Tech Over Tea - Creator Of Bottles, VanillaOS And Singularity Desktop | Mirko Brombin

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Today we have Mirko Brombin back the show, the creator of Bottles, VanillaOS and the now upcoming Singularity desktop mostly to talk about what's going on with this new desktop project.==========Support The Channel==========► Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/brodierobertson► Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/BrodieRobertsonVideo► Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/3d5gykF► Other Methods: https://cointr.ee/brodierobertson==========Guest Links==========Bottles Website: https://usebottles.com/VanillaOS Website: https://vanillaos.org/Singularity Website: https://sinty.dev/Twitter: https://x.com/brombinmirko==========Support The Show==========► Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/brodierobertson► Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/BrodieRobertsonVideo► Amazon USA: https://amzn.to/3d5gykF► Other Methods: https://cointr.ee/brodierobertson=========Video Platforms==========🎥 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBq5p-xOla8xhnrbhu8AIAg=========Audio Release=========🎵 RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/149fd51c/podcast/rss🎵 Apple Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-over-tea/id1501727953🎵 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3IfFpfzlLo7OPsEnl4gbdM🎵 Google Podcast: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xNDlmZDUxYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==🎵 Anchor: https://anchor.fm/tech-over-tea==========Social Media==========🎤 Discord:https://discord.gg/PkMRVn9🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/TechOverTeaShow📷 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techovertea/🌐 Mastodon:https://mastodon.social/web/accounts/1093345==========Credits==========🎨 Channel Art:All my art has was created by Supercozmanhttps://twitter.com/Supercozmanhttps://www.instagram.com/supercozman_draws/DISCLOSURE: Wherever possible I use referral links, which means if you click one of the links in this video or description and make a purchase we may receive a small commission or other compensation.

Good morning, good day, and good evening. I'm as always your host, Rudy Robertson. And today we are doing an episode that should have been recorded a little bit ago, but we're here now, so that's all that matters. We have Mirko Bromben back on the show, who you're going to know from projects like vanilla OS, like bottles, but that's not what we're here to talk about today. Today we're here to talk about the...

I'm not really sure what the project is, and that's sort of what we're going to get into today. the new desktop you announced singularity. So how about you introduce yourself and we'll go from there. Okay. Good afternoon for me. I'm Mirko Bromim. I'm a designer and a developer.

The first time I called me a developer. Yeah, as you said, I'm the developer of bottled, vanilla S, atoms and media order projects because I like to make my life very, very complex. And yeah, I'm working on another project that is called singularity for the moment. You make your life complicated to make others less complicated. Yeah, yeah. That's actually how can explain it. So it was about, I guess about a month ago now that you announced this project. How long before then was...

it actually a work in progress? So clearly you had something when you showed it off. Well, that's because I actually, I'm working on it since like one year now, maybe some more time. And that's funny because it was started as an Easter egg I made in the Vanillo as Twitter some time ago. And it was really, really fake. It was a web page that I showed on Twitter. I don't know if you saw it. It was funny. But then I started experimenting with it saying, well, maybe I can do it because that's what's happened in my mind. Every time I try something just for making some history.

Well, nothing. It's real. No. So, yeah, I guess like, for anyone who may be unaware of what it is. What are you building it with? And I guess what are you trying to do with it? I guess we'll start with the easier one of what are you actually building it with? Because I think that's going to lead into some interesting discussion as well. Say me the question of that I. Sorry, sorry. What are you building the environment with? Oh, with Vala, which is like C but for dummies like me.

It's Wayland only, so everything is on top of the Lab Vee C compositor. Everything is Wayland only, I don't think to support the SOAR and no. And so many libraries that older developers should know, like LibP's, for example, which is plugin system, plugin library used in Ballard. I think elementary as is using it for Pantonex, I'm not sure. GTK, which I got a lot of messages for using GTK,

G. K4, and not libel but white, because I know many will see, We'll open this video just to learn to say that. So, GDK4, oh no, it's the limit weight. No, it's not. It's pretty much the food stack I'm using. I'm not using anything else. I was told to pass a message along to you when I mentioned that I was going to be talking to you.

The developer of Budji is very confused why you decided. to go with Vala. He has very negative experiences using Vala. Let's say I'm not really comfortable with Vala too. I'm pretty much comfortable with Go and sometimes with Python. I'm trying to abandon Python for everything because I just don't like it. The problem with Go is that we don't have stable bindings for GTK. And that's very, very, very complex for me because I really, really not go. But I also remember some of Cheshire, which is very, very similar to Vala. And also, it's giving me a lot of performance.

