 Visitor Reviews |
Chimera Linux
|
Reader supplied reviews for Chimera Linux
Average rating
9.3 from 8 review(s)
Version: 20250214
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-03-04
Votes: 8
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Chimera Linux, for the beginner it is not.
it does a very good job of getting rid of technical debt and cruft that many of the long running distors are collecting.
The beta is solid enough for me to use it as a daily driver.
I run it on a bunch of AMD64 machines and some Raspberry Pis (4 & 5) with the KDE DE.
It comes with very sane defaults and no bloat.
apk is a very pleasent packet manager and chimer's version es newer than Alpine's.
It's truely a general purpose linux distribution no matter if one wants to run a full DE, a lean bare metal server, a VM host, a vm guest or even as an docker image.
Really impressed with how well it runs.
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Version: 20250214
Rating: 9
Date: 2025-03-02
Votes: 2
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-For some obscure reason ZOOM flatpak doesn't open and I get no errors when trying to debug by running the command in a terminal
-For another obscure reason flatpak web browsers cannot access internet but firefox from the official repos works fine
-The space used by an application once its closed takes a bit of time before being gone in the task manager (with kde Plasma which isn't their flagship edition)
-I believe it's a relatively new distro that needs more polishing and I would have loved to give it a 10 but for the 3 reasons named above I cannot at the time of writing this review
-Surprisingly, I'm still going to stick to this distro because it has potential
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Version: 20250214
Rating: 9
Date: 2025-02-17
Votes: 3
|
i just installed it after the 2025 release. It is easy to install no issue. following the guide is easy but not all the instructions are on it.
I advice this distro for desktop users who seek a linux system simpler to use and easier to program with.
that's why, i think it is a great replacement to other bloat and garbage popular "user-friendly" distros.
dinit is simpler, less buggy, faster than systemd and other init system
it boots in less than 6 seconds
kde plasma and other softwares works faster than most "user-friendly" distro
Package management :
it uses apk : it is very easy to use, very simple and very fast...
which is also used by alpine, but works in different way. I find it less buggy on Chimera Linux than alpine.
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Version: 20241204
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-01-22
Votes: 12
|
Disclaimer!
This review is made through the lens of the OS being released only as a beta version. With this in mind, and combined with the unique userland + clib, one has to expect that the number of available packages is significantly less than a fully mature distro. Without the lens, I would probably give it an 8 out of 10.
End of disclaimer.
TLDR; this work-in-progress OS is incredibly well thought through, but the uniqueness in the combination of technologies may mean that it is not for you. However, if you do fit the bill, this has the potential to be one of the most sane Linux distros out there. And if you are looking for a non-systemd distro, this may very well be the one.
--
There is a FreeBSD-style (at least in my opinion) handbook to guide you through the installation and post-installation.
The installation of the OS is done from a live environment with a DE, but the installation itself is done in the terminal. If you are going for a non-encrypted setup, the instructions are easy to follow. The instructions for disk encryption are there, but there is a bit of jumping back and forth between the pages, making it easy to miss a step somewhere. That said, it definitely works, and there is great flexibility in terms of boot system and filesystems (even ZFS on root).
After installing the system, you have no desktop environment by default. This may seem daunting to some, but it means that the base installation is super fast and less complex. By following the instructions in the handbook you can then install a DE of your choice with just two lines. One to install the system, and one for enabling the display manager. In my case, I went for KDE Plasma, which installed version 6.2.5, the most up-to-date version at the time of the review.
In a previous alpha-version of Chimera, there were quite a few Chimera-specific bugs when using Plasma. However, in the latest 20241204, all of the bugs I previously encountered were gone. I like to regularly test out distros as a hobby, and Plasma on Chimera is definitely one of the snappiest so far.
For the Linux kernel, you have options to follow the latest stable or LTS releases, with or without ZFS support. And the package manager is APK 3, which is very fast.
The package repo is not huge, but there is flatpak support available. I personally am not the biggest fan of flatpaks unless they are verified, but with musl + llvm, it makes sense that the repo is a bit limited for now.
All in all, I love the idea of this OS, and the developers have come very far the last couple of years. And it looks like it will just keep on getting better and better.
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Version: 20241204
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-01-05
Votes: 3
|
This operating system melt many unusual component with the Linux kernel like no other distribution as done yet, it is really interesting and the bet seem to be won, it perform really well. As well on desktops or servers, many architectures are supported.
The FreeBSD core tools man pages are very clear, dinit commands and services files are familiar for who used to systemd (bonus : dinit don't try to do tasks that are already done by other system components), the APK package manager is incredibly fast and reliable, it even allow to keep exactly the sames packages installed on multiples machine through the /etc/apk/world file, no unused dependence with APK !
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Version: 20241204
Rating: 9
Date: 2025-01-04
Votes: 2
|
Very impressed with this distribtuion.
I'm using the GNOME desktop on a recent AMD laptop with a discrete AMD card and it all just works. Flatpak even allows for Proton games.
