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Sowa Linux

Sowa is a small, inspectable Linux® system built from source. It produces an x86_64 toolchain, kernel, userspace, live ISO, installable disk images, and a signed binary package repository without installing files into the host system.

The project currently provides:

• a checksum-pinned, sysrooted GNU toolchain and self-hosting C/C++ compiler;
• a compact live system with BIOS and UEFI boot support;
• sowa-init, a System V-style init and service framework;
• disk, rootfs, recovery, container, and installer artifacts;
• sowa-pkg, backed by a signed, self-hosted package repository; and
• reproducible build inputs and per-package file ownership.

The initial and currently supported target is x86_64. See the architecture and software overview for scope and implementation details.

About

Sowa is a standalone, experimental Linux distro built for servers/headless environments, aimed at power users, and shipping with just a minimal set of core tools that you can expand as needed.

It comes with its own package manager (sowa-pkg), which lets you pull in extra tooling like Docker and the GNU Guix package manager, opening the door to plenty of pre-built software.

Sowa packs a few custom and old-school quirks:

• Custom SysV-style init system
• Network configuration driven by a custom utility called nic (configured in /etc/nic.conf), serving as a wrapper around iproute2. By default, it uses DHCP, drops incoming traffic via iptables, and only lets ICMP and SSH through
• Time sync enabled out of the box via chrony, hooked up to Cloudflare’s time servers
• SSH enabled by default with root login strictly key-based, as the root account has no password set by default
• Hybrid package distribution: some packages are available as binaries built from source via sowa-pkg (e.g., Nginx, HAProxy, Docker, Guix), while others use custom installers that pull directly from upstream vendors (e.g., Ollama, Node.js, Go, or Rust)

If you miss the good old days, hate systemd, and want to build your own system from the ground up, Sowa is for you. But you're on your own here—I don't guarantee regular updates or backward compatibility. Sowa has no fixed release cycle or update model, and patches will drop strictly on a "best effort or when I feel like it" basis.

Build

On a prepared x86_64 Linux host:

make check
make check-updates
make fetch
make all

The update check reports newer upstream releases but does not modify the pinned build inputs. Fetching verifies the same locked SHA-256 whether the primary URL or a configured mirror answers.

Build outputs are written to artifacts/. Set JOBS=8 to control parallelism; WORK_DIR, DOWNLOAD_DIR, and ARTIFACT_DIR can place large outputs on a different filesystem.

A containerized build environment is also available:

docker/sowa-env.sh run make check
docker/sowa-env.sh run make all

Host prerequisites, individual targets, build variables, and artifact details are documented in Building Sowa. The container workflow has its own guide.

Run and install

Boot the live ISO or prebuilt disk image in QEMU:

make run-iso
make disk-image run-disk-image

Exit a headless QEMU session with Ctrl-a x. To install from the live system, log in as root and run:

sowa-setup

The live image starts with a passwordless root console account; remote root login remains unavailable until an SSH key is installed. Read the installation and account guides before deploying a machine.

Documentation

The documentation index covers the complete build and system. Common starting points are:

• Live ISO, disk image, and installation
• Packages and updates and adding a package
• Init and services, networking, and SSH
• Release authenticity and licensing

Run make help for the available build and run targets. A booted system also includes manual pages and short guides under /root/sowa-howto/.

License

Sowa's own code is licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later. Included third-party components retain their respective licenses; see Licensing for the package-level records and installed license locations.

Linux® is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.