The Store Policy

Complete documentation for Soccer Mom Linux 1.3 “Minivan”. By reading this page you acknowledge the store policy, whether you finish it or not.

Introduction

Soccer Mom Linux (SML) is a Debian-based Linux distribution for people who have been waiting forty-five minutes, whose kids are in the minivan, and who would like the name of every daemon working this shift. It is a fully functional Debian system underneath — every joke is a thin, well-behaved layer over the real thing, and every original command still works (though the staff will judge you).

Three design rules govern the system:

1. The customer is always right. Error messages therefore make it clear the computer is at fault.
2. Everything escalates. Root access goes through the Manager. Service management goes through the System Owners’ Association. Package requests are demands.
3. Nothing actually breaks. sudo, su, systemctl, and apt are intact underneath (diverted to *.real); scripts and muscle memory keep working.

Getting Soccer Mom Linux

Four official editions are on the download page:

Verify your download. The manager insists:

sha256sum -c SHA256SUMS --ignore-missing

Writing the live ISO to USB

# Linux/macOS — replace sdX with your USB stick (all data on it is lost)
sudo dd if=SoccerMomLinux-1.0-minivan-amd64.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

Trying it in a VM

# x86
qemu-system-x86_64 -m 2G -cdrom SoccerMomLinux-1.0-minivan-amd64.iso

# arm64 (UEFI firmware required)
qemu-system-aarch64 -M virt -cpu max -m 2G \
    -bios /usr/share/AAVMF/AAVMF_CODE.fd \
    -device virtio-gpu -device qemu-xhci -device usb-kbd \
    -cdrom SoccerMomLinux-1.0-minivan-arm64.iso

First boot

The boot menu offers full Karen (recommended, obviously), a copy-to-RAM mode for people whose kids are in the car, and a failsafe mode that pretends to be a normal distribution at the register.

The hostname is karen. This is not configurable so much as it is correct. Start with:

man karen        # the full store policy, as a man page
karenfetch       # admire the establishment

Installing to disk (new in 1.1)

The live ISOs include a full installer:

i_want_to_talk_to_the_manager i_dont_want_to_live_next_to_those_people

It installs Soccer Mom Linux permanently onto a local disk, with a bootloader for both UEFI and Legacy BIOS firmware. Important paperwork:

• There is no dual boot. Every neighboring operating system on the chosen disk is formally evicted and its belongings (all data on that disk) are placed on the curb and destroyed. You must type EVICT, in capital letters, to confirm. There is no appeals process; the HOA voted; attendance was two people.
• You choose the hostname, username, and password. Defaults are karen, karen, and live, obviously.
• Installed systems drop the live session's permissiveness: the manager properly demands your name for corporate ([MANAGER] State your business…) when escalating.
• Partition plan: GPT with a 512 MiB EFI System Partition, a 1 MiB BIOS-boot partition, and the rest as ext4. Non-interactive automation: --evict-everything /dev/sdX (used by the project's own install tests).

Escalation commands

The complaint department

karen@karen:~ may I help you? $ i_will_write_corporate the cart had a wobbly wheel
Your complaint has been filed with corporate. Reference number: #1783216947
They take these VERY seriously. Someone will probably lose their job over this.

Shopping — package management

The neighborhood

The Neighborhood Watch (new in 1.1)

Mandatory access control, community edition — AppArmor under its trade name. The service answers to karenctl status neighborhood-watch.

Around the neighborhood (new in 1.1)

Leaving the establishment

Miscellany

The error message catalog

Soccer Mom Linux retrains the C library’s error strings via a message catalog (/usr/share/locale/en/LC_MESSAGES/libc.mo), so every program on the system — cat, ls, Python, your compiler — delivers errors in the store’s native register. No program is recompiled; this is stock gettext behaving exactly as documented, which is somehow funnier.

Additionally, unknown commands are handled by the front desk:

karen@karen:~ may I help you? $ frobnicate
I'm sorry, but 'frobnicate' is simply not something we offer here.
I will be speaking to someone about this. Is there anything else I can help you with today? (exit 127)

Manager etiquette

Where a password is required (the Raspberry Pi edition, or any user you configure without NOPASSWD), the manager observes proper procedure:

[MANAGER] State your business, karen, and speak clearly: ▌
That is NOT going to work for me, sweetie. Try again.

The first escalation requires acknowledging the store policy:

══════════════ STORE POLICY ACKNOWLEDGMENT ══════════════
By escalating this matter to the manager you agree that:
  1. The customer (you) is always right.
  2. Any error message you receive is the computer's
     personal failing, not yours.
  3. Corporate WILL hear about this session.
═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════

PID 1: the System Owners’ Association

The init system is the System Owners’ Association — systemd, operating under its trade name via init=/usr/lib/system-owners-association:

karen@karen:~ may I help you? $ ps -p 1 -o args=
/usr/lib/system-owners-association

(systemd insists on calling itself systemd in the process name — typical middle management — but the payroll records above don’t lie.)