Dinit is simple to use and the package manager is very fast.
The only drawback is the reliance on Flatpak for applications that don't work under musl libc, which undermines some of the appeal of a lightweight libc implementation.
Highly recommended for those wishing to avoid systemd and the GNU bloat, and still relevant for competent Linux users who aren't considering those factors thanks to the simple design and implementation. Thorough documentation is the icing on the cake.
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Version: 20241027
Rating: 7
Date: 2024-12-25
Votes: 0
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I tried it out in a VirtualBox virtual machine (VBoxVM). The live ISO I downloaded was labelled chimera-linux-x86_64-LIVE-20241204-plasma.iso. It is definitely an interesting distro, which is where it gets a lot of its points in this review.
Downsides
=========
Its repos are comparatively tiny (compared to say Arch or Debian; e.g. Google Chrome and Visual Studio Code are not available in their official repositories), I also found that GNOME on Wayland and LXQt doesn't launch in VirtualBox, although GNOME on Xorg, Xfce4 and Plasma on Wayland do launch. There was also a file system bug during one of my boots (post-installation) which caused the system to fail to properly launch, although most times the OS does launch successfully.
Using a BSD userland does mean that some standard GNU/Linux commands are missing like curl, wget and sudo. Can be mildly irritating to someone used to the Linux CLI.
I also found that installing VirtualBox guest additions was practically impossible, as there's no package for it in the distro's repositories and running VBoxLinuxAdditions.run from the guest additions ISO does not seem to be able to install it, even after installing make, clang and kernel headers. This too is a bit irritating if you're running Chimera from a VBoxVM.
It also not possible to enable Dinit processes from the Chimera chroot during system installation. Gives errors that seems to imply the Dinit command was not found.
I only found out the password for root, which was required to install Chimera via the CLI, only after I accessed an agetty terminal. It would be great if all terminal sessions started with a mention of the root password.
Upsides
=======
Usable, includes many unique design decisions, fast package manager (about as fast as Arch's pacman or Void's xbps), and packaging files seem pretty simple and straight forward, so I'd imagine it'd be easy to make your own packages for the distro.
Conclusion
=========
Its young age is definitely showing, as there are some aspects of it that prevent it from being a suitable distro for me just yet. But it is definitely an interesting distribution and is doing pretty well for such a relatively new distribution.
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Version: 20241027
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-11-28
Votes: 60
|
I came across Chimera Linux in 2023 when I was looking for distributions other than Artix Linux that use the Dinit init system and service manager, as it is super fast, stable and easy to use. I found the unusual combination of Chimera Linux's system components quite intriguing and tried it out. The deeper I delved into Chimera, the more I learnt about the shortcomings of other distributions. What makes Chimera so special is not a single feature, but the combination of many well-chosen components. Everything together results in a really smooth-running and stable system. The focus on reproducibility and easy cleaning of an existing installation also stands out here. The APK 3 package manager contributes a lot to this. Only the explicitly installed packages are stored in the plain text file /etc/apk/world (i.e. a kind of list of the differences to the standard system) and the rest is done by the programme that internally draws a dependency graph. If you remove a package from the list and then run 'doas apk add' or uninstall a package with 'doas apk del PACKAGE' (which is equivalent to deleting it from the list and running apk add), all dependencies that are no longer required are uninstalled. This is a much cleaner solution and much smoother than all the other package managers I have come across on Linux and OpenBSD, as the list in /etc/apk/world contains only the really relevant information and thus remains very short and manageable for humans. The fact that the much leaner doas is used instead of sudo is already an indication that Chimera Linux also uses many good solutions from the BSD world, which are otherwise rather uncommon in Linux distributions. I also think the idea of using musl libc instead of glibc, which means that Chimera Linux is not binary compatible with most other Linux distributions, but at the same time providing flatpak in the repository by default, which solves the disadvantage of a package manager that is not widely used and the lack of binary compatibility due to musl libc, is ingenious. This automatically provides sandboxing for non-open source software and software that is not provided by the distrubtion itself and solves the dependency problems of old or non-open source software. Another choice that keeps the base system clean. For lovers of ZFS, Chimera Linux also comes with well-maintained packages for this filesystem.
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Latest Reviews
Project: Chimera Linux
Version: 20250214
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-03-04
Votes: 8
|
Chimera Linux, for the beginner it is not.
it does a very good job of getting rid of technical debt and cruft that many of the long running distors are collecting.
The beta is solid enough for me to use it as a daily driver.
I run it on a bunch of AMD64 machines and some Raspberry Pis (4 & 5) with the KDE DE.
It comes with very sane defaults and no bloat.
apk is a very pleasent packet manager and chimer's version es newer than Alpine's.
It's truely a general purpose linux distribution no matter if one wants to run a full DE, a lean bare metal server, a VM host, a vm guest or even as an docker image.
