOS does not use Portage, APT, DNF, or any other external package manager. spk downloads pre-built tarballs from the SmechDeploy GitHub Release and extracts them directly. There is no package database or dependency resolver — packages are designed to be self-contained.

Installing

SmechOS ships as a network installer ISO (netinst). The installer downloads packages from the internet during installation — you need a wired Ethernet connection for the install process.

Requirements

x86_64 CPU with SSE4.2
4 GB RAM minimum (8 GB recommended for KDE Plasma)
40 GB disk space minimum
UEFI or BIOS boot
Wired Ethernet for the installer

Steps

Download the installer ISO from os.smech.xyz/downloads and verify its checksum.

Write to USB:

sudo dd if=smechos-installer-minimal-netinst.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress && sync

Boot the target machine from the USB. The installer launches automatically.
Follow the TUI wizard: language → country → timezone → hardware detection → network → partitioning → base install → profile → GRUB → done.
Remove the USB and reboot. SmechOS boots into KDE Plasma.

Warning This is an early beta release. The installer boots and walks through all wizard steps but has not been verified for a complete end-to-end install on all real hardware configurations. Treat it as a preview.

spk — SmechOS Package Manager

spk (SmechOS Sovereign Package Keeper) is a zero-dependency Rust binary that manages packages on a running SmechOS system. It does not call emerge, apt, flatpak, or any other external package manager. Every package is a .tar.xz archive fetched from the SmechDeploy GitHub Releases via curl and extracted with tar.

Commands

spk system-install <package>

Fetches and extracts a system package into the root filesystem. When run on the build host with /mnt/smechos mounted, it targets that mount instead of /.

spk system-install kernel-modules
spk system-install mesa-graphics

spk userland-install <package>

Same as system-install but semantically intended for desktop applications and userland packages. Behaves identically under the hood.

spk userland-install plasma
spk userland-install kde-frameworks

spk entire-system-upgrade

Re-fetches and reinstalls every known SmechOS package from the release. Equivalent to a full system update. Requires internet access.

spk entire-system-upgrade

spk about

Displays the Smech-Sovereign Workstation 2026 hardware specs and spk architecture credits.

Known packages

Package	Contents
`kernel-modules`	Linux 6.12.16 kernel modules
`firmware`	CPU microcode, GPU firmware blobs
`bootloader-grub`	GRUB 2.12 EFI + BIOS binaries
`kde-frameworks`	KDE Frameworks 6 libraries
`plasma`	KDE Plasma 6.6.5 desktop
`qt6`	Qt 6 runtime libraries
`mesa-graphics`	Mesa OpenGL/Vulkan stack

Note base-system is not yet in the known package list — the tarball in the current release is incomplete and needs to be rebuilt. Use the installer ISO for fresh installs.

Building from Source

SmechOS is built entirely by SmechDeploy. See the SmechDeploy documentation for the full pipeline and script reference.

# Clone SmechDeploy
git clone https://github.com/Smech-Labs/SmechDeploy.git
cd SmechDeploy

# Run the full SmechOS build (requires root for mount/chroot steps)
bash bin/build_smechos.sh

The build reads build_order.txt and runs each script in order. Phase 1 operates directly on images/part2.img via debugfs without mounting. Phase 2 compiles sources from essentials/ into /mnt/smechos.