RedBear-OS/docs

Red Bear OS Documentation Index

Technical documentation for Red Bear OS as an overlay distribution on top of Redox OS.

This index is the entry point for the documentation set. Its main job is to make the current/canonical versus historical/reference split obvious.

Status note (2026-04-14): several documents below are historical implementation plans whose original "missing / not started" language is now stale. The repo already contains substantial Red Bear OS work under local/; use each document's top-level status notes together with local/docs/AMD-FIRST-INTEGRATION.md and local/docs/QT6-PORT-STATUS.md for current state.

Red Bear note: newer subsystem plans can also live under local/docs/ when they are Red Bear- specific rather than general Redox architecture material. In particular, see local/docs/WIFI-IMPLEMENTATION-PLAN.md for the current Wi-Fi direction and local/docs/AMD-FIRST-INTEGRATION.md for the AMD-focused hardware roadmap.

Repository model: RedBearOS relates to Redox in the same way Ubuntu relates to Debian. Upstream Redox remains the base platform; Red Bear carries packaging, patch, validation, and subsystem overlays on top. For long-term stability, upstream-owned source trees should be treated as refreshable working copies, while durable Red Bear state belongs in local/patches/, local/recipes/, local/docs/, and tracked Red Bear configs.

WIP policy: if an upstream recipe or subsystem is still marked WIP, Red Bear treats it as a local project until upstream promotes it to first-class status. We may refresh from upstream WIP, but we should fix and ship from the Red Bear overlay until upstream support is real enough to replace the local copy.

Document Status Matrix

Document set	Role
README.md, AGENTS.md, docs/README.md, docs/07-RED-BEAR-OS-IMPLEMENTATION-PLAN.md	canonical repository-level policy and current execution model
local/docs/*IMPLEMENTATION-PLAN*.md, local/docs/*STATUS*.md	canonical current Red Bear subsystem plans and status
docs/01-REDOX-ARCHITECTURE.md	architecture reference
docs/02-GAP-ANALYSIS.md, docs/03-WAYLAND-ON-REDOX.md, docs/04-LINUX-DRIVER-COMPAT.md, docs/05-KDE-PLASMA-ON-REDOX.md	valuable but partly historical roadmap/design material

When a current-state local document conflicts with an older historical public roadmap, prefer the current local subsystem plan.

Documents

#	Document	Description
01	Architecture Overview	Architecture reference for Redox internals: microkernel, scheme system, driver model, display stack
02	Gap Analysis & Roadmap	Historical gap matrix plus corrected current phase summary
03	Wayland on Redox	Historical Wayland implementation path plus deeper Wayland-specific rationale
04	Linux Driver Compatibility Layer	Historical/current hybrid design reference for the LinuxKPI-style driver compatibility model
05	KDE Plasma on Redox	Historical KDE implementation path plus deeper KDE-specific rationale
06	Build System Setup	How to build Redox from this repository
07	Red Bear OS Implementation Plan	Canonical public implementation plan focused on profiles, packaging, validation, and staged hardware enablement

Related Red Bear-local plans

• ../local/docs/USB-IMPLEMENTATION-PLAN.md — current USB completeness and rollout plan
• ../local/docs/WIFI-IMPLEMENTATION-PLAN.md — current Wi-Fi architecture and rollout plan
• ../local/docs/BLUETOOTH-IMPLEMENTATION-PLAN.md — current Bluetooth architecture and rollout plan
• ../local/docs/IRQ-AND-LOWLEVEL-CONTROLLERS-ENHANCEMENT-PLAN.md — current low-level controller and IRQ blocker plan
• ../local/docs/AMD-FIRST-INTEGRATION.md — AMD-focused technical roadmap; historical AMD-first sequencing, not current platform-priority policy
• ../local/docs/WIP-MIGRATION-LEDGER.md — current WIP ownership and upstream-vs-local migration ledger
• ../local/docs/SCRIPT-BEHAVIOR-MATRIX.md — what the main sync/fetch/apply/build scripts do and do not guarantee
• ../local/docs/PROJECT-DOCUMENTATION-ASSESSMENT.md — current assessment of documentation quality, canon, and remaining cleanup priorities
• ../local/docs/DESKTOP-STACK-CURRENT-STATUS.md — canonical current build/runtime truth summary for the desktop stack

These local Red Bear plans should be treated as first-class subsystem references for USB, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and low-level controller work. They carry blocker detail that the public docs summarize at a higher level.

Current State Summary (as of 2026-04-15)

This summary is only a quick orientation layer. For canonical current-state detail, prefer:

• docs/07-RED-BEAR-OS-IMPLEMENTATION-PLAN.md for repository-wide execution order,

• local/docs/DESKTOP-STACK-CURRENT-STATUS.md for desktop build/runtime truth,

• local/docs/PROFILE-MATRIX.md for support-language by tracked profile,

• and the active subsystem plans under local/docs/ for detailed current workstreams.

• Display server: Orbital (custom, scheme-based) — works

• Wayland: libwayland + wayland-protocols built. Smallvil/cosmic-comp remain partial runtime experiments.

• Qt6: qtbase 6.11.0 (Core+Gui+Widgets+DBus+Wayland), qtdeclarative, qtsvg, qtwayland ALL BUILT

• D-Bus: 1.16.2 built for Redox. Qt6DBus enabled.

• KF6 Frameworks: mixed state — many real builds, but some packages are still shimmed or stubbed.

• Mesa: software-rendered path is present; full GBM / hardware-validated Wayland path is still incomplete.

• GPU drivers: redox-drm scheme daemon and AMD+Intel compile-oriented paths exist; hardware validation is still pending.

• Input: evdevd compiled, libevdev built, libinput 1.30.2 built

• Networking: native wired stack present (pcid-spawner → NIC daemon → smolnetd/dhcpd/netcfg), Red Bear ships a native netctl command, and RTL8125 is wired into the existing Realtek autoload path

• KDE: redbear-kde.toml exists and the recipe tree is populated, but the runtime stack is still incomplete.

• Linux driver compat: linux-kpi (31 C headers + 13 Rust FFI), redox-driver-sys, firmware-loader all compile.

Quick Start

# 1. Install dependencies (Arch/Manjaro)
sudo pacman -S --needed --noconfirm gdb meson nasm patchelf python-mako \
  doxygen expat file fuse3 gmp libjpeg-turbo libpng po4a scons \
  sdl12-compat syslinux texinfo xdg-utils zstd

# 2. Install Rust + tools
curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- -y
source "$HOME/.cargo/env"
cargo install just cbindgen

# 3. Configure for native build (no Podman)
echo 'PODMAN_BUILD?=0' > .config

# 4. Build (downloads cross-toolchain, then compiles)
make all

# 5. Run in QEMU
make qemu

Key Repositories

Repo	Purpose	URL
Kernel	Microkernel	https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/kernel
Base	Drivers + system components	https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/base
relibc	C library (Rust)	https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/relibc
Orbital	Display server + WM	https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/orbital
RedoxFS	Default filesystem	https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/redoxfs
libredox	System library	https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/libredox
This repo	Build system	https://gitlab.redox-os.org/redox-os/redox