Really impressed with how well it runs.
|
Project: Chimera Linux
Version: 20250214
Rating: 9
Date: 2025-03-02
Votes: 2
|
-For some obscure reason ZOOM flatpak doesn't open and I get no errors when trying to debug by running the command in a terminal
-For another obscure reason flatpak web browsers cannot access internet but firefox from the official repos works fine
-The space used by an application once its closed takes a bit of time before being gone in the task manager (with kde Plasma which isn't their flagship edition)
-I believe it's a relatively new distro that needs more polishing and I would have loved to give it a 10 but for the 3 reasons named above I cannot at the time of writing this review
-Surprisingly, I'm still going to stick to this distro because it has potential
|
Project: Chimera Linux
Version: 20250214
Rating: 9
Date: 2025-02-17
Votes: 3
|
i just installed it after the 2025 release. It is easy to install no issue. following the guide is easy but not all the instructions are on it.
I advice this distro for desktop users who seek a linux system simpler to use and easier to program with.
that's why, i think it is a great replacement to other bloat and garbage popular "user-friendly" distros.
dinit is simpler, less buggy, faster than systemd and other init system
it boots in less than 6 seconds
kde plasma and other softwares works faster than most "user-friendly" distro
Package management :
it uses apk : it is very easy to use, very simple and very fast...
which is also used by alpine, but works in different way. I find it less buggy on Chimera Linux than alpine.
|
Project: Chimera Linux
Version: 20241204
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-01-22
Votes: 12
|
Disclaimer!
This review is made through the lens of the OS being released only as a beta version. With this in mind, and combined with the unique userland + clib, one has to expect that the number of available packages is significantly less than a fully mature distro. Without the lens, I would probably give it an 8 out of 10.
End of disclaimer.
TLDR; this work-in-progress OS is incredibly well thought through, but the uniqueness in the combination of technologies may mean that it is not for you. However, if you do fit the bill, this has the potential to be one of the most sane Linux distros out there. And if you are looking for a non-systemd distro, this may very well be the one.
--
There is a FreeBSD-style (at least in my opinion) handbook to guide you through the installation and post-installation.
The installation of the OS is done from a live environment with a DE, but the installation itself is done in the terminal. If you are going for a non-encrypted setup, the instructions are easy to follow. The instructions for disk encryption are there, but there is a bit of jumping back and forth between the pages, making it easy to miss a step somewhere. That said, it definitely works, and there is great flexibility in terms of boot system and filesystems (even ZFS on root).
After installing the system, you have no desktop environment by default. This may seem daunting to some, but it means that the base installation is super fast and less complex. By following the instructions in the handbook you can then install a DE of your choice with just two lines. One to install the system, and one for enabling the display manager. In my case, I went for KDE Plasma, which installed version 6.2.5, the most up-to-date version at the time of the review.
In a previous alpha-version of Chimera, there were quite a few Chimera-specific bugs when using Plasma. However, in the latest 20241204, all of the bugs I previously encountered were gone. I like to regularly test out distros as a hobby, and Plasma on Chimera is definitely one of the snappiest so far.
For the Linux kernel, you have options to follow the latest stable or LTS releases, with or without ZFS support. And the package manager is APK 3, which is very fast.
The package repo is not huge, but there is flatpak support available. I personally am not the biggest fan of flatpaks unless they are verified, but with musl + llvm, it makes sense that the repo is a bit limited for now.
All in all, I love the idea of this OS, and the developers have come very far the last couple of years. And it looks like it will just keep on getting better and better.
|
Project: Chimera Linux
Version: 20241204
Rating: 10
Date: 2025-01-05
Votes: 3
|
This operating system melt many unusual component with the Linux kernel like no other distribution as done yet, it is really interesting and the bet seem to be won, it perform really well. As well on desktops or servers, many architectures are supported.
The FreeBSD core tools man pages are very clear, dinit commands and services files are familiar for who used to systemd (bonus : dinit don't try to do tasks that are already done by other system components), the APK package manager is incredibly fast and reliable, it even allow to keep exactly the sames packages installed on multiples machine through the /etc/apk/world file, no unused dependence with APK !
|
Project: Chimera Linux
Version: 20241204
Rating: 9
Date: 2025-01-04
Votes: 2
|
Very impressed with this distribtuion.
I'm using the GNOME desktop on a recent AMD laptop with a discrete AMD card and it all just works. Flatpak even allows for Proton games.
Dinit is simple to use and the package manager is very fast.
The only drawback is the reliance on Flatpak for applications that don't work under musl libc, which undermines some of the appeal of a lightweight libc implementation.
Highly recommended for those wishing to avoid systemd and the GNU bloat, and still relevant for competent Linux users who aren't considering those factors thanks to the simple design and implementation. Thorough documentation is the icing on the cake.
|
Project: Chimera Linux
Version: 20241027
Rating: 7
Date: 2024-12-25
Votes: 0
|
I tried it out in a VirtualBox virtual machine (VBoxVM). The live ISO I downloaded was labelled chimera-