amadeOS
Digital Sovereignty starts on your desktop.
amadeOS is an open source Linux distribution with a timeless, classic desktop. Its source code is
freely available under the European Union Public Licence, so anyone can inspect, change and share it.
amadeOS is a free, Java-powered European desktop operating system: a bootable x86-64 live image
based on Debian, with a desktop written in Java. Display manager, window manager, front panel and
settings tools are Swing applications on Xorg, styled after the Common Desktop Environment (CDE).
Why amadeOS
- Open source, all the way up. Everything from the login screen to the text editor is free
software under the EUPL-1.2, a licence published by the European Commission and legally
valid in all official EU languages.
- Built on proven foundations. Debian Stable as the base, Linux as the kernel, Xorg/X11 as the
display stack. amadeOS adds a desktop, not a new platform you have to trust.
- Understandable. The desktop is plain Java and Swing. One codebase, one language, readable by
anyone who wants to know what their system does.
- Open standards instead of lock-in. Applications are ordinary Debian packages with Freedesktop
.desktop entries; the window manager speaks ICCCM and EWMH, so non-Java X11 programs work too.
- A desktop that stays. The classic CDE look and workflow: a front panel, workspaces and
Motif-style windows, without fashion-driven redesigns.
Documentation
The amadeOS User's Handbook explains why amadeOS exists, how to
install it and how to use and administer it (source). On amadeOS it is installed as the
package amadeos-handbook and opened from the Help drawer of the Front Panel.
Status
amadeOS is in active development and has not had a release yet. Milestones M0 to M11 are complete
(bootable image, Java window manager, desktop shell, display manager, application discovery,
virtual workspaces); M12, release hardening, is in progress. Progress is tracked in
ROADMAP.md, the design decisions and rejected alternatives in
CONCEPT.md.
Architecture
flowchart TD
subgraph System ["System (systemd, root)"]
DM["Display manager & login greeter<br>amadeos-dm.service, PAM"]
Xorg["Xorg server (:0)"]
end
subgraph Session ["User session"]
WM["Window manager<br>reparenting, Motif/CDE frames"]
Panel["Front panel<br>clock, workspaces, drawers"]
Tools["Settings, screen saver,<br>input settings"]
Apps["Applications<br>amade-pad, amade-mail, amade-calendar, any X11 client"]
end
DM -->|starts| Xorg
DM -->|authenticates & starts| Session
WM -->|frames| Apps
Panel -->|EWMH| WM
Panel -->|launches| Apps
The desktop is five Debian packages from the
amadeos-system repository: amadeos-dm (display manager and
login greeter), amadeos-session (the session script amadeos-session, screen lock and screen saver),
amadeos-wm (window manager), amadeos-panel-cde (the Front Panel; it provides amadeos-panel, the panel
the session starts, so another panel can take its place) and amadeos-settings (Settings and input
settings). This repository holds the live image: its package list and configuration.
