Shock OS

The Project

Shock OS is a desktop Linux distro designed for the Raspberry Pi 4. Its goal is to provide the best daily-driver experience for desktop computing on the SBC. Based on Raspberry Pi OS Lite and featuring the MATE Desktop Environment, Shock OS enjoys the luxuries of software optimization and compatibility, speed, and stability. I also programmed extra features such as dark/light themes and accent colors, slideshow wallpapers, automatic updates, parental controls, and more. I have also revamped the theme manager, user manager, fonts manager, wallpaper chooser, and desktop icons manager, as well as adding a panel layout changer.

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Team Comments

I bought a Raspberry Pi 4B with 8GB of RAM with the intention of using it as a desktop computer. After hopping between many desktop Linux distros, none of which fully satisfied me, I decided to make my own distro, which would combine the best components and features to create an amazing experience.

The Screen Time Limit offered by the Parental Controls app was by far the hardest feature to implement. The main challenge was programming the system to only count down when the child user using the active session, but I eventually solved it by creating /usr/bin/shock-current-user-viewer.

Shortly after releasing Shock OS 7.0 Garrett, I realized that storing the user's password in a bash variable isn't the most secure thing to do, especially without encryption. To fix this, all scripts that need root access in Shock OS 8.0 Holly will be executed with 'pkexec' for increased security.