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<title>Checking out blendOS</title>
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<h1 id="checking-out-blendos">Checking out blendOS</h1>
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<p>blendOS is self-described as "Arch Linux, made declarative,
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immutable and atomic." And yeah, that's a pretty good
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description of what it is. But you can never <em>really</em>
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tell what a distro is like without trying it, so...</p>
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<h2 id="installation">Installation</h2>
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<p>I decided to just run blendOS in a virtual machine; I had a
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bunch of data I hadn't backed up yet and was actively working
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on, and didn't feeling like switching yet given I had no
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experience with blendOS v4 - I've actually tried blendOS v3
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before, back when v4 was in alpha, but it had practically zero
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documentation, not even <code>man</code> pages, so I gave up on
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it very quickly. But with v4, hopefully it's improved since
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then.</p>
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<p>Installation itself was simple: it's got a basic installer,
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which notably allows for manual partitioning, but does
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<em>not</em> allow for selecting which track to use (which we'll
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get to later), though to be fair, that's <em>very</em> simple to
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change post-installation.</p>
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<img src="/assets/blendos/1.png"
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title="blendOS live image boot: a basic GNOME desktop with a vertical white window in the center; it has the blendOS logo and a "Start" button, with the text "Welcome to blendOS", "Press Start to start installing blendOS!"" alt="blendOS live image boot: a basic GNOME desktop with a vertical white window in the center; it has the blendOS logo and a "Start" button, with the text "Welcome to blendOS", "Press Start to start installing blendOS!"" />
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<h2 id="first-use">First use</h2>
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<p>Upon first boot, blendOS drops you into a pretty standard
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GNOME session with a graphical setup to add a user account, set
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timezone, and all that.</p>
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<p>Here's the default <code>/system.yaml</code> file
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provided:</p>
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<div class="sourceCode" id="cb1"><pre
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class="language-yaml"><code class="language-yaml"><span id="cb1-1"><a href="#cb1-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">impl</span><span class="kw">:</span><span class="at"> http://github.com/blend-os/tracks/raw/main</span></span>
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<span id="cb1-2"><a href="#cb1-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">repo</span><span class="kw">:</span><span class="at"> https://pkg-repo.blendos.co</span></span>
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<span id="cb1-3"><a href="#cb1-3" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">track</span><span class="kw">:</span><span class="at"> default-gnome</span></span></code></pre></div>
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<p>At first I wasn't sure what impl is doing, but according to
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the <a
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href="https://blendos.co/reference/configs/system/"><code>system.yaml</code>
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docs</a> seems to be combined with the track to get the URL for
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the raw <code>yaml</code> file.<a href="#fn1"
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class="footnote-ref" id="fnref1"
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role="doc-noteref"><sup>1</sup></a></p>
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<p>This is actually a really interesting bit, as it means you
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can just, say, host your own track(s) for all your computers in
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a Git repo, and they can each inherit from other configs<a
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href="#fn2" class="footnote-ref" id="fnref2"
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role="doc-noteref"><sup>2</sup></a> or be overridden locally;
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this actually seems like a very interesting and viable way to
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centrally manage many computers running Linux, and given I'm
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constantly switching between several computers; I can just put
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my config(s) in one repo, and pull from that.</p>
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<p>(details on this at <a
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href="https://blendos.co/reference/configs/system/"><code>system.yaml</code>
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docs</a> -> Creating a track repo/webserver)</p>
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<h2 id="configuration">Configuration</h2>
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<p>blendOS's configuration is really simple:</p>
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<div class="sourceCode" id="cb2"><pre
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class="language-yaml"><code class="language-yaml"><span id="cb2-1"><a href="#cb2-1" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">impl</span><span class="kw">:</span><span class="at"> http://github.com/blend-os/tracks/raw/main</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-2"><a href="#cb2-2" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">repo</span><span class="kw">:</span><span class="at"> https://pkg-repo.blendos.co</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-3"><a href="#cb2-3" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">track</span><span class="kw">:</span><span class="at"> default-gnome</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-4"><a href="#cb2-4" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a></span>
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<span id="cb2-5"><a href="#cb2-5" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">arch-repo</span><span class="kw">:</span><span class="at"> </span><span class="st">'https://repo-goes-here.example'</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-6"><a href="#cb2-6" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a></span>
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<span id="cb2-7"><a href="#cb2-7" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">packages</span><span class="kw">:</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-8"><a href="#cb2-8" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="at"> </span><span class="kw">-</span><span class="at"> </span><span class="st">'fish'</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-9"><a href="#cb2-9" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a></span>
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<span id="cb2-10"><a href="#cb2-10" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">aur-packages</span><span class="kw">:</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-11"><a href="#cb2-11" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="at"> </span><span class="kw">-</span><span class="at"> </span><span class="st">'EVEN-MORE-FISH'</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-12"><a href="#cb2-12" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a></span>
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<span id="cb2-13"><a href="#cb2-13" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">services</span><span class="kw">:</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-14"><a href="#cb2-14" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="at"> </span><span class="kw">-</span><span class="at"> </span><span class="st">'service-goes-here'</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-15"><a href="#cb2-15" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a></span>
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<span id="cb2-16"><a href="#cb2-16" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">user-services</span><span class="kw">:</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-17"><a href="#cb2-17" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="at"> </span><span class="kw">-</span><span class="at"> </span><span class="st">'user-service-goes-here'</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-18"><a href="#cb2-18" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a></span>
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<span id="cb2-19"><a href="#cb2-19" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">package-repos</span><span class="kw">:</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-20"><a href="#cb2-20" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="at"> </span><span class="kw">-</span><span class="at"> </span><span class="fu">name</span><span class="kw">:</span><span class="at"> </span><span class="st">'repo name'</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-21"><a href="#cb2-21" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="at"> </span><span class="fu">repo-url</span><span class="kw">:</span><span class="at"> </span><span class="st">'https://repo.url'</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-22"><a href="#cb2-22" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a></span>
