made by my friend, men

MochiOS

arch-based linux distro with atomic updates, btrfs snapshots, and a soft squishy purple vibe

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about

mochios is a linux distribution built on arch linux that actually works out of the box. no 3-hour install guides, no fighting with config files at 2am. pick a desktop, install, and boom — you're in.

uses mochiboot (a limine fork), abroot (a/b atomic updates on btrfs), and a custom mochi cli that wraps pacman so you don't have to remember flags.

features

feature	what it does
atomic updates	a/b root partitions via abroot — update flips a flag, boot into the new side. rollback is just selecting the old one
btrfs snapshots	every major operation snapshots your root. snapshot picker in the bootloader if things go sideways
mochiboot bootloader	custom branded limine fork with boot counters, recovery auto-detect, and snapshot picker
mochi cli	mochi beat firefox instead of sudo pacman -S firefox. native remove, update, search, rollback, snapshot commands
gui installer	pyqt6 wizard — pick your de, greeter, disk layout, done
tui installer	textual-based fallback if you're not running a desktop
multiple des	kde plasma, gnome, hyprland — pick at install time
greeter choice	sddm, gdm, lightdm, ly, or greetd — decoupled from your de choice
live iso	boots into kde plasma with konsole + gparted. vmware and virtualbox guest utils baked in

desktop environments

• kde plasma — full kde experience with xrender fallback for vbox compatibility
• gnome — clean gnome session
• hyprland — fully preconfigured with mochios purple theme, keybinds, waybar, dunst, wofi, hyprpaper

all shipped with wireplumber/pipewire for audio.

greeters

you pick the login screen separately from your desktop:

• sddm (default for kde)
• gdm (default for gnome)
• lightdm
• ly — tty-based, minimal
• greetd — minimal greeter daemon

mochi cli

the mochi command is what you use to actually do stuff with packages:

mochi beat <package>   # install a package (wraps pacman -S)
mochi remove <package> # remove a package
mochi update           # full system update
mochi search <query>   # search repos
mochi snapshot         # take a btrfs snapshot
mochi rollback         # revert to a previous snapshot
mochi status           # current abroot partition info
mochi repo add         # add the [mochi] overlay repo

abroot (atomic a/b updates)

mochios uses a btrfs-based a/b root scheme. two subvolumes (root_a, root_b) live on the same partition. you're always booted into one; updates target the other. on next boot, the bootloader flips to the updated side. if it fails 3 times, it falls back to the known-good side automatically.

bootloader: mochiboot

mochiboot is a fork of limine v12.5 with:

• mochios branding & theme
• boot counter via efi variables
• auto recovery after 3 consecutive failed boots
• snapshot picker via initramfs hook
• recovery entry support

installation

from iso

1. download the latest iso from releases
2. write to usb: use rufus if you're on windows, balena etcher if you're on linux
3. boot from usb
4. run the mochiinstall gui (desktop) or mochiinstall --tui (terminal)
5. follow the wizard: keyboard → disk → de → greeter → user → install

requirements

• uefi system recommended (legacy bios supported via syslinux)
• 4gb ram minimum, 8gb+ recommended
• 20gb disk minimum
• amd64 (x86_64) processor

building from source

git clone https://github.com/iluxz/MochiOS.git
cd MochiOS

# install dependencies (arch)
sudo pacman -S archiso

# build the iso
sudo ./build.sh

# output: out/mochios-*.iso

environment variables:

var	default	description
MOCHIOS_DIR	/home/mochi/mochios	project root
OUT_DIR	$MOCHIOS_DIR/out	iso output directory
NIGHTLY	false	set to true for nightly dark-purple branding
WORK_DIR	/home/mochi/mochios-work	build working directory (not /tmp — need space!)

package repos

mochios uses arch linux repositories plus a custom [mochi] overlay repo with extra packages:

mochi repo add    # adds [mochi] to /etc/pacman.conf

a/b update workflow

current boot ──> root_a (active)
                    │
               sudo mochi update
                    │
                    v
               root_b (updated)
                    │
               reboot ──> root_b (active)
                            │
                      mochi rollback
                            │
                            v
                       root_a (back to known-good)

boot counter & recovery

mochiboot tracks boot success via efi variables. if the system fails to boot 3 times in a row, the recovery entry is automatically selected on the next boot. you can force recovery mode by setting the efi variable:

efibootmgr --setvar MochiBootForceRecovery -b 0x0000 -d /dev/sda -p 1

license

gpl v3 — see LICENSE

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built with :3 and way too much coffee

github.com/iluxz/MochiOS · mochiboot