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+title = "Why Chimera Linux"
+date = 2024-07-04T08:48:55+10:00
+
+#[extra]
+#updated = 2024-06-04T07:49:36+10:00
++++
+
+I received a reply to my [Tech Stack 2024](@/posts/2024/tech-stack/index.md)
+post asking: Why Chimera Linux? I wrote a response that turned out longer than
+anticipated and figured I may as well post it here too. I'm not trying to
+convince you to use Chimera with this post, just note down why it appeals to
+me. That's really the crux of it: there's dozens of distros out there all with
+different goals and values and Chimera really speaks to me, for you it might be
+something else.
+
+<!-- more -->
+
+Below is a lightly edited version of my email response.
+
+---
+
+I like [Chimera Linux] because it's the closest distro I've found to what I would build
+if I was building my own (something I've tinkered with a few times over the
+years).
+
+I like that it is a comparatively small and easy to understand system without
+giving up quite as much as you do with Alpine Linux, which to be clear, I like
+as well and use on my server. The [userland from FreeBSD][userland] is capable and easy
+to understand code wise, [Dinit] provides an init system with process monitoring,
+dependency tracking, and a service file format that doesn't require writing
+shell scripts like in FreeBSD and Alpine. [musl] is designed to be secure and
+uses quite straightforward implementations of libc functions while sticking
+closely to the POSIX standard. See the recent OpenSSH vulnerability where
+[remote code execution was not possible on musl based systems](https://fosstodon.org/@musl/112711796005712271).
+
+I really like the [cbuild] system for building packages. It uses a real
+programming language (Python) to define packages and share library code. This
+makes package templates easier to write and understand over Make and shell
+based packaging systems. Packages are built in an isolated sandbox, preventing
+them depending on the host system accidentally—this is definitely an advantage
+over building packages on Arch. Most run-time dependencies are automatically
+determined so you don't have to list all those out in the package template.
+
+[apk] is fast (although not as fast as Pacman when doing updates). It has a
+clever way of tracking packages where [the world file][world] specifies all the packages
+that should be present and it uses a solver to determine what needs to be
+installed/removed. The neat bit is that when you `apk del` a package it can remove all
+packages that are no longer specifically requested, whereas in Arch it's easy
+to end up with orphaned packages that are dead weight and require [manual
+maintenance to clean up](https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Pacman/Tips_and_tricks#Removing_unused_packages_(orphans)).
+
+Chimera is also a rolling distro (like Arch) so things stay up to date. There's
+a low barrier to submitting new packages and updates, you don't have to have a
+special "committer" or "developer" account, you can just open a pull request
+like any other open-source project. Packages in the repo are built
+automatically with a build bot server for all supported architectures, whereas
+I believe Arch is still working towards automated packaging. Additionally first
+class support for multiple CPU architectures allows me to run the same system
+on different devices I use such as Raspberry Pis, RISC-V single board
+computers, and hopefully eventually my new ARM based Snapdragon X Elite laptop.
+
+Having written that all out I guess Chimera feels like a distro that is
+full-featured but also simple enough that you can poke around and understand
+all the parts. It's also easy to get involved with the project.
+
+[cbuild]: https://github.com/chimera-linux/cports/blob/master/Usage.md
+[cports]: https://github.com/chimera-linux/cports
+[musl]: https://musl.libc.org/
+[Dinit]: https://davmac.org/projects/dinit/
+[apk]: https://gitlab.alpinelinux.org/alpine/apk-tools
+[userland]: https://github.com/chimera-linux/chimerautils
+[Chimera Linux]: https://chimera-linux.org/
+[world]: https://chimera-linux.org/docs/apk/world