linux-LP
A Linux distribution built from scratch. Its own C library, init, shell,
boot loader and some 130 commands were all written for this project. It started
on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W and now runs as a desktop on ordinary PCs (x86-64).
한국어 → README.ko.md
| |
|---|
| Version | 1.411 (2026.10.02 build, public beta) |
| Desktop | A GTK desktop on wayfire (GPU) / sway (software) — dock, app grid, settings, files, task manager, calculator |
| Boot | Its own UEFI boot menu (lpboot.efi), a recovery partition and recovery mode |
| Install | Boot from USB and install to disk with the graphical installer |
| Packages | Debian 12 (bookworm) apt is available |
| License | MIT (third-party components keep their own licenses) |
Built with Claude
LP OS was made entirely with Claude
Opus 5.5 at extra effort, working in Claude Code:
the C library, init, shell and commands, the UEFI boot menu, recovery mode,
the desktop apps, the installer, the build scripts and the documentation.
The project owner set the direction and tested it on real hardware.
What LP runs on top of — the Linux kernel, the Debian base, the desktop
session, the applications, the themes, the icons and the fonts — was not
written by Claude or by this project. Those are third-party open-source
components, listed under Third-party software and in
full in THIRD_PARTY.md.
Download the image
The installation image can be downloaded from
lpos.cholab.kr.
| File | Use |
|---|
linux-LP-desktop-20261002-45bb48bb.img.xz | USB 16GB or larger; the recovery partition carries the reinstall files. 2.13GB download, 9.08GB once unpacked |
linux-LP_desktop-8g.img.xz | USB 8GB. Not on the download site — build it from source with LP_EDITION=8g |
Minimum: a 64-bit PC, 2 cores / 4GB RAM / 16GB disk, UEFI boot with
Secure Boot off. Legacy BIOS and 32-bit UEFI are not supported.
The device it is actually used on: Dell XPS 15 9550 (4K touchscreen).
Check the download against its SHA-256
(SHA256SUMS):
0a50a416ba0eb7390ae620846de25bb861530438f83ad3cfb2cc2c4d4b7605f0 linux-LP-desktop-20261002-45bb48bb.img.xz
Writing it to a USB drive
Unpack it first. The result is an .img file, and the .img is what goes on
the USB drive.
xz -d -k linux-LP-desktop-20261002-45bb48bb.img.xz # macOS: brew install xz
macOS
diskutil list external # check that the USB drive is /dev/diskN
diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN
sudo dd if=linux-LP-desktop-20261002-45bb48bb.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=4m
diskutil eject /dev/diskN
Giving it a different disk number erases that disk instead. Double-check the number.
You can also pick the .img in balenaEtcher and write it from there.
Linux
sudo dd if=linux-LP-desktop-20261002-45bb48bb.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M conv=fsync status=progress
Copying the file onto a USB drive does not make it bootable — it has to be
written as a disk image.
Installing
- Plug in the USB drive, power on, and press the boot-menu key at the
manufacturer's logo (F12 on a Dell) to pick the USB drive's UEFI entry.
- Choose a language, then Install LP → account → time zone → disk to
install to → confirm. You can also look around first with
"Try without installing".
- When the installation finishes, unplug the USB drive and restart.
If the disk does not show up on a Dell XPS or similar, switch the SATA mode to
AHCI in the BIOS (F2).
Building from source
The desktop image is built on a Debian 12 host.
It needs root and about 15GB of disk.
# 1. The userland (our own libc, init, shell and commands)
make -C userland ARCH=amd64
(cd userland && LP_ARCH=amd64 LP_BINDIR=bin-amd64 LP_ROOTFS_DIR=rootfs-amd64 ./mkrootfs.sh)
# 2. The base package lp-base (.deb)
tools/mkdeb.sh amd64
# 3. The Debian base the desktop sits on (tools/desktop-packages.list)
sudo tools/apply-packages.sh
# 4. The image: sdcard/linux-LP_desktop.img (LP_EDITION=8g for the 8GB edition)
sudo tools/mkdesktop.sh
kernel/build.sh fetches the kernel version recorded in kernel/linux.commit
and builds it with the kernel/lp-zero-amd64.config configuration. More detail
is in GUIDE/ and docs/.
Folder layout
| Folder | Contents |
|---|
userland/ | Our own C library, init, shell and commands |
desktop/ | Desktop apps (dock, panel, settings, files, task manager, calculator …), the installer, the session |
boot/efi/ | The UEFI boot menu lpboot.efi |
recovery/ | Recovery mode |
kernel/ | Kernel configuration and build script |
tools/ | Scripts that build the images and packages |
tests/ | The self-test that runs on the device |
repo/ | The package repository the pkg command reads. To use it, run on the device: pkg repo https://raw.githubusercontent.com/<owner>/<repo>/main/repo |
The original Raspberry Pi edition (text mode, the whole system in RAM) is
described in PI-EDITION.md.
Third-party software
LP's own code is the part listed above. Everything below comes from other
open-source projects and is used as-is or lightly configured. The full list,
with versions and licenses, is in THIRD_PARTY.md.
- Kernel and base: the Linux kernel 6.12 (Raspberry Pi kernel tree, with
four small DRM patches in
kernel/patches/), the Debian 12 "bookworm" base
and the packages in tools/desktop-packages.list,
and hardware firmware (linux-firmware, Debian firmware-*, Raspberry Pi boot
firmware).
- Desktop session: wayfire, sway, Xwayland, Waybar, fuzzel, foot, mako,
PipeWire, BlueZ, Flatpak (apps from Flathub), GTK 3 / GTK 4.
- Applications: Firefox ESR, LibreOffice, GNOME apps (Console, Text Editor,
Calculator, Clocks, Disks, System Monitor, Font Viewer, Image Viewer, Evince,
File Roller, Baobab), gedit, gThumb, Drawing, mpv, Celluloid, Geany, GParted.
- Korean input: fcitx5 with fcitx5-hangul.
- Themes and icons: the LP GTK theme is LP's own stylesheet layered on
GTK's built-in Adwaita dark theme; gnome-themes-extra is installed. The LP
icon theme draws its own app icons and falls back to the Papirus-Dark
icon theme, then Adwaita and hicolor.
- Fonts: Pretendard (interface, and the recovery screen's pre-rendered
glyphs), D2Coding (terminal), Noto CJK, Noto Color Emoji, Nanum, DejaVu
(the boot loader's bitmap console font is rendered from DejaVu Sans Mono).
- Bundled or built from source: BearSSL (in
thirdparty/bearssl/), musl,
Dropbear, wpa_supplicant, libnl, e2fsprogs (prebuilt mke2fs, e2fsck,
resize2fs in userland/prebuilt/), CPython 3.12 with OpenSSL, ncurses,
readline, SQLite, xz and bzip2, and MicroPython.
License
The code in this repository is under the MIT License — see LICENSE.
Anyone may use, modify, redistribute and use it commercially.
Just keep the copyright notice.
External software that is included here or goes into the image follows its own license:
- Linux kernel: GPL-2.0
- Debian packages: each package's own license. The source is available from debian.org.
- BearSSL: MIT
- Dropbear: MIT
- wpa_supplicant: BSD
- OpenSSL: Apache 2.0
- Themes, icons and fonts: see THIRD_PARTY.md (Papirus: GPL-3.0, fonts: SIL OFL 1.1, …)
