Arch Linux (base system) as daily driver. No GUI to start with — incrementally built up to one over the following months, researching each component before implementing it. The goal was to understand the operating system, before trying to build anything that depended on one.
About
mastertac
Self-taught software engineer with a systems focus — C, Unix, and the design decisions that outlast the decade they were made in.
Background
I've been taking things apart since I can remember — electronics, mostly. Not destructively; methodically. Each component examined and researched before anything was put back together. When reassembly revealed brokenness, that became the next problem to solve. I still do this, to this day.
Software followed the same pattern. My early interest in software and operating systems was almost entirely surface-level — interfaces, configurations, what you could and couldn't modify, what made certain things feel right and others feel wrong. The code underneath was invisible to me then, but I wanted to get to it.
That impulse — understand how something works before building on top of it — is the through-line behind most of what I've built. The timeline below is where that starts to have a record.
Timeline
2022 DEC
2023 JUN
Began studying Python programming, computer science fundamentals, and advanced mathematics with a concentration on AI/ML.
2023 OCT
Completed Harvard University's CS50x. Began working in C.
2024 FEB
Began working to obtain employement as a developer; focus shifted to front-end web development, due to its percieved lower barrier-to-entry for employment in the field.
2024 AUG
Full commitment to C as the default language for as much as possible (within reason).
2024 OCT
Early bootloader and boot manager development attempts; the beginning of OS development work.
2025 MAR
Investigated *BSD; switched to Chimera Linux. Unix philosophy, standards compliance, and software design principles started to solidify into conviction around this time.
2025 MAY
SysAI. A local AI/ML system built as a first-class Unix service — daemon, IPC boundary, thin client. The work is as much about understanding the domain as it is about the software itself.
2025 SEP
Pedigree. The concept and its design language predate this; the code starts here. I've wanted to build an operating system for as long as I've been interested in them. I now have just enough knowledge to begin, and not quite enough to know what I'm getting into.
2025 OCT
The relationship with software development changed — less a career pursuit, more a permanent fixture. The employment goal remained, the desperation behind it did not.
2025 NOV
Switched to Linux Mint. The shift in my relationship with software development called for an environment that supported the work, without demanding attention of its own.
2026 JUL
Began developing this here website. Part portfolio, part journal — somewhere to put the work and let the journey speak for itself. My first contribution to an external project, and it's open-source!
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