Hey there!

I'm happy to announce the availability of Hermes, a new daemon and system tray application that provides background monitoring of package updates. Originally developed for Redcore Linux — a distribution based on Gentoo Linux’s testing branch — Hermes is also available in a dedicated Gentoo-compatible branch for those who wish to integrate it directly into Gentoo systems.

Key Details

• Hermes runs as a background daemon (hermesd) to monitor the system for updates.
• A system tray application delivers notifications and quick user access.
• Users may optionally enable autostart from the tray menu for continuous availability.
• Service files for both OpenRC and systemd are provided to support different init systems.

• Source code and branches are available on Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/redcore/hermes

  redcore branch: tailored for Redcore Linux

  gentoo branch: compatible with Gentoo Linux

Installation Instructions (Redcore Linux)

Hermes is available in the Redcore Linux repositories and can be installed with:

sisyphus install app-portage/hermes

After installation, enable the daemon at boot:

rc-update add hermesd default

The system tray application can then be launched from the desktop menu. A reboot is recommended to ensure the daemon is properly initialized.

Availability

Hermes is now part of the official Redcore Linux package set and is available for all users. Users of Gentoo Linux can obtain Hermes by adapting the Redcore Linux ebuild, available here, by changing the EGIT_BRANCH and EGIT_COMMIT variables to point to the gentoo branch and commit c688b08bde0655c5ea83687139d2feffc13d8c0c and by removing app-portage/sisyphus from the dependencies to make it suitable for Gentoo Linux systems.