On Linux since Ubuntu Warty (2004), moved through Debian-based distros and have been Arch-based for the last ~10 years. For the last 3 a 4 years my daily driver is Mabox Linux.
First code I ever wrote was on a Commodore 64 (1981) — moving fields around the screen, putting together simple animations. No formal background since — I learned by reading forum threads and wikis, copy-pasting snippets together, a lot of trial-and-error, then more reading until it actually made sense. Most of it came from studying and forking scripts across a lineage of distros: PsychOS, MX Linux, Puppy Linux, ArcoLinux, and for the last few years Mabox scripts (by Daniel). ArcoLinux and Mabox especially are where understanding a script's structure — what a function is actually doing, rather than just pattern-matching snippets — started to click. Claude Code builds on that now, on bigger or less familiar codebases.
- 🐚 Bash first, always — it's home turf. I only look into Python once something already works in Bash and needs more.
- 🧩 One file, or as few as possible — projects stay simple on purpose, easier to hold in your head that way
- 🔩 C isn't a strong area yet. My part in skippy-xd stayed scoped to the man page and a bit of class code, not core logic
- 🛡️ Maintaining archcanary, a layered AUR supply-chain scanner (systemd + eBPF + kmod auditing) — the project that's picked up the most outside contribution so far
- 📦 Packaging things properly: AppImages with bundled deps + zsync delta updates, PKGBUILDs for AUR
- 🐧 X11, not Wayland — most of what I build assumes X11 first
| Project | What it does |
|---|---|
| archcanary | AUR supply-chain security scanner — systemd, eBPF, kmod auditing |
| forum-scout / forum-scout-qt | Multi-forum search tool for Arch-focused wikis/forums — GTK4 and Qt6 versions |
| quickbox / quickbox-qt | GUI for quickemu — VM management, migration, snapshots |
| fittsmon-gui | GUI for FittsMon — mouse hot-corner/edge actions on X11 |
| volbar | Minimal editable volume notifier for X11 (GTK) |
Most of these started as forks of tools I actually use daily, then got a GUI, a port to a different toolkit, or an AppImage build pipeline bolted on.
Mostly solo maintainer, but open to it — archcanary has taken patches and input from outside contributors already, and I'll take issues/PRs seriously on anything actively maintained above. Best way in is a GitHub issue on the relevant repo.