Butopia Linux

Butopia is a graphical Linux distribution for x86_64 PCs. The 0.1.0 release, Genesis, boots as a writable live system through legacy BIOS or 64-bit UEFI, starts a branded Xfce desktop, manages software with apk, auto-configures networking, and can install itself to disk with setup-butopia.

Butopia owns its release identity, ISO profile, boot configuration, signed APK repository, base package, installer entry point, and boot tests. It uses Alpine Linux 3.24.1 as a compatibility foundation, which is stated explicitly as ID_LIKE=alpine in /etc/os-release.

Build and boot

On this macOS host, the build runs inside an isolated x86_64 Alpine VM. The VM is intentionally the canonical local builder so package generation and ISO assembly use Linux filesystem semantics.

brew install lima lima-additional-guestagents
make doctor
make builder
make iso
make smoke

The finished image is dist/butopia-0.1.0-x86_64.iso. Boot it interactively with make run (BIOS) or make run-uefi (UEFI). The live GUI requires at least 4 GiB RAM; the QEMU launchers allocate 4 GiB by default. Override that with BUTOPIA_QEMU_MEMORY_MB when needed.

The normal boot automatically opens the graphical butopia live session. Text consoles remain available for recovery; their live login is root with no password. This is suitable for local live media and installation, but it must not be exposed as a network login. SSH is installed for client/server availability but is not enabled as a service.

Inside Butopia:

butopia info
butopia network
apk update
setup-butopia

setup-butopia delegates disk and account configuration to Alpine's proven installer after checking that it is running as root on Butopia. Disk selection is destructive; read each installer prompt carefully.

What is included

• Alpine LTS kernel with broad PC hardware and firmware support
• Branded Xfce desktop with a generated Butopia wallpaper and welcome center
• Firefox ESR, Thunar, Mousepad, Ristretto, Xfce Terminal, and settings tools
• LightDM live-session autologin, NetworkManager, D-Bus, elogind, and eudev
• BusyBox/OpenRC base plus Bash, Nano, Less, Git, Curl, jq, htop, and tmux
• apk package management and a signed on-media Butopia package repository
• Butopia release, base, and installer APKs
• DHCP networking, OpenSSH tools, disk utilities, and hardware inspection tools
• Serial and VGA consoles for real hardware, QEMU, CI, and debugging
• Automated BIOS and UEFI boot/login assertions

Butopia 0.1 is intentionally focused: it is x86_64-only and ships one polished, lightweight desktop rather than several competing desktop environments.

See docs/ARCHITECTURE.md for the system design and docs/BUILDING.md for signing, reproducibility, and builder details.

Licensing

Butopia's original build/profile/package code is MIT licensed. The ISO combines independently licensed upstream components; generated package metadata and the upstream license texts remain authoritative for those components.