a Simplicity, Source-built, Agent-First Linux distro

Description

Kan-Linux(or KanLinux) is a Simplicity, Source‑Built, Agent‑First Linux distribution. The name Kan(勘) derives from Instructions for Practical Living by Wang Yangming, representing the philosophy of breaking through technical obscurations and returning to the system’s original simplicity. The name Kan(勘) also stands for "see through the delusions and return to simplicity".

The main goal of Kan-Linux is to enable programmers and AI researchers to build their own Linux OS (Omarchy-style, for example) from the full source code with minimal setup on a wide range of hardware - locally and in the cloud.

Design Principles

• Simplicity — Eliminate overly complex wrapper layers and overengineering, following the core philosophy of ggml/llama.cpp. Not dependent on any existing Linux distribution.
• Monorepo — Drawing lessons from existing Linux distributions and the highly sophisticated Yocto Project, the project uses an AOSP-style single-repository architecture. All source code is stored and hosted in one single code repository to simplify development, build and maintenance work.
• Source-Built — The entire OS and all components are built from source.
• llama.cpp-First — Built-in native llama.cpp edge inference engine for local AI deployment.
• Agent-First & AI-native security audit pipeline — Supports AI agents to autonomously compile, deploy, install components, run system checks and resolve issues. Kan-Linux embeds LLM-based source-level security audit (GLM-5.3 and others) as a mandatory gate before compilation. Security is shifted from "binary post-scanning" to source pre-admission auditing.

Differences and Connections with Omarchy

• Omarchy targets end users, delivering an out-of-the-box complete desktop system, with visual polish as one of its core goals.
• Kan‑Linux targets programmers, AI researchers and Linux distribution builders, providing a neutral Wayland underlying graphics platform. Its core goals are controllability, auditability(no black-box within the OS), modularity and reproducible builds, and visual polish is not a project objective.
• Kan‑Linux draws inspiration from Omarchy’s desktop shell, and integrates it as our optional early default desktop. We port this shell as an upper-layer UI example to show the capabilities of the Kan-Linux platform. Even if we remove or disable the Omarchy shell in the future, the whole system and graphics infrastructure can still run fully and independently.
• Omarchy is based on the upstream Arch Linux distribution, while Kan-Linux is built completely from scratch and does not rely on any upstream Linux distribution.

Roadmap

• Stage 1: Complete PoC validation of Kan-Linux via QEMU virtual machine
• Stage 2.1: Integrate a preliminary, feature-limited, customized Omarchy desktop shell and login greeter for QEMU virtual machine environments
• Stage 2.2: Enable and validate Kan-Linux boot and runtime support for physical x86_64 desktop PCs
• Stage 2.3: Enable and validate Kan-Linux boot and runtime support for physical x86_64 laptops
• Milestone: Kan-Linux LiveISO supports bare-metal installation. Kan-Linux achieves full self-hosting. All subsequent development, building and iteration of Kan-Linux will happen inside Kan-Linux itself.
• Stage 2.4: Integrate desktop-native AI Agent in Kan-Linux on physical x86_64 hardware
• Stage 2.5: Enable, test and fully verify desktop-native AI Agent functionality on physical x86_64 desktop and laptop hardware
• Stage 2.6: Refine and stabilize the Omarchy desktop shell for physical x86_64 desktops and laptops
• Stage 3: Refine and stabilized Kan-Linux on physical x86_64 hardware

Screenshots and LiveISO

Please refer to https://github.com/kan-linux/kan/releases/tag/v0.2.7

Contributing

• Contributors can open PRs
• Collaborators will be invited based on contributions
• Maintainers can push to branches in the kan repo and merge PRs into the master branch
• Any help with managing issues, PRs and projects is very appreciated!
• Read the CONTRIBUTING.md for more information

Acknowledgements

• Inspired by Omarchy("Convention over Configuration") and Omarchy's desktop shell
• Thanks to llama.cpp
• Thanks to the entire Linux community(various tech orgs, such as Redhat(RHEL/Fedora/QEMU), SPI(Debian), Linux Foundation, Linaro, Canonical(Ubuntu), System76(Pop!_OS), UnionTech(Deepin/UOS)... and tech stacks)
• Special thanks to the AI assistant for extensive technical discussions, architectural advice, and writing assistance throughout the development of Kan-Linux

Language Policy and AI Policy

• To facilitate clear and effective communication, all discussions, comments, documentation, and PRs in this project should be conducted in English, this ensures that all contributors can participate and collaborate effectively.
• English and Chinese are both fine for issues and discussions.
• Discussions, issues and PRs should include human-written content. AI-assisted polish is accepted and welcomed(many of us are non-native English speakers). What matters is not who typed the content but whether a human understands it.
• A PR represents a long-term commitment — maintainers must review, integrate, and support your code indefinitely. What matters is not who wrote the code but whether a human understands it: either fully, or at the 80–90% level, and is able to explain every change to reviewers, even with AI assistance.
• Fully AI-generated content and fully automated PRs are not permitted. We value human connection and communication over fully AI-driven interaction.

Trademarks

This project may include trademarks or logos belonging to third parties. Use of any third-party trademarks is governed by their respective policies.