There have been a few questions from the community lately that have got me thinking (again -- my mind goes here fairly regularly) about what my ideal Operating System looks like.

Figured I'd make myself a list and publish it here. See what all you lovely nerds think of my "Perfect OS". :)

Probably built on Linux

Linux is so mature, with such great hardware support, this just makes sense. There are other great kernels and base systems out there... but hard to think of a good reason to not use Linux.

No On-Line updates.

If I want an update, I'll download it myself and install it, thank you very much. :)

No On-Line software repositories or stores.

Same goes for software. If I want to install an application, I'll download it (or get it off physical media) and put it on my computer myself.

In fact, no On-Line functionality in the OS at all.

No activation. No phone-home functionality. Applications can have all the connectivity they like, but the base OS itself? Shouldn't ever require the Internet. For anything. Zero exceptions.

All applications as single, movable file

I prefer the old-school Mac way of doing applications. Want to install a piece of software? Drag and drop it to your computer. Done. On Linux this can be accomplished via AppImage. I think that's how it should be.

No rapid releases

Releasing new versions every 6 months is not great. Every year? Better, but still too frequent. I would propose new major releases every... 5 years? Maybe. Part of me wants to say 10 years, but 5 years might be a nice sweet spot. Computers should last. And so should the software that runs on them. This is good for the environment, good for software compatibility, good for the soul. When new releases do come out? Focused on making sure applications continue to be backwards compatible. And forwards compatible. I want to be able to use the exact same version of a word processor in 2020 as in 2035.

One Desktop Environment

The look and feel of an OS should always be customizable. Window decorator themes, etc. are a good thing. But focusing on just one Desktop Environment makes it easier to ensure a good experience and software compatibility. Not sure which of the existing Desktop Environments would be the right way to go. Probably MATE, XFCE, CDE, or something along those lines. Fast, light, lean, clean. Modern GNOME and KDE are a no-go.

Modest System Requirements

The OS itself should not take a gig of space. 1 gig of RAM should be more than enough for the system to run smoothly (some applications could obviously require much more... but not the OS itself or the default software it ships with). The goal here is that the system should run (and run well) on low-end, currently available hardware -- with an eye towards long-term hardware compatibility.

Thoughts on viability of this approach

Creating such a system is, obviously, completely viable. All the pieces exist already (in use by various Linux distributions, etc.), just waiting to be assembled and tweaked for this setup.

Once created, is this a system that others would want to use?

Honestly? No clue.

I mean, I sure want to use this. If this existed right now, I would be using it today. There are a few systems out there (such as Puppy and PCLinuxOS) that address some of these items (quite well). But not all. With all these checkboxes checked? Holy moley would I get excited.

Using the same OS version in 2020 as in 2025? Sounds like heaven.

Getting excited about the big "2.0" release coming out -- a few years down the line? Yes, please!

Knowing that I could develop and release a piece of software now and have it work for all users of the OS for the foreseeable future? And that I, as an end user, can feel confident the software I own will work until the end of time? TAKE MY MONEY.

I want this.

Maybe it's time to buckle down and make it happen.