I also have a lot of work already done because libraries are already ported, because Valer really works very well with GTK, so just go with what working. And the other idea was to use JavaScript, but I'm not going to do the same thing non-dead. So you didn't know. So I think the first big question there is, why are you using GtK?

Because I like it actually. Okay. Well, not that I like it how one person could say, yeah, I love chocolate. No. I'm pretty used to eat. It's comfortable. You're used to work with the APIs. Yes, yes. I tried other things. I tried to work with Lib Cosmic, which is based on Ice, if I don't remember, if I remember correctly. This was over in Bottles Next, wasn't it? Yes, exactly. I'm working with QT, other stuff that are web-based, but I don't know. GDK is something that I know, and the project is very, very complex. It's very, very large, and I think it's better to use something that I'm really using too.

So that's really the only reason for doing it in GTK4 for me. It's not the main topic for today, but what is happening with Bottles Next? I've heard some people are kind of curious about that. It's going very, very, we have a lot of work done, actually. We also committed a lot of stuff. We received a good funding from the NLNet project, but we are going very, very, how can I say, slowly, to make sure everything is correct,

because today I'm the only active developer in bottles. I'm still working on it, developing it, maintaining everything. It's complex. And I'm still having the same issues I had a longer time ago with that code base. And I want to make it, I want to make bottlenecks perfect. I don't want to release it. And then the other day, the next day, say, oh, yeah, we have a problem in their architecture. No. No again. Not again. Bottles had a lot of problem, but it's working. Actually, it's working very well. We just released a new feature, which is Eagle, which is...

I did hear about it. Yes, yes. It's something crazy. And it's working. So trying to rush something just to release it because it's something new, because people want to see it. It doesn't work for me. What toolkit is Bottles Next using? Because I know there was some discussions about a bunch of different toolkits. Let's say it's using all toolkit, all toolkits. Okay. But no. Because we are developing bottlenecks as a particular codebase.

We have a server. We have a bridge, we have a client, a plea. And the first client is a CMI. So it's made in Rust, simply. And we are still deciding which toolkit to use for the front. And I want to use Lib Cosmic, to be honest. I want that. But there are other person inside the team and not everyone are really happy with it.

Actually, just one person, but I have to correctly listen to everyone. And since the client, the front end, is not the priority right now, I'm not pushing for the discussion. What I can say is that I made a mock upon Figma and that is the face. I don't know if it's GTK or I, QT or whatever, but that is exactly the face we will use to release bottleneck. so that will never change. Since you did mention Rust in there, did you consider doing GTK Rust for singularity? No, because I made a lot of projects in Rust.

I think I didn't publish anything on them because I'm still experimenting with it. With Bottlenex, I have, a team of two members actually that are working with me that really know rast really well and that's helpful because I don't know rast the way they know I prefer go as I say it's it's a very very good language you can do anything with rast it's crazy that there is nothing you can do in rast but it's complete for me so as I say the singularity desktop is very much complex, even complex than bottle next though.

And I don't feel very comfortable to use HDKRRRRS. Understandable. Understandable. So the next big question then is if you're doing GTK, why are you not doing Libid Waiter? And I was waiting for that question. No, why are not using Libadwita, right? Because I like Libadwaita.

I like how it feel, okay? How can, but I, Sarwa will kill me for them. I don't like the community around it. I know that I'm one member of the ground from the, I'm doing anything. I'm not working for Gnome. I'm not working on any Gnome project, to be honest.

I just help her for some events. but I don't like the community behind it. I know that a lot of persons, as well as, I don't know why I was I tried to speak in Spanish. I don't know what's happening with my life. I got married. Ah, nice, nice. I did see that. Congratulations.

Thank you. No, I still am a bit crazy for that. I know that a lot of people don't see it. A person that simply see, oh, that's a Libad Wait application. I like it or simply I don't like it. Okay, that's fine. But there are a lot of toxicity, let's say, okay, if you make an application in Libadwita, not in GTK, let's say Libadwita, it's like another thing for some person.

They will reach you and say, no, you don't have to do it that way. You have to do it this way. No, man, that's my application. I literally do whatever I want because when I did it in bottles, we did a very, very, very long work to make bottle, to make bottle correct limp ad white application. We propose it for the Gnome Circle. They said as, ah, yes, just change these, change this. Okay, we made everything. And after that, they told us, ah, no, well, we are not going to accept that application. Oh. So why? Just give you, so I started using Libad White again for other application, for Vanillo S, for example, because we are using Gnome, we are not changing it for any other desktop environment. And all the application must look like NOM. So it's correct. We are going to use Libad White and respect it. For other applications, like I have still atoms, which is similar to Botto, but for

G-H root, I can say. No, it's support Distrobox, I think. I don't remember. I have many much projects. Easily managed with extra routes and containers with atoms. Did this exist the last time you were on? I don't, maybe it did. It still exists because it's still working.

