Make distro packages the single source of truth for GTK/X11 Python bindings instead of advertising them as wheel-managed runtime dependencies. Update the uv, CI, and packaging workflows to use system site packages, regenerate uv.lock, and keep portable and Arch metadata aligned with that contract.
Pull runtime policy, audio probing, and page builders out of config_ui.py so the settings window becomes a coordinator instead of a single large mixed-concern module. Rename the config serialization and logging helpers, and stop startup logging from exposing raw vocabulary entries or custom model paths.
Remove stale helper aliases and add regression coverage for safe startup logging, packaging metadata and module drift, portable requirements, and the extracted audio helper behavior.
Validated with uv lock, python3 -m compileall -q src tests, python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -p 'test_*.py', make build, and make package-arch.
Stop aman.py from importing the GTK settings module at module load so version, init, bench, diagnostics, and top-level help can start without pulling in the UI stack.\n\nPromote PyGObject and python-xlib into main project dependencies, switch the documented source install surface to plain uv/pip commands, and teach the portable, deb, and Arch packaging flows to install filtered runtime requirements before the Aman wheel so they still rely on distro-provided GTK/X11 packages.\n\nAdd regression coverage for importing aman with config_ui blocked and for the portable bundle's new requirements payload, then rerun the focused CLI/diagnostics/portable tests plus py_compile.
Implement milestone 2 around a portable X11 release bundle instead of\nkeeping distro packages as the only end-user path.\n\nAdd make/package scripts plus a portable installer helper that builds the\ntarball, creates a user-scoped venv install, manages the user service, handles\nupgrade rollback, and supports uninstall with optional purge.\n\nFlip the end-user docs to the portable bundle, add a dedicated install guide\nand validation matrix, and leave the roadmap milestone open only for the\nremaining manual distro validation evidence.\n\nValidation: python3 -m py_compile src/*.py packaging/portable/portable_installer.py tests/test_portable_bundle.py; PYTHONPATH=src python3 -m unittest tests.test_portable_bundle; PYTHONPATH=src python3 -m unittest tests.test_aman_cli tests.test_diagnostics tests.test_portable_bundle; PYTHONPATH=src python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -p 'test_*.py'