In Parts 1 and 2, we covered the physical hurdles that we overcame to bring the Comet to life. But a powerful machine is nothing without a soul

We didn't want to just ship another generic skin; we wanted to build an environment that felt native to the Mecha ecosystem. Introducing the NEW Mechanix OS. Here is why we built it, how it works, and why it changes everything for the Comet.d

Mechanix OS

Kernel, Bootloader

We are currently testing with Kernel versions 6.12 and 6.6, and we continue to work on getting the hardware stabilised. Our WIP kernel patches are being pushed here

Linux (downstream): https://github.com/mecha-org/linux/tree/imx-6.12.20-rev6

Yocto Layer: https://github.com/mecha-org/meta-mecha-imx/tree/development/recipes-kernel/linux/files

Why two sources? A - We use yocto to test hardware because of a number of reproducibility features it offers out of the box, and once verified we move it to the kernel repo and use it in the debian image.

Note - these are still WIP patches, once our checklist is completed and DVT is in production we will formalize the patches.

For the bootloader, we are currently using downstream NXP U-Boot with these patches https://github.com/mecha-org/meta-mecha-imx/tree/development/recipes-bsp/u-boot/files; mainline U-Boot is being tested in parallel.

Debian 13 Build

Last month, we updated our mecha-make build system to switch to Debian 13. We are currently on the fence, and yet to decide between the Fedora, Ubuntu and Debian, we have heard everyone, and we think there are pros and cons on all sides.

To help our own testing efforts, we are running daily images for the Debian rootfs on Github Actions - https://github.com/mecha-org/mecha-make/actions/workflows/debian-build.yml - I just published the latest one.

The rootfs includes our launcher and native apps integrated with labwc. We will publish guides to run on QEMU sometime next week; this is on our to-do list.

You can easily build locally too using the guide mentioned on the README (https://github.com/mecha-org/mecha-make)

We also use the amazing Pulp Project (https://pulpproject.org/) for our custom debian and rpm repositories,

Mecha Debian Repository: http://pkg.mecha.so/pulp/content/comet-deb/

Now lets talk about our design and GUI apps.

Design System

You have seen our low-fidelity wireframes shared earlier. We are now expanding further into it; our design team is busy getting a more formal design system ready that we can publish on our docs and provide more resources for everyone to get started with building apps for Mechanix OS and the Comet. We also onboarded an experienced motion designer to work with us a few months back. He is helping us set an interaction and motion language for the GUI that is unique to Mechanix OS and expands on Comet's uniqueness and eccentric hardware and form.

Here is a sneak peak of what kind of interactions we are working on -

If you are like me and love good design or want to see more of how it is shaping up, check out - https://mechasystems.notion.site/mecha-design-system-preview

Mechanix Flutter Components

As most of you know we are using Flutter, and to make it easier to build flutter apps for the Comet and also port existing apps, our team is building our own Widget library and Theming system for flutter.

You can check our widget library here - https://github.com/mecha-org/mechanix.dart

Native Apps

Since September we started building our native apps using Flutter, starting with (1) Files (2) Settings (3) Notes and (4) Music. We were able to demo them at IndiaFOSS 2025, here is a quick video of the apps running on the new Comet.

You can find their source code here, and also steps on how to run them locally -

Files App : https://github.com/mecha-org/mechanix-gui/tree/pre-release/apps/files
Settings App: https://github.com/mecha-org/mechanix-gui/tree/pre-release/apps/settings
Notes App: https://github.com/mecha-org/mechanix-gui/tree/pre-release/apps/notes
Music App: https://github.com/mecha-org/mechanix-gui/tree/pre-release/apps/music

Our team right now is focused on improving code quality and performance by profiling directly on the device and improving maintainability.

Thats it, thank you for reading these updates! See you tomorrow with the next one.