Right. I mean, the last time that you did an episode here, did this project exist yet? Ah, yeah, yeah. It's pretty much. I think it's around us since four years now. Okay, okay. Maybe I just didn't know about it then.

Or maybe I'm forgetting. Could be that as well. I'm still using Libbyta, and I respect Libbyta guidelines and everything the community say when it comes to be an application for Gnome. But when I make an application, just because I want to make an application,

I need it, I want to release it to all the person, that is not just for Gnome users, I want to be free to do whatever I want, without personal that reach me, I know why you did it. I know it's looking terrible because you don't have to do it. I want to do whatever he wants. I do it for free, first of all.

So just give me some pace. And also, there is a second reason, which is the real, How can I say the most important point, which is GnomeOS? Actually, I say that I want to write an article, and I actually tried to write it a lot of time, but I don't find the right word, so I just say it how it can.

It doesn't really, isn't really important for me. when I see that Gnome OS is not going to just be an experimental OS just to show how Gnome is working, just to experiment with it, but they want to actually make a production-ready system using Gnome. Well, that is a problem because Gnome is used by a lot of Linux distributions, and I know you can still use it in VanillaS, in Fedora and whatever, but people will just say it Ah, well, Ubuntu is not the real distrue

that must be used to use Gnome. It's not the flagship one. It's like for a long time, I don't know why. People say that Fedora is the flagship GnomeOSD, the flagship Gnome distro. I think it's because Fedora is a clean install, whereas Ubuntu, they install a bunch of plugins and tend to also lag a bit behind.

like that but I think it's also because Fedora team is very much I can I see attached to the Gnome team so when I come to make a Gnome OS not just for experimental but for production it makes me feel well you spent we spent we has a Woont Vanillo S which is very very young but all our distribution spent a lot of time to improve Gnome, to spread the voice of Gnome, let's say, and now you're making a

new distribution just for Gnome. It's not really like KDA, because KDA is more like for, take my words as they are, okay, like for NERS, okay, advanced user, they don't expect to have distribution just for KDA, and that distro actually exists because it like KDA, I think. Well, they have a newer project, KD Linux, and that's in many ways trying to be like what GonomOS is. Exactly, but it's different because Gnome has a different community, a different approach for me, and the fact that they are going for their distribution, it's complex. Also, because I don't know why, maybe it's a feeling for me, by me, but I see the Gnone community a bit like, extreme? I don't know. I can

say it without showing people with I can kill you. It's like you have to do everything the exact way Gnome wants, which is not Gnome, it's the Gnong community wants.

Or you are just stupid or I don't know how can I say. So that's the reason why I I'm not using Libadwita. I'm not,

I don't accept, to be honest, to see an OS for Gnome. I don't accept to see all the restriction that Libad Vita is porting to the Linux ecosystem because also the thing that you have this application,

this application must exactly look like this in every platform. I can accept it because I say it with bottles. I want bottle that looks exactly like that, but not because I want to make Gnome the only platform out there. I don't want them to say, I just want that every application looks like that. No, I want that my application looks that way. My, because I opted for it.

But if another developer said, Noel, it's fine for me. You can tell my application. Okay, it's fine. It's fine. Gnome must work on GDK, must work on Libadwaita, without saying anything to developers. I hope that's clear. For any one, like, before you direct any angry emails at him, it should be very clear. English is not his first language, so if he tripped them any words there, yeah.

I guess putting in other words, you like the toolkit as a way to build, consistent applications, but you don't like feeling like the Gnome HIG is something that is forced upon you. You want your application to look the way that you designed it. You don't necessarily care that it's a genome perfectly styled application. That's the reason. Okay. Fair enough.

Fair enough. You talk all my fifth minutes rant and just say, well, two words, that's everything. I must improve my talking skills. No, no, I recommend that you go back and listen to the last episode you're on, because you are a lot clearer this time. You did say that you've practiced your English a lot, and it's definitely, definitely very obvious you have. Yeah, I'm also pretty much Spanish. If you want, we can be Spanish. I can't do Spanish.