What is in the image
| Component | Description |
|---|
| Base | Debian trixie (minimal), Linux, Xorg/X11, OpenJDK 25, BIOS and UEFI boot. |
| Display manager | amadeos-dm.service (enabled by the amadeos-dm package) starts Xorg on VT 7 and shows the Java login greeter, which authenticates through PAM (/etc/pam.d/amadeos-dm) and starts the session in the language chosen there. |
| Time zone | Chosen in the login greeter (Time Zone, the zones of zone1970.tab, preselected with the system's current zone). The display manager runs as root and, once the password is accepted, points /etc/localtime at the zone and writes /etc/timezone before the session starts. The live image boots with Europe/Berlin (timezone= on the kernel command line) and systemd-timesyncd sets the clock from the network. |
| Window manager | A floating, reparenting X11 window manager in Java (Xlib via JNA) with Motif/CDE-style frames, interactive move and resize, minimize to desktop icons, four virtual workspaces, a desktop root menu and the EWMH/ICCCM hints that panels and toolkits rely on (_NET_CLIENT_LIST, _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW, _NET_CURRENT_DESKTOP, _NET_WM_STRUT_PARTIAL, WM_DELETE_WINDOW, ...). |
| Front panel | A CDE-style dock with clock, calendar, workspace switcher and drawers that list installed applications from their .desktop files, among them a Games drawer with the amade games (Mines, Solitaire, Paddle, ..., Town). The Help drawer opens the amadeOS User's Handbook in Firefox. |
| Logs | One log per application in ~/.cache/amadeos/logs (firefox-esr.log, amade-files.log, ...), written by the panel when it starts a program, next to session.log and wm.log from amadeos-session. Session Diagnostics & Logs in the Tools drawer (the program amadeos-logviewer) shows one of them at a time, chosen from a list, with the display manager's logs from /var/log and the system journal of this boot (the live user is in systemd-journal); Follow reloads every two seconds. |
|
The amadeOS family
| Repository | Purpose |
|---|
| amadeos | This repository: the live image (live-build configuration, boot loaders, the scripts of the session) |
| amadeos-system | System components, one package per module: amadeos-dm (display manager), amadeos-session (session, lock, screen saver), amadeos-wm (window manager), amadeos-panel-cde (front panel), amadeos-settings (Settings, formerly the Style Manager), amadeos-logviewer (Session Diagnostics & Logs), amadeos-print, amadeos-sysinfo |
| amade-commons | Shared library: desktop themes, colors and Motif styling, application scaffold |
| amade-pad | Text editor |
| amade-mail | Mail client (IMAP/SMTP) in the style of CDE's dtmail |
| amade-calendar | Calendar with appointments, reminders and To Do items in the style of CDE's dtcm, stored as iCalendar |
| amadeos-installer | Installation of the live system onto a hard disk: the step-by-step assistant Install amadeOS and the script amadeos-install |
The Settings write the chosen theme to ~/.config/amadeos/theme.conf; applications follow
that file and switch together with window frames and front panel. Gradle takes amade-commons from
JitPack, or builds a checkout in ../amade-commons instead.
Getting started
Requirements for the image: live-build, sudo and optionally QEMU. Java 25 is needed only to
build the packages that go into it (amadeos-system and the applications).
CONTRIBUTING.md lists the packages per distribution.
git clone https://github.com/datazuul/amadeos.git
git clone https://github.com/datazuul/amadeos-system.git
git clone https://github.com/datazuul/amade-commons.git
cd amadeos-system && ./gradlew :desktop:installToAmadeOs && cd ../amadeos # the desktop package
scripts/check-config.sh # the checks CI runs on the configuration
./build.sh # build artifacts/amadeos-<version>-amd64.iso (uses sudo for live-build)
./run-qemu.sh # boot the ISO in QEMU
./run-qemu.sh --install-disk # ... with an empty 20 GB disk to install amadeOS onto
./run-qemu.sh --boot-disk [--uefi] # boot the installed system (--uefi: OVMF instead of BIOS)
build.sh needs the five desktop packages (amadeos-dm, amadeos-session, amadeos-wm, amadeos-panel-cde,
amadeos-style) in config/packages.chroot/; (cd ../amadeos-system && ./gradlew installToAmadeOs) puts
them there. The desktop itself is developed in amadeos-system, where wm/run-xephyr.sh and
dm/run-greeter.sh start the window manager with the panel, or the login greeter, in a nested X server
without an ISO.
The live user is amadeos with the password amadeos.
The image is described in config/: the packages in config/package-lists/amadeos.list.chroot
(the only list of them), the live-config settings of the live user, keyboard, time zone and host name
in config/includes.chroot/etc/live/config.conf, the files of the live image under
config/includes.chroot/ (the live user's password and a unit drop-in for it, the keyboard and locale
defaults, Firefox policies, wallpapers), and two hooks in config/hooks/normal/ (permissions and the X
server wrapper; security updates and locales). The desktop's own scripts (amadeos-dm,
amadeos-session, amadeos-lock), its systemd unit, PAM services, polkit rule and autostart scripts are
part of the desktop packages. scripts/build-image.sh only adds the kernel command line, the UEFI boot
loader and, for live-build 3.0, links to the hooks in config/hooks/.
