IdealOS
A long-running design and software experiment exploring a modular desktop operating system built around shared data and small, composable tools.
IdealOS is my forever project. It's an ongoing exploration of what a desktop operating system would look like if we could redesign it from scratch today, using today's hardware and needs, instead of continuing a 50 year old design. The project began as a series of essays about modular tools, shared data, and a flexible user interface.
Later prototypes brought those ideas into working software, including a message-based system with a central service, a window manager, and some small apps written in a DSL.
Some of the core features include:
- built around a fast always present database.
- apps are given zero permissions by default.
- all UI is drawn by the system, not apps, including scalable fonts.
- turn the clipboard into a working space and augmented memory
- p2p synchronization