Let's keep in English, okay. Maybe next time. We'll work that out next time. So, what are you actually trying to do with singularity? Is this supposed to become a full desktop environment that you're going to release out and maintain long term? Is it just something you're experimenting with? What are you trying to do with the project?

It's actually both things because I always experiment with everything I do. That's why I love open source. I make projects just to experiment with them, but also to fix something. I like to take something that people use, but don't like the way they are using it. and make it better. Okay, well, I hope to make it better, right? And to make it better. So I have experimented because I always wanted to make a desktop environment

just because, yeah, I like make things. But I also want to maintain it. I think I always maintained all my projects. There was a problem with bottles. Okay. Because for some months, it was just broken. Someone released a version that was broken and was out there for, I don't know, many months. But I wasn't aware because I was out.

I was in Venezuela. I was preparing for my marriage, for a wedding. It was complex. So I just, I didn't have time to work on anything. And some projects still working because Vanilo S. has a very powerful team that still keep it up. But bottles, no, sadly. So that's what the only case.

But if someone check my GitHub, I also maintain all my projects in a way or another. And that's the case for Singularity desktop. I'm trying not just to make a new desktop. I'm trying to make a new distribution that will live in sure ways. the first way is the way I like to experiment so people can try all my experiments. I have some crazy ideas, maybe talk with later. And the other branch, which is the stable one, where people can use Singularity OS, which is based on an iOS, with the Singularity Desktop, all that things.

I have a lot of things for Singularity OS. So yeah, I'm going to maintain it and it will always follow the two branches way. So one for experiments, one for stability for people that really I want to use for production. I make it, I'm writing and it and developing it on a way that can be packaged simply. So we can use it on Fedora, on PopoS, I don't think but PopoS, Ub, and maybe whenever, iOS as well, but singularity is a fork of anilis, so it doesn't really make sense. I'm sure as soon as the codes out there, someone will make an AUR package for it. Probably.

No, no, it can. It's actually working in a container. You can also start it inside a distro box, and it's working inside a Wayland window, just because you want to see how it works, and it's working. I'm developing it inside a distro box, so. Oh, okay. Yeah. That's interesting

Okay I've not heard anyone Working on a desktop like that Obviously of people doing things in a verch machine I know some developers Who will dog food the system As they're developing it And that obviously goes very well for them

And never breaks at all What made you want to do it In a container inside of Distrobox Because I just have one laptop now and I want to work it in my spare time because I'm working on it as a hobby for the moment even if I have all this vision and stuff like that but in the same time I also have to still working

on my office work on my company I still have to work on bottles and I don't want to say let's create a new session using singularity and I don't know make something that blow up my entire PC. It's impossible because even if it's okay, but I'm pretty used it to blow up my PC to make it, so maybe not this time. Hopefully not this time. Hopefully not this time. Okay. So I guess we can talk about some of the stuff that you're working on with it. I'm very happy that you did something with the website

and you included basically every tweet you made about the things so I don't have to go and find them that makes my life much easier So I guess what's a fun thing we have in here Ah right we can talk about that you're working on some some tiling stuff for it That's cool

So is that sort of a, is that one of those things where you kind of wanted to just experiment with tiling? Had you used tiling in the past? I'm using tiling, but I didn't find a tiling that really fits my needs because I used paper worm, which... Like Neroon. Yeah, it works, yeah, it works. But the best tiling I use, I think it's called it.

forge or like something like that for Gnome because I have I always have two monitors the one of the laptop and two others because I have a lot of stuff that I'm working on at the same time so I have to see a lot of stuff and forge is working but it's at the same time it's very very lucky maybe because it's a Gnomex station okay but it's very, very, very lucky. And at the end, what I really need is a simple tiling. So just I want to place this windows here, the other windows here, and maybe group them. So I have, let's say, Telegram and WhatsApp, the two windows.

I want to switch on a group. I think the better tiling out is the wire made by System 76, probably. But I don't know, it's still complex for me. I don't want to see a menu that I have to click and change things. I just want to snap something on the way, on the right side, one on the left side, put them. Forge is very, very simple, but it's very, very lucky. I don't think I will make something like Forge for the moment. I just want to reach the first stable version of singularity, maybe with just a snappy Windows.

And I made Wayland integration for that, that is calling the LabbwC API, which are not API. So I had to change how LabuC force. It's complex. I have a fork of it. But yet, I would have tiling for, we will have tiling for the first version. So you're not building. a compositor for this, you're just using LabWC, you're just building the shell that integrates with it. Exactly. I had to make, to write, I made some changes to LabbocC, like for example to get the Windows previews. I think I published a Twitter later day showing Windows previews. For that, I had to make a lot of

change actually, make a new portal and stuff like that. But I have to say that LabVuC looks very, very, very good writing as a good code base. It's very simple to edit it.