Building the complete distribution
build.sh puts into the image whatever application packages are already in
config/packages.chroot/. To build everything from the current main branches instead, run the
script below. It clones the repositories of repositories.list that are not yet
next to this repository (../amade-commons, ../amade-game-engine, ../amade-pad, ...,
../amade-mines-game, ...), so every application and every game is installed by default:
./buildDistribution.sh
It pulls main of amadeos, amade-commons and every ../amade-* and ../amadeos-* repository that
has an installToAmadeOs Gradle task (amadeos-system with the desktop and amadeos-installer among them), builds amade-commons and
the packages against that checkout
(with tests), copies their .deb packages into config/packages.chroot/ and builds
artifacts/amadeos-<version>-amd64.iso, for example amadeos-1.0.0-amd64.iso on a released main
(artifacts/amadeos-amd64.iso links to the newest image). It stops before pulling if a repository has uncommitted changes.
Options: --no-clone (only what is checked out), --no-pull (build the checkouts as they are), --skip-tests, --quick (repack the
previous image, see AMADEOS_QUICK) and --apps "amade-pad amade-mail" (only these
applications).
Writing the image to a USB stick
The ISO is a hybrid image for BIOS and UEFI: it is written to the stick as it is, byte for byte,
without copying it onto a file system on the stick. This erases everything on the stick.
On Linux:
(cd artifacts && sha256sum -c amadeos-*-amd64.iso.sha256) # check the image
lsblk -d -o NAME,SIZE,MODEL,TRAN # find the stick (TRAN usb), e.g. sdb
sudo umount /dev/sdX?* # unmount its partitions if auto-mounted
sudo dd if=artifacts/amadeos-1.0.0-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync oflag=direct
Replace sdX with the stick's whole device (/dev/sdb, not the partition /dev/sdb1), and
check the name twice: dd overwrites the device it is given without asking. When dd has
returned, the stick can be removed. GNOME Disks (Restore Disk Image) does the same with a
graphical interface. On Windows, use Rufus in DD image mode, on macOS
sudo dd if=amadeos-1.0.0-amd64.iso of=/dev/rdiskN bs=4m after diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN.
To boot from the stick, choose it in the computer's boot menu (often F12, F11, F9 or Esc right
after switching on). With Secure Boot enabled, UEFI firmware refuses the unsigned boot loader of the
live image; switch Secure Boot off or use legacy BIOS boot. An installed amadeOS boots with Secure Boot
on again, through Debian's signed shim and GRUB.
Contributing
Contributions are welcome: small, testable changes to the desktop (in
amadeos-system) or the image, compatibility tests on real
hardware, new applications as Debian packages, documentation. CONTRIBUTING.md
describes the development setup, how to package applications for amadeOS and the Git workflow.
Bugs and ideas go to the issue tracker.
License
amadeOS is free software, licensed under the
European Union Public Licence v. 1.2 (EUPL-1.2, SPDX identifier EUPL-1.2). The EUPL is
published by the European Commission and is legally valid in all official languages of the EU;
translations are available at
interoperable-europe.ec.europa.eu.
Copyright © 2026 datazuul.com and contributors.
The live image is an aggregation of Debian packages and separately packaged applications; each of
them keeps its own licence (see /usr/share/doc/<package>/copyright on the running system). In
particular, the NsCDE icon theme built by scripts/package-nscde-icons.sh stays under the GPL-3.0
as a separate package, and the CDE backdrops packaged by scripts/package-cde-backdrops.sh
(amadeos-backdrops-cde, fetched from the CDE sources at build time) stay under the LGPL-2+. The
screenshots in docs/ show third-party software and are not covered by this repository's licence.
