MOUSE
MOUSE is the Monolithic Opinionated Unix-like System Environment: a small
Linux system with a versioned base, mouse-ports for third-party software, and
cheesed as PID 1.
Build
The build needs Apple Container, Docker, or Podman, plus QEMU and Expect for the runtime checks.
make image
make run
make check
The guest defaults to the host architecture, so Apple Silicon builds AArch64.
Set MOUSE_ARCH=x86_64 or MOUSE_ARCH=aarch64 to override it. An explicit
MOUSE_BUILDER_PLATFORM supplies the default architecture only when
MOUSE_ARCH is unset, so MOUSE_ARCH=x86_64 MOUSE_BUILDER_PLATFORM=linux/arm64
cross-builds an x86_64 guest on the Arm builder. Architecture-specific artifacts
live under build/x86_64/ and build/aarch64/; downloaded sources are shared
under build/sources/.
The default builder has
8 CPUs, 8 GB of memory, and 8 build jobs; override those with
MOUSE_BUILDER_CPUS, MOUSE_BUILDER_MEMORY, and MOUSE_BUILD_JOBS.
MOUSE_NETWORK=0 make run disables QEMU networking. MOUSE_GRAPHICAL=1 make run opens QEMU's graphical display while retaining the serial console in the
terminal.
VM images use the hostname mousehole and provide the administrator account
mouse with the password cheddar. The account is a member of wheel and can
elevate through doas; direct root and toor password authentication remains
locked.
System
The base owns /bin, /sbin, /usr/bin, and /usr/sbin; mouse-ports owns
/usr/local. /var, /home, /srv, and /usr/local are shared by both root
environments, /etc follows the selected root, and /run is rebuilt at boot.
The fixed /usr/local package prefix keeps ports out of base-owned paths.
Limine boots the default or alternate root from the same disk.
mouse-bootenv prepare snapshots the running root into the inactive one;
activate selects it and rollback selects the other root. Automated base
updates and configuration merging are not implemented yet.
cheesed mounts early filesystems, reaps children, supervises services in
cgroups, and handles shutdown. It identifies itself as
Cheesed to meet you! v0.1.0. Service definitions live in /etc/rc.d and
/usr/local/etc/rc.d; dependency cycles, missing facilities, and duplicate
names are rejected.
Persistent service policy lives only in /etc/rc.conf:
enable_network=YES
enable_gardendevd=YES
enable_seatd=YES
enable_greetd=YES
enable_wpa_supplicant=NO
enable_cron=YES
enable_ntpd=YES
Assignments are exactly enable_NAME=YES or enable_NAME=NO; shell expansion,
includes, and other keys are invalid. /sbin/service controls the running
system without editing boot policy.
The x86_64 kernel includes common laptop and desktop storage, USB, input,
wired-network, Intel Wi-Fi, and Atheros Wi-Fi drivers. Images ship the complete
pinned linux-firmware collection. To configure Wi-Fi, write a mode-0600
/etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf with wpa_passphrase, set
enable_wpa_supplicant=YES in /etc/rc.conf, and reboot; gardendevd loads drivers
for devices present at boot or plugged in later.
Packages
Images contain the MOUSE ports tree in /usr/local/src/mouse-ports, with
source-built bmake under /usr/local. Ports use /usr/local/etc for
configuration, /var/db/mouse/packages for installation records, and
/var/cache/mouse/ports for verified distfiles. This state survives a base
rollback.
Checks
make check builds the assembled disk with test fixtures, then boots it under
QEMU. It covers UEFI boot on both architectures and BIOS on x86_64, both Btrfs roots, services and cgroup
cleanup, users, networking, storage tools, native C and C++ compilation, ports
layout, and persistence across reboots. The build also rejects changed
source checksums and dynamic base executables.