Alinux

Alinux is an AI orchestration shell for a minimal Debian 12 desktop running Fluxbox. It converts natural-language requests into a small, validated set of desktop actions.

Install

python3 -m venv .venv
. .venv/bin/activate
python -m pip install --upgrade --no-cache-dir --index-url https://pypi.org/simple 'alinux[openai]'
python -c "import alinux; print(alinux.__version__)"

The base package has no compiled model dependency. Use python -m pip install alinux when running without an LLM, or install the openai extra for OpenAI, Groq, and other OpenAI-compatible providers.

For model access, export a key and optionally choose a provider/model. Any OpenAI-compatible API can be configured with a custom endpoint:

export ALINUX_API_KEY='your-key'
export ALINUX_MODEL='gpt-4o-mini'
export ALINUX_API_BASE_URL='https://your-provider.example/v1'

To use the built-in Groq/Llama configuration from the command line, set your Groq key and pass the flag:

export GROQ_API_KEY='your-groq-key'
alinux --use-default-groq-api

The flag selects llama-3.3-70b-versatile and Groq's API endpoint. It does not embed or fetch a secret key.

Groq is supported directly, including Alinux's built-in open model preset:

export ALINUX_PROVIDER='groq'
export ALINUX_API_KEY='your-groq-key'
alinux

With ALINUX_PROVIDER=groq and no model override, Alinux uses llama-3.3-70b-versatile at Groq's OpenAI-compatible endpoint. You can also select it explicitly with ALINUX_MODEL=llama-3.3-70b-versatile.

The desktop hooks expect xdotool, amixer, free, and uptime. Missing tools are reported as readable responses rather than terminating Alinux.

Run

alinux

Open the graphical Alinux window from a terminal with:

alinux open

To add Open Alinux to the Fluxbox desktop context menu, run this once inside the Fluxbox session:

alinux install-fluxbox-menu

Then restart or reconfigure Fluxbox. The installer uses the active Python interpreter and writes GUI errors to ~/.cache/alinux/gui.log, so menu launches continue to work even when Fluxbox has a minimal PATH. It updates ~/.fluxbox/menu without replacing your existing entries. The GUI requires Debian's python3-tk package and a valid DISPLAY.

Type requests such as show system status, turn the volume down, or open the terminal. Enter quit or press Ctrl-D to exit.

Alinux never executes arbitrary shell text from the model. Only the operations listed in its system prompt and system_controls.py are routable.