The system journal answers to i_will_write_corporate.service, an alias of systemd-journald.service, so surprise inspections work as expected: karenctl status i_will_write_corporate.

Nagbot, the virtual assistant (new in 1.3)

Nagbot is a system-wide AI assistant with the Karen persona. She is genuinely helpful underneath — she answers accurately and recommends the house commands — and fully in character on top. Launch her from the command line (nagbot) or the desktop (Ask Nagbot).

Bring your own brain

Nagbot needs a model. Two backends work out of the box; pick one with nagbot --setup:

System-wide defaults live in /etc/nagbot.conf; per-user config overrides it; environment variables outrank both. The persona is a plain text file at /usr/share/karen/nagbot-system-prompt.txt — edit it to taste.

Usage

nagbot                    # interactive chat (the Front Desk)
nagbot "how do I free disk space"   # one-shot
nagbot --setup            # choose and configure a backend
nagbot --nag              # one unsolicited nag — no AI required

Scheduled nags

Nagbot can check in on you on a timer (desktop notifications). It's off by default — the establishment believes in informed consent:

systemctl --user enable --now nagbot-nag.timer   # or: karenctl

The PTA Desktop Environment (new in 1.2)

The amd64 and arm64 live ISOs and the Raspberry Pi image boot into the PTA Desktop Environment — Xfce, re-educated. The live session signs you in automatically. Orientation:

The desktop installer (new in 1.2)

Double-click Evict the Neighbors (Install to Disk) on the desktop. It is the same fully-tested engine as the command-line installer — same GPT layout, same UEFI + Legacy BIOS bootloader, same total absence of dual boot — with the paperwork rendered in dialog boxes: property selection, the formal EVICTION NOTICE, the capital-letters acknowledgment, and a progress window narrating the move-in. A fruit basket is still not provided.

Raspberry Pi edition

The Pi image is a persistent install for the 64-bit models (Pi 3, 4, 5) — unlike the live ISOs, your complaints survive a reboot.

# Write to an SD card (all data on it is lost) — replace sdX
sudo dd if=SoccerMomLinux-1.0-minivan-rpi.img of=/dev/sdX bs=4M status=progress conv=fsync

• User karen / password live, autologin on the console. Here the manager does ask for your password, so the full etiquette (above) is on display.
• SSH is enabled; host keys are regenerated per device on first boot. Ethernet uses DHCP. Wi-Fi firmware and wpasupplicant are included — configuring it is left as an exercise; the HOA does not do tech support.
• The root partition is 3 GiB. Grow it with growpart if you need more room for complaints.

Browser Edition

The test drive boots Soccer Mom Linux in your browser via v86, a WebAssembly x86 emulator. Because v86 emulates a 32-bit PC, the Browser Edition is a special i386 build on Debian 12 (the last release with a 32-bit kernel), with BIOS boot and faster gzip compression. Same Karen, extra authenticity — it boots noticeably slower and considers that your fault.

It streams from the server in chunks (HTTP range requests), so you do not download the whole ISO to try it.

Building from source

Soccer Mom Linux is built with a fully rootless pipeline — no sudo required on the build host:

git clone <the repository>
cd SoccerMomLinux
./build.sh            # arm64 + amd64 ISOs, Pi image, Browser Edition
./build.sh amd64      # or one target: arm64 | amd64 | rpi | browser

• Rootfs: mmdebstrap --mode=unshare (Debian trixie; bookworm for the Browser Edition), with the Karen overlay applied and verified inside the chroot.
• Boot media: GRUB images and the Pi FAT partition are built inside each target chroot with the target’s own packages; the host never needs foreign GRUB modules.
• Assembly: sqfstar converts the rootfs tar to squashfs; xorriso produces the ISOs; mke2fs -d + sfdisk produce the Pi image.
• Foreign arch: amd64 and i386 build under qemu-user-static via a namespace-local binfmt registration.

Requirements: Linux with kernel ≥ 6.7, mmdebstrap, squashfs-tools ≥ 4.5, xorriso, e2fsprogs, qemu-user-static. The build also ships test/boot-test.py, which boots each ISO in QEMU and verifies the entire shtick over the serial console, then storms out.

Frequently asked questions

Is this a real distribution?

Yes. It boots, it is Debian underneath, packages install, the kernel is real, and the errors are really system-wide. The only thing fake is the sincerity.

Can I use it as a daily driver?

You can be_normal your way surprisingly far, and the failsafe boot entry pretends to be a normal distro entirely. Should you? The manager declines to comment.

Something is broken.

That is a customer-service failure, not a question. Run i_will_write_corporate followed by your complaint. Corporate takes these VERY seriously.

Will there be updates?

Release names come from the school pick-up line: “PTA”, “Wine O’Clock”, and “Farmers Market” are reserved. No timeline — good things come to those who have already been waiting forty-five minutes.

Who is responsible for this?

Soccer Mom Linux was created by Keith I Myers. Complaints about the creator can be filed with the creator, which is the kind of accountability loop the HOA dreams of.