OSDev.org

Good day, I like tried to change the GUI of ubuntu but nowhere I found the source code of Ubuntu. Please where is it? Is somewhere documentation about creating a new Linux distro from Ubuntu?

There is no such thing as "the source code of Ubuntu". It's a collection of software from all sorts of different projects and organisations. That's what "distro" (short for "distribution") means.

There are plenty of guides and instructions on how to produce a custom Linux distribution out there (just use your favourite search engine). This sort of thing is (as far as I'm aware) outside the scope of this forum.

Here is the source code for Ubuntu 18.04. Obviously, it does not include any proprietary components:
http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/releases/18.04.0/source/

Klakap wrote:Good day, I like tried to change the GUI of ubuntu but nowhere I found the source code of Ubuntu. Please where is it? Is somewhere documentation about creating a new Linux distro from Ubuntu?

Wait, can you explain your intentions a bit more here? Are you trying to change the desktop environment on your personal setup, or are you trying to create a new distro (that is to say, an installation setup for other people to use) based on Ubuntu in the same way that, well, Ubuntu itself is based on Debian?

Because quite honestly, you seem to be confusing some topics which are only tangentially related.

The first thing to understand is that - as I have think I have said more than once before to you, though I may be thinking of someone else, the thread in question was auto-deleted - window managers and desktop environments are orthogonal to distributions. While most distributions have a primary DE, or a set of DEs with separate prepared installations (the [X|K|Ed]Ubuntu variants), that's simply for the convenience of the one installing the distro - you can always change the GUI without reinstalling Linux.

If all you want is to use a different existing DE on an existing Ubuntu installation (or Debian, Arch, Gentoo, whatever other distro), it probably doesn't require you to access any source code at all. If there is a PPA and an APT repository with the DE in question, that should be possible simply by installing the desired DE with apt-get or Synaptic, logging out of your current session, and selecting the new DE for your session at login. You should be able to switch back and forth between multiple desktops at leisure simply by logging out and in, so long as you have them installed beforehand.

If you want to write a new DE, then you still don't need the source code for Ubuntu; what you would need to do is study the APIs for X.org and/or Wayland, depending on which display manager(s) you want it to work with. It wouldn't be anything specific to Ubuntu, at least not until you are mostly done and need to start interfacing with the specific distro's default setup - and you presumably would have different 'glue' that could work with multiple distros.

If you really are looking to make a distro, then that's a completely different matter - and in that case, choosing a default GUI is probably the last step, not the first. You would also need to keep in mind that not everyone is going to stick to the default you choose.

I should add that there is no reason to base a new distro on an existing one unless all you want is to tweak the internal structure and/or update policies of the distro (e.g., Mint exists mainly because they wanted a more conservative update policy, and only secondarily to show off Cinnamon Desktop) - and unless you are making a DE or application suite yourself, and want to have a showcase for it, there is no reason at all to make a new distro just to use a different GUI.

Thank for the replies! I wanted to make new Linux distro based on Debian. At frist step, I wanted try change GUI. So I just need to download the source code of Debian and put int a GUI and my programs?

I am still unclear about what you want. Why do you want to make a new distro? I am not criticising, just uncertain what your intentions are.

Also, could you please take this to the General forum? This is not an OS dev topic, not even in terms of Linux. It is as if you posted this to the Linux Kernel Devs mailing list.

Don't do that, BTW. Trust me, if you asked about this there, Dr. Torvalds would have bounced you so fast that the banhammer would travel back in time to prevent you from posting the question. Hell, you would probably find an expletive-laden email from Linus in your inbox before you even tried to subscribe to the list.

(Ah, Linus Torvalds, what a smooth talker he is, he's so polite... OK, so he's promised to be less swear-y in the future recently, but so far there's not much evidence of that.)

I want to create a new Linux distro because I want to make it new features, new GUI(later) and new programs. The main reason is that I know some people who don't want Windows 10 or Linux but they told me that if I created my operating system, would like to get it installed. I want to help these people. My first idea was to create a completely new operating system, but I can see that it is unrealistic. So I would like to start on Linux(the people would have installed even if I did new Linux distro).

//You're right, this topic belongs to the general forum. Please how I can move it in there?

If you're serious about making a linux distro, http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ is where you should be headed.

If I have to be frank, though, and please don't be offended, I think this is not going to work the way you expect. There have been attempts at replacing Windows with Linux, and yours would have most probably the same result, minus the experience. So, if you want to do it for the sake of doing it, for the pleasure of learning the deepest secrets of Linux system administration, absolutely go for it. If you expect success, you might want to lower your expectations first.

Thank you, I know, but I'd like it at least tried. I don't have the ambition to make the operating system that would beat Windows and Linux, it would have been enough for me a few satisfied users.

frabert wrote:If you're serious about making a linux distro, http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ is where you should be headed.

If the OP does go with this, they might find this video series discussing the LFS process to be helpful as a way to get a clearer sense of some aspects of it. Note that it is not a substitute for the documentation on that site, only a visual supplement for it - a way of seeing ahead of time what the build behavior should look like while doing it. The documentation, not the videos, should be considered definitive.

Note that I would recommend LFS for a lot of people coming here, even if they don't want to write a Unix-like system. Seeing what an ab novo build of an existing system (even one with serious flaws) is like can give you a better sense of what you will need to do when prepping your own OS work.