What is Airyx?

Airyx™ is a new open-source desktop operating system that aims to provide a similar experience and compatibiilty with macOS® on x86-64 sytems. It builds on the solid foundations of FreeBSD, existing open source packages in the same space, and new code to fill the gaps. Airyx aims to feel sleek, stable, familiar and intuitive, handle your daily tasks, and provide as much compatibility as possible with the commercial OS that inspired it.

Airyx puts system things mainly into /System, /Library, and /usr. The /usr/local tree is reserved for user additions (like FreeBSD packages). User home directories are appropriately under /Users, and each has a ~/Library folder for Cocoa apps to use. Zsh is the default system shell.

Properly packaged applications will typically live under /Applications or ~/Applications and are built as a .app Bundle or as an AppImage. Traditional Unix-like applications are installed into fixed directories as usual. Airyx provides an implementation of Cocoa (still incomplete) and modern Objective-C runtime installed into /System/Library/Frameworks. Compilers and linkers have been patched to support Frameworks, and the standard -F and -framework arguments work as expected. Support for XCode project files is planned, but BSD-style Makefiles are available today to easily build .app and .framework Bundles. Swift is also on the roadmap.

Features & Goals

•   Global menu bar
•   Consistent keyboard shortcuts and menus
•   Drag and drop app install and uninstall - no package manager, no installers
•   Source compatibility with Cocoa APIs
•   Familiar commands like launchctl and open
•   Fluid and elegant design reminiscent of Aqua
•   Stable, secure, performant

Application support

•   FreeBSD packages, ports, and applications
•   Many Linux applications work in FreeBSD's emulation layer
•   Open-source Cocoa applications may compile & run with Airyx's Cocoa runtime (unless they need GNUstep extensions)
•   Darwin & macOS® binaries will not run on Airyx (yet)

Spotlight

Console issue #67 featured Airyx along with an interview with me! LinuxGameCast also gave us a quick look in their LWDW episode 287.

Get Involved

If this sounds like your dream system, please help us make it a reality! Hit us up at any of the links under Connect with us! #general on Discord, #airyx on IRC and #airyx on Matrix.org are bridged together. More specific channels are available on the Discord.

A Developer Preview image of Airyx is currently available here. It's open to everyone, but is mainly intended for developers helping build the system and is not ready for daily use yet. Running in a virtual machine is recommended, although it should work on any hardware supported by FreeBSD 12.2 with at least 4GB RAM. (8GB is recommended.)