For those that like the LLVM/musl/mimalloc choices of chimera, but also want signed commits, signed reviews, container-native design, full source bootstrapping, 100% deterministic builds, and multi-party-signed artifacts check out https://stagex.tools
I was about to say I would need a newer gen card to test the new open kernel driver stack, but on some research it appears that the 2080 series was the first to support them, and with that new knowledge I realized I have a 2080Ti on hand already.
So thanks for offering yours. It made me remember I actually own one!
Now this is WHY I love UNIX and UNIX-likes, the fact you can chop and change core components like the Kernel, Userspace, Init, etc. and (within compatibility limits i.e. MUSL/GLIBC) run a hybrid system like Chimera.
Would I run Chimera as a daily-drive? Probably not. Is it cool that someone can? Absolutely!
When I last looked a few years ago, there were some efforts and successes in the far East doing "chimera Windows", mostly based on running an older userland (like XP) on a newer kernel (10).
This seems interesting, but I've been using Alpine as a desktop distro wth ZFS for years now, it has native support and ZBM is available in the community repo. Not sure what advantages Chimera would add.
I've switched to Chimera from Alpine a few months ago. It's much nicer for desktop use. The service supervision is great, and many things that require some setup on Alpine just work out of the box. The packaging system is nicer too, though it does have less stuff already packaged.
Interesting. Not sure I'll try it because I have my setup very refined (although I use awesomewm so it's maybe a little simpler to switch anyway) and I'm long past the age of testing out new distros for fun. Not to familiar with dinit but I've been waiting for s6 to be usable with Alpine for a while now. How do you think it compares?
Do you notice any performance advantages on Chimera?
I haven't used s6 much, so I can't really comment on that, but Chimera tends to boot significantly faster on the same hardware, compared to Alpine with OpenRC, mostly because of dinit's parallel initialization.
As for system performance, mimalloc's effect isn't particularly noticeable in regular use. Or maybe I just don't stress the allocator often enough. There may be more daemons running by default, but they are also activated on demand if you aren't using them, so YMMV on that.
For desktop use, it feels like an early (but already quite usable) version of what a respectable systemd replacement would look like, and I think that's its greatest strength in practice.
Alpine and Chimera however both are not reproducible or full source bootstrapped or signed and do not enforce code review. I would honestly steer clear of both for anything but low risk hobby use cases.
IMO they should be best thought of as research projects useful for reference by distros designed for production use.
if you want a stable chimera linux as a daily driver, go to voidlinux.org. chimera linux started as a void linux fork until it became it's own thing. they share the same dna. cbuild started as a xbps-src fork.
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So thanks for offering yours. It made me remember I actually own one!
Would I run Chimera as a daily-drive? Probably not. Is it cool that someone can? Absolutely!
Do you notice any performance advantages on Chimera?
As for system performance, mimalloc's effect isn't particularly noticeable in regular use. Or maybe I just don't stress the allocator often enough. There may be more daemons running by default, but they are also activated on demand if you aren't using them, so YMMV on that.
For desktop use, it feels like an early (but already quite usable) version of what a respectable systemd replacement would look like, and I think that's its greatest strength in practice.
https://chimera-linux.org/docs/configuration/musl
IMO they should be best thought of as research projects useful for reference by distros designed for production use.
source: made the thing