And it's not even in a language that I love. So nice? It's built on W-Root. it's a C project? Well, so I didn't, I wasn't listening, sorry. LabWC,

it's built in C, correct? Yes, C and well, let me check, I don't remember. The GitHub says 98% C. Ah, yeah, no, my fork is not even C. Oh, okay. Yeah, but that's only because I put some Python you need to test the tool, test something.

But not because I put Python inside that compositor, you know? I'm sure that would be very fast. Yeah. I don't think so, honey. So I did see some other nice little things. Like, because you are using LabWC, you kind of want to create some graphical tools to customize. I did see that you made some.

some configuration to enable and disable the window decorations, for example. Yes, I want to make a sort of medium point from Gnome and KDA. I don't want to give you configuration for everything. I will give you a lot. I will give the user a lot of configuration, but the very advanced one can be done in D-Conf, via D-Conf. I want to allow you to show window decoration, to put the Docker on the bottom, on the left or where you want, there is also option that is called a Fusion mode that take the top

bar, the dock, and put them together to create just a task bar. I want to give a lot of personalization but customization but without making like idea that you can open you open KDS setting and say okay so where can I start where is what I'm looking for

no just what I saw what what is I will show I will provide a easy setting for something that people will, that a large set of people at this one,

I'm looking for, but for an advanced user, they will just open the confeditor and change whatever they want. Or maybe, maybe, because if GTK, you can just open the CSS file and write the way you want. Write it the way you want. You want shadow, just put shadow, change a color.

That one. Have you had a chance to play with the Cosmic Desktop? Because it kind of sounds like that's what you're going for, where you're exposing the settings that most people care about, but not every little possible tweak. I used Lib Cosmic, the Cosmic Dexter. And actually, right now in the GitHub repository, Cosmic is the desktop user by singular QS.

Oh, okay. Yeah, the problem is that I don't know why, but I don't feel really comfortable with it out of the box. I don't like icons. I don't like the way it looks like. I don't know why. I just don't feel really comfortable with it. And I'm able to collaborate, okay, to contribute,

but it's also rust. No. No. I'm working with bottlenecks. It's fine for it. Rust is fine on that side. Also, there is other, let's just say that Cosmic was born for Pop OS. So it's Gnome, Gnome OS, it's the same. They are creating a community around it, which, okay,

can say, okay, but Singularity OS and Singularity Desktop, we're making the same. No, because since date zero, I will never say that this is the distribution for Singularity DeXo. Singularity Dexto is a thing made by the developer Singularity, which I am, and you can use it whatever you want. I will still provide support for you. I will never accept a community that try to interact in a toxic way, saying, you know, no, you must use Singularity US because Singularity TextSt is for Singularity. Yes, no, if I read that, I will reach you on Reddit. They will say, what the hell are you writing here?

That's not what I try to do. I'm not going on, please. I didn't say it. It's not me. I never say it. Since we were talking about decorations, I also saw you put a thing out about client-side and server-side decorations. So this is something that Cosmic sort of ran into recently as well. Because you have Gronome that doesn't implement the, what's the Wayland Protocol called,

for server-side decorations. You know the one I'm talking about. I'm forgetting the name. X-D-D decorations, that's the one. Okay. So, because they don't implement that, basically everyone provides fallback client-side decorations,

but they don't necessarily use those client-side decorations, right? A lot of applications like Firefox, for example, it's built around having those, but a lot of random, you know, a terminal, for example, there's no reason to use those if it's not actually trying to make use to the client side decorations in a useful way.

They kind of just have it there so it has a bar on Ghanome. So I... Wait, what was... My point there was I like that you're providing the option to say, I want to use those client side decorations or I want to use the server side decorations

that come from singularity. I can see the gears turning in your head trying to work out what I was saying. No, my overall point was I liked you provide the option to disable client side decorations. Got it. I was locked internally

because I said, wait, he wasn't doing it. Sorry, I went on a little bit. too long there that sometimes happens. I did it because people need it. People asked it, asked for it. Since I need users, I say, well, just implement what users say.

No, I think that's a... No, it's a good way to do it. If you don't really have a clear direction what you want to do with it, you might as well, like, again, as you said, It's, this is an experiment, right? You're experimenting with things.

