The latest release of the Gobolinux distribution, version 017.01, has been presented. Unlike traditional Unix distributions, Gobolinux uses a unique catalog tree organization where each program is installed in a separate directory. The installation image size, with support for Live mode, is 2.3 GB for x86_64 architecture.
Within the root file system of Gobolinux, there are directories such as “/Programs”, “/users”, “/system”, “/files”, “/mount”, and “/depot”. Each application’s catalog contains all necessary components for its operation, eliminating the need to separate settings, data, libraries, and executable files. While this approach simplifies maintenance by enabling parallel installation of different versions of the same application, it does require storing data next to system files.
To maintain compatibility with the FILESYSTEM Hierarchy Standard, executable files, libraries, logs, and configuration files are also placed in directories like “/bin”, “/lib”, “/var/log”, and “/etc” through symbolic links. These directories are hidden from the user by default using the gobohide module, which conceals their contents while allowing direct file access.
In order to enhance file type navigation, Gobolinux includes a “/system/index” directory containing symbolic links to various content types, such as executable files in “/system/index/bin”, data in “/system/index/share”, and libraries in “/system/index/lib”. The assembly of packages in Gobolinux is facilitated by utilizing the ALFS (automated Linux from scratch) projects in the form of recipes, which automate the downloading of program code and dependencies.
Users have the option to install programs quickly from two repositories – the official repository maintained by the distribution developers and an unofficial repository created by the user community. The distribution provides an installer that supports installation in both graphical and text modes.