[HN Gopher] Chimera Linux
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Chimera Linux
Author : MaximilianEmel
Score : 35 points
Date : 2023-12-16 20:45 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (chimera-linux.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (chimera-linux.org)
| accrual wrote:
| A bit off topic, but just wanted to note that this site serves JS
| from its own domain and works fine without JS. As a new NoScript
| user I find it refreshing.
| suprjami wrote:
| > Chimera is a general-purpose OS born from unhappiness with the
| state of Linux distributions. It's built around the core idea
| that a simple system does not have to require endless setup and
| customization to be practical.
|
| This seems disingenuous at best.
|
| Many distros already supply this feature. Debian is the most
| notable but there are many others. Install it, make any tweaks
| you want from the base install, sit on it for many years
| unchanged.
|
| Considering the next paragraph goes on to describe OpenBSD
| userland, LLVM compiler, and musl libc, it appears the aim is
| actually to build a Linux distribution without GNU.
|
| I usually steer away from projects which are defined by what they
| are not. It seems to build a community whose roots are based in
| hostility.
| mig39 wrote:
| > If that's the aim then just state that.
|
| At the top of the first page, under the Chimera Linux logo: "A
| modern, general-purpose non-GNU Linux distribution"
| darkwater wrote:
| Came here to paste the same quote, just to highlight how
| disconnected from reality can be advertising "does not have to
| require endless setup" and then describe a rolling update
| distro, focused on power users and based on FreeBSD userland
| with a Linux kernel.
| fmoralesc wrote:
| Not just not GNU: they also ditch systemd for dinit, syslog-ng
| and a bunch of homegrown plumbing:
|
| > We are also putting a lot of effort into writing fresh low-
| level plumbing. For example, Chimera comes with first-class and
| built-in support for user services and other things dependent
| on session tracking (such as a shared session bus), implemented
| from scratch thanks to our Turnstile project, finally bringing
| functionality previously only available on distributions using
| systemd. This is being implemented in a vendor-independent
| manner so that other distributions can adopt it.
| eternityforest wrote:
| It's really cool, but I get worried anytime I see something that
| seems to want to be a user friendly, mainstream distro, after
| seeing how hard Manjaro tried with the whole "Bring simplicity to
| the masses" stuff and how many issues they still have.
|
| Is this an experimental or hobby distro or does it intend to be
| something grandma can use?
|
| If I had to choose this or BSD, it looks like I'd very strongly
| considering this or something like it, but it definitely doesn't
| seem like an Ubuntu or Windows replacement. Simplicity is just
| not a factor end users consider.
|
| As a dev who likes modern software and isn't really into
| lightweight hacker friendly stuff... the odds of me using
| anything that's not at least 1% or total desktop market share is
| pretty low. Anyone who's not an Arch/Kali/BSD/suckless enthusiast
| type has a finely tuned sense of "Oh no, that makes me feel the
| same way that thinking about a project car does, I'm outta here".
|
| It could drill be a wonderful worthwhile project... but it's
| going to be an uphill battle to interest anyone but tinkerers and
| I always kind of worry about people, because this stuff takes a
| lot of time and without managed expectations it can really be a
| disappointment when it doesn't take off. I've tried several times
| to start new projects and it's been pretty hard realizing they're
| unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon.
|
| I think getting any mainstream adoption would require changing
| the entire software ecosystem in general. I would imagine there
| would be some kind of issues trying to port current mega apps
| like Steam or Chrome to this.
|
| Plus, dynamic linking seems like it's not that well suited to
| user friendly distros meant for end users.
|
| Unless you have snap or Flatpak or something like that, I don't
| see how you can have cutting edge large complex third party
| packages without at least occasional compatibility issues.
|
| My experience with dynamic distros generally hasn't been
| terrible, but it always seems like there's some issue or other.
|
| Does this have any kind of AppArmor type sandboxing?
| alberth wrote:
| > _Chimera is a non-GNU Linux distribution_
|
| Say what
| dataangel wrote:
| So they're basically saying "our system will be better because
| more things will just work" but then they decided to use
| nonstandard libc and coreutils so actually getting existing Linux
| scripts and software to work in this distro will be _harder_.
| 5- wrote:
| i really like a lot of design choices in chimera linux
| (particularly around its packaging/build system), but as a
| current alpine linux (main pc, not docker) user, i find i still
| can't justify musl. i like small simple correct software, but
| musl, despite being all of those things, is, in my experience
|
| - slower than glibc, and in occasionally difficult to predict
| spots;
|
| - causes just a bit too much trouble porting software to it --
| most upstreams are reluctant to accept patches, resulting in
| maintenance overhead for the distribution;
|
| - occasionally subtly breaks things at runtime -- e.g. both
| alpine and chimera builds of firefox have the same two crashes
| which neither the official mozilla nor archlinux builds exhibit.
|
| in the end i find i have to rely on my glibc chroot (e.g. for
| mozilla firefox build) too much for my liking.
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(page generated 2023-12-16 23:00 UTC)