So if you're not really sure, why not experiment with it? Exactly. Yeah. I also saw there the stuff about global menus. Yeah. My understanding is that's a little complicated. The toolkits don't really properly support them nowadays. Exactly.

It's very, very complex. Because when I start, making it I did try to search online which library to use how can how does GTK works how QT works how Libbyt work because a Libbyte application is very very different and they said but just trying to make it work but currently it's not working very well I have some application that does display correctly then a no file edit view i have a lot of libadwit application that doesn't show it but i am working on a sort of fullback so when i i'm not when i can't show the global menu button simply so you can click a file

actually you can click file and see the quit uh i'm Also, see if I can use it the desktop entry actions and show them as a fallback. You have desktop entry action where when you, for example, in normal, you do right click and see like new private window and stuff like that. And implement them directly on the global menu. So it's like a fake but working global menu for the moment. For a lot of applications, maybe people will start using, providing that menu again, I don't know. If you're using a Lib Singularity application, actually, you does expose that menu. Hmm, okay.

My Discord keeps disconnecting. That's weird. I'd never heard you stop talking, but I keep hearing the disconnect sound. So I don't know what that's about. I don't know. I'm still... I see you're lagging, actually. Yeah, no, I see you lagging on my side.

I don't... Apologies to anyone who's hearing the Discord sound constantly right now. I cannot do anything about that. I'm on Do Not Disturb. So it shouldn't be making those sounds. But... Notifications. Can we turn those off anyway? No.

Okay. I'll have a look at it afterwards. That's fine. Apologies for the Discord noises. Anyway. It's an electron application. Yeah, we love electron. It's great.

My favorite. So you mentioned earlier that people can modify the GTK CSS. So that's something that you sort of expect people to do. Are you thinking of providing some convenient theming mechanism that, allows people to mess with that or is it sort of you're not going to do anything that gets in the way of it? I want to provide, I'm developing teams APIs. So variable that you can use in CSS to create teams properly. I don't want to restrict people to just, well, just change those variables. No, I want you to be free to make whatever you want, whatever you like, because I'd like to see

a lot of people experiment you and say, oh, that's my recipe for Singularity Dextap. I made it this way with pink, neon and green buttons. Please know, you're aware. Like that. I've seen what people who do to KDE with the freedom they have. They will absolutely do that. I've seen what people do to cinnamon. They...

Yeah. At least singularity desktop, the first one that will make a pink and green team, I will use it for one month. Okay, okay. Good luck with that. Have fun hating every second you use the desktop. I will enjoy it. So customization is something that you're sort of

providing a lot of here this is something that we don't really have another example of a GTK4 environment that is customization heavy because things like cinnamon they're still on GTK3 budgies now on cute

so we don't really have a great example of what you can really do with a full desktop that allows you to theme it that's like GTK4 based anymore? I was thinking the same

but wait, Pantion isn't made in GTK4 right now. I forgot about that one. Well, it's really because he's based on Libregani. Yeah, I was going to say, yeah. Maybe because of that. but no

I think that the reason or maybe cinnamon is made in GTK4 cinnamon I believe is still GTK3 okay

I might be wrong though I'm pretty sure it's GTK3 no I don't think we have a GtK for desktop environment that should be Gnome but it's in GtK

it's not even using GTK in reality in reality I think is JavaScript with a toolkit named maybe SDK or whatever it's called it, I don't know,

which is funny because it's known. I expect it to be G-T-K and it's not G-T-K. Well, even so, like, with Gnome at this point, the expectation is everything to be built around Libid Wader, so it's going to have that very specific style. I know there's interest in bringing in like accent, But that's kind of the extent of the theming that's really there.

Whereas what you're doing is sort of that classic Gnome theming model of allowing full CSS, but then doing that on GtK4. Which I'm just curious what people are going to make with that. That's sort of my main thing there. With that, with being on GtK4, what are people going to be able to do that they couldn't do? on older versions of GTK and providing that mechanism, I'm just curious to see how people are going to experiment with it. And I like that you're sort of providing that opportunity. Well, let's say that GTK3 and GTK4 are very much, pretty much similar, okay?

the thing is that GtK4 has his has a better wayland support okay and well a lot of improvements and stuff like that and I think GtK4 now also in Python allow you to use a sync

or something like that I'm not sure but I'm not using Python something it's not even it was just for turkey it's just more stable I guess when I started making it

an ex-stop environment I didn't think well let's use GTK3 or 4 no well GTK4 was the master so I used

CT3 but I am developing it on a way that if tomorrow GTK5 will be a different thing

that that happened to me in bottles When Bottles was a GTK-free application, when GTK-4 comes out, I had to do a lot of work with me with the team. Wait, it's been around that long. I didn't even realize Bottles had been around that long. 2017.

Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. I'm really old. I'm 32 now. Okay. So I had that terrible experience, and I say, okay, this time. I'm okay, I'm doing an X

superenvironment, but I want the GTCA part to be really portable. I don't want to spend a lot of time to work on a GTK5 migration and stuff like that. And the thing that I'm not even using Libad Vita maybe is helpful.

So that's the only thing. I have heard some concerns about sort of the direction that GTK5 is going to go, because my understanding is with four, a lot of the useful components that you might want to use outside of Gnome were moved into Libid Wader. So the Gnome theming was moved out of GTCK, but so was a lot of the useful functionality. I have to say that in case GTK file will be a mess, okay? I don't

have a big problem to just fork GTI4 and maintain it, to be honest. Because it's, I know that people could say, okay, but forking an entire toolkit, I'm literally doing a desktop environment, and I'm also working on a kernel. So it's not the worst thing I did at the car. So if something happened to a web GTK fight, no problem. I will maintain GTK4. You said you were building in a way that is sort of, I guess, not really tied

to the GTC version as much? What did you mean by that? Wait, repeat to the question. Like, the way you said it before, it made it sound like you weren't really... The way you'd built it wasn't really tied to GTK where you could possibly change to something else if you needed to?

if I understood what you're saying correctly. Yes, but not. Let me rephrase it. Okay, okay. I'm not developing it the way that you can change the toolkit. Sure, sure, sure. But the way that I'm not depending on complex GTK widgets that require a complex migration in GTK-5 or porting from Libadwiter.

For example, a lot of widgets like the tabs and the tabs, and a lot of widget that I'm using on the singularity apps are inside a library I call it Lib Singularity. So I already remade everything that they could port to just Libby Dwight. Because I know I know. I know they friends. But let me explain that as well. because, okay, I make a lip singularity and I say singularity apps,

but I'm not trying to make another super set of application. You can just use, you can, you must use inside my desktop environment. The philosophy of the desktop is that you use the desktop, you customize it the way you want, and use it with application you love. That could be the Gnom apps, the KDA apps, or I don't know, maybe all electron apps, whatever you want. So it's just like a rescue kit. If you install if you install singularity US you will see all those applications but I'm not forcing anyone to use those applications. So we shouldn't be expecting a web browser anytime soon. I made one based on

Okay. Okay, maybe bad example then. How set in stone is the sort of design language for for singularity? Like the way that it looks right now, is that the way it's always going to look or are you still sort of working out that design? It's very similar. It's, it's almost right that, okay? But I'm still experimenting something. For example, the other day I published a new overview with workspace

on another page. Because I experimented a lot of implementation. There was one with all the application list and the workspace on the top. But I didn't like it. I also don't like how

in Gnome you have firstly, you press the super key and see all the workspace, then you have to, or do you click two times super, more faster, and then you can see the apps list, or you have to click the app list button, and so I don't like it. But I like the way Mac works and Pantion, I think, where you have two different buttons, One for the applications and one for work spaces.

This way allow me to provide some more details. For example, showing the previews, showing the list of all workspaces, the ability to take a window and drop another workspace that you can do it on Gnome as well, but on two steps. This way you just click the button you like. So it's more simple for me. what are the long-term goals for the project the in which scenarios

what do you mean um I don't know like what I'm not really sure where to take that what are you what are you thinking okay I want for the end of this of this year to have a public alpha or maybe beta, I don't know, because it's very stable, to be honest, but I don't want to say it's stable for the handoff here on this year. And I want to release a first version of Singularity Wess so that people can install it and test. because I want them to follow different roads. So Singularity Dextor will have his release way,

okay, recycle, and the desktop will have his release cycle. But not said. But yeah, for the end of year, I want to offer both. I want to release Singularity OS 0.1 desktop 0.1 so people can test them. And that's everything. That's what I want. An alpha.

Are you planning to release the code before then? Or are you going to release it with the alpha? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So you're going to wait until the alpha's ready before you release the code? I think this summer, around this summer, because I still have to clean up some things. There are some rude comments of me trying to

implement some Wayland conference. So I don't want people to read them. Understandable. Understand. Normal developer. Yeah, for sure.

You said you had an hour slot for this, so I'm not really sure how much longer you have, just so we don't go over time. around 15 minutes. Okay. Let's see. I guess what else have we not really touched on then?

Let's see. Workflows, window controls, tiling, decorations. I feel like we've touched on a lot of the main things here. I see now I actually have to like make sure we didn't miss anything I know I'm not sure so I guess we did sort of mention this before but why are you going only Wayland

why not consider doing X-11 because we are in 2026 and Wayland is pretty much the only solution out there right now. I know that some people can't use it. I imagine, to be honest, because I can use it. But making a desktop environment based on something that is kind of deprecated, let's say, I don't like it.

Because I have to maintain it. So I don't like to take my time and say, oh, yeah. Right, right. No, that makes a lot of sense there. And again, if you are going to stay with GTK, it's sort of unclear when GT, like, it's going to come a point where GTK does decide to drop X11. Presumably that will happen with GTK5, but we're not really fully clear on the timeline. and even if you were to move to something else, it's unclear when other toolkits are going to drop X-11 as well.

So unless you wanted to, you know, sit back and maintain an older version, you're just not really going to have much of a choice. Cute's probably going to maintain it unless there's like, if there's a customer paying for it, Cute will probably maintain it. But as for anything else, the time's kind of running out. Yeah. Yeah.

It's not a good time for X-RG for X-11. So maintaining it in 2025 or 2027, it's not really comfortable for people that want to maintain a project right now. I think one last thing to touch on. We might have kind of mentioned it before. what happens with vanilla OS and Gronome? Is Singularity just going to be its own thing?

Are you going to offer Singularity on Vanilla OS? They have two different things because the VanilloS developer team is not involved in Singularity OS development and they are two really different things because SingularityS is based on top of a NILOS but will not use A-B-Root, for example. We'll not use Apex, the container things.

We'll not use a lot of stuff. Okay, let's say a lot of stuff that we, a lot of tools that you see inside VanillaS are recreated for Singular ITOS on a different way. For example, A-B-Root, it's going to be replaced by XX. x ys i don't know why i use those names because x ys z root which basically it basically is the same things but it's using a sort of images and you are going to boot the system using those images like partitions so you don't have root partitions at all and for the desktop thing vanilla with that WhatsApp is doing something okay

what I say so okay vanilla will always use Gnum because people shows at Vanilla OS because of Gn maybe a lot of them and also because the developers of Vanilla OS like Gn so I can just say let's use singularity text sure no I can't force the person to do whatever I want. And I'm not looking

for that. Well, I guess it does make a lot of sense to have your own thing with Singularity OS then where you can be like, I want to make whatever changes I want to make, this is my thing. No one else, especially early on, no one is relying on it.

So you can make whatever changes you want. Exactly. And that's why I am the only developer for Singularity US. and that's also the reason why I will never add a singularity OS team. I want to keep that project with me as the only developer for forever. I will enjoy, I will accept contributors and contributions from people. but I'm not going to be to accept people on the team of Singularity OS

probably on the Singularity desktop but not for Singularity OS because I don't want to force people but I also don't want to be forced to do something the way I don't like Okay, okay yeah I was I was just going to ask you if the same applied to the desktop but you beat me to it Yes So is there anything else that you wanted to touch on?

Otherwise, we can start to wrap up. I think we're talking about everything. Yeah. No, I don't have anything more. Okay. Follow me on Twitter. I'll leave all your links down below. On that note, where can people find

the things you're involved in. I'm still not with my blog. Okay. The name, the name you use for these places where people can find them. Don't remember with us. Okay. I think it's Brombin Mirko.

Yes, it's Brombin Mirko. Okay, okay. Actually, my surname plus my name. I will leave all of the links down. below. Bottles, if you search Bottles, Linux, you will find it. Vanilla OS, you search that and you will find it. Yeah, it was pleasure to have you back on.

I'll do my outro and then we'll sign off. Okay. So, my main channel... Pleasure to have... Pleasure to have you on. Now I'm tripping on English. My main channel is Brodie Robertson. I do Linux videos there six-ish days a week.

Sometimes I stream as well. I've been lazy about streaming, but when singularity is available, I will probably do a test stream because that sounds fun and I like to break things. I've got the gaming channel, Brodion Games. Right now I'm playing through Shenmoo and also Devil May Cry 5. If you're watching the video version of this, you can find the audio version on basically every podcast platform at Tech Over T. There is an RSS feed as well. Search Tech for T on your favourite app, and you will find it. and we're also on YouTube, tech over tea for the video, and Spotify has video as well.

I'll give you the final word. How do you want to sign us off? Have a nice day. Peace and love, open source, and everything. Yeah.