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<span id="cb2-23"><a href="#cb2-23" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="fu">commands</span><span class="kw">:</span></span>
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<span id="cb2-24"><a href="#cb2-24" aria-hidden="true" tabindex="-1"></a><span class="at"> </span><span class="st">'echo hiiiiiii > /home/user/helloooooo'</span></span></code></pre></div>
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<p>(from <a
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href="https://blendos.co/reference/configs/system/"><code>system.yaml</code>
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docs</a>)</p>
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<p>It's quite basic, but blendOS's design actually works very
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well for me; I already have a Git repo of <a
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href="https://git.askiiart.net/askiiart/configs">all my
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configs</a>, which are intended to be run from a clean
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installation automatically, so for blendOS I just have to put
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those scripts into the yaml file and adapt it so the packages
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are listed in the YAML rather than being installed with
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<code>pacman</code>, <code>paru</code> or the like (at least,
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not directly, via <code>akshara</code> instead)</p>
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<h2 id="problems">Problems</h2>
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<p><em>By far</em>, the biggest of all blendOS's problems is how
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slow it is to rebuild. It doesn't save "layers" like <a
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href="https://coreos.github.io/rpm-ostree/"><code>rpm-ostree</code></a>
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(as used by Fedora atomic); instead, it just completely rebuilds
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the system every single time. Because of this, it takes a long
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time to run the updater/rebuilder, even to just install one more
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package.</p>
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<p>Besides that, my only complaints are:</p>
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<ol type="1">
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<li>The <code>akshara</code>'s (the update/rebuild tool) major
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issue with reinheritance (see <a
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href="https://blendos.co/reference/configs/system/"><code>system.yaml</code>
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docs</a> -> Inheritance).</li>
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<li>Its community and issue tracking is primarily on Discord,
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which is then indexed by Answer Overflow so it's searchable with
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Google and the like; there's no dedicated developer space (only
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one issue on <a href="https://git.blendos.co/blendOS">their
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GitLab</a>, where <code>akshara</code> is hosted.) However,
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given you must be pretty competent with Linux to be using
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blendOS in the first place, and how small the dev team and
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community is, this isn't much of an issue.</li>
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<li>There's a lack of documentation for some bits, though the
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docs are updated and getting new additions constantly.</li>
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</ol>
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<p>I've encountered more bugs and missing features since then,
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but I'll talk about that in my next post, as they'll fit better
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there.</p>
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<h2 id="wishlist">Wishlist</h2>
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<p>This is some other stuff I want, not necessarily problems,
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but things I'd like added</p>
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<ul>
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<li>I'd like an equivalent of this at the user level specifying
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packages, repos, and commands for other (containerized)
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distros.</li>
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<li>I'd like to be able to automatically install blendOS - to be
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able to script it rather than going through the GUI. Just a
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tarball of the installed system would be great.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="sources">Sources</h2>
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<p>Sources are linked as they're used throughout, and also
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listed separately here.</p>
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<!-- Link definition are above, separate (rendered) links below -->
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<ol type="1">
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<li><a href="https://blendos.co/">blendOS Homepage</a></li>
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<li><a
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href="https://blendos.co/install/post-install/intro/">Introduction
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to blendOS</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://blendos.co/reference/">blendOS
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reference</a></li>
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<li><a
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href="https://blendos.co/reference/configs/system/"><code>system.yaml</code>
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docs</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://git.blendos.co/blendOS">blendOS
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GitLab</a></li>
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<li><a
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href="https://coreos.github.io/rpm-ostree/"><code>rpm-ostree</code>
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docs</a></li>
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<li><a
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href="https://blendos.co/contributing/#git-structure">blendOS's
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Git structure</a></li>
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</ol>
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<p>Note: As I write this, the docs, particularly the <a
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href="https://blendos.co/reference/">blendOS reference</a>, are
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being constantly revised. During the process of writing this, an
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entire new section has been added, though this post doesn't
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touch on that and said section is unused here - it'll come into
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play in the next post.</p>
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<h2 id="footnotes">Footnotes</h2>
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<!-- Note if you're viewing the Markdown version: [^1] is for footnotes; that's the formatting used by Pandoc, but VS Code, for example, doesn't support it. -->
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<aside id="footnotes"
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class="footnotes footnotes-end-of-document" role="doc-endnotes">
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<hr />
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<ol>
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<li id="fn1"><p>That is,
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<code>http://github.com/blend-os/tracks/raw/main</code> +
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<code>/</code> + <code>default-gnome</code> +
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<code>.yaml</code>; also, I probably should've just... read the
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documentation from the start, instead of figuring this out on my
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own and only later checking the docs.<a href="#fnref1"
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class="footnote-back" role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
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<li id="fn2"><p>For example, in the provided
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<code>blend-os/tracks</code> repo, <code>default-gnome</code>
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actually inherits from the <code>gnome</code> track.<a
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href="#fnref2" class="footnote-back"
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role="doc-backlink">↩︎</a></p></li>
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</ol>
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