Haven

A Linux desktop environment built around macOS pointer feel and macOS-refugee ergonomics. Design phase.

Status

Design phase only. No code has shipped yet. This repository exists to capture the architecture, the open decisions, and the dependency on the wedge component (maccel) while evaluation work completes.

Why this exists

Linux has never shipped a desktop that macOS users actually want to switch to. The pieces exist — Sway, Hyprland, Cosmic, GNOME, KDE — but each misses something critical:

• Hyprland: beautiful but gamer-coded; not calm/professional by default
• Cosmic: corporate-clean; targets Pop!_OS first, Debian second
• GNOME/KDE: their own paradigm; not a macOS analogue
• All of them: wrong mouse feel (this is the universal complaint)

Haven's pitch: the Linux desktop that macOS users land on — pointer feel nailed, dock + top bar + Spotlight-style launcher with macOS aesthetics, integrated with the Tebian puzzle menu.

Why this is empty

Three dependencies must resolve before code lands:

1. maccel ships first. It's the standalone wedge — a mouse acceleration daemon that brings macOS pointer feel to any compositor. Haven's value proposition doesn't exist without it. maccel lives in its own repo and works with any DE, so it gets built and validated independently.

2. Cosmic evaluation. Cosmic (System76's DE, all OSS, Rust on smithay) has shipped ~4.5 years of work that overlaps with Haven's scope. Before reinventing, we evaluate Cosmic directly: install on Debian, live with it for a week, decide if Haven is a fork, a theme pack, or a from-scratch build.

3. Architecture lock. Based on the Cosmic evaluation, Haven becomes one of:

   • Option A — Cosmic theme pack + Tebian integration + maccel. Smallest scope, fastest to ship.
   • Option B — Fork Cosmic components, rebrand as Haven, modify UX. Middle path.
   • Option C — From-scratch smithay-based compositor. Most ambitious, longest timeline.

The decision is held until the evaluation produces real evidence.

What's locked regardless of A/B/C

• Name: Haven
• Target audience: macOS-refugee Linux users
• Distribution base: Debian (via Tebian)
• Wedge: macOS pointer feel via maccel
• Shell components (if Option B or C): launcher, dock, top bar, greeter, all sharing one design-system crate
• Tight integration with the existing Tebian puzzle menu — Haven calls the same backend scripts that already power Tebian on Sway

What's explicitly open

• Compositor base (Cosmic fork / smithay / something else)
• Whether to use libcosmic as the GUI toolkit or build a separate design-system crate
• Greeter: custom build vs. themed regreet
• Whether the launcher lives in this repo or as a standalone component

Roadmap

See PLAN.md for the full architecture, the three-option decision tree, and per-phase scope.

Related

• maccel — the mouse daemon; Haven's killer-feature dependency
• Tebian — the Debian usability layer; Haven is the desktop layer that sits on top

License

MIT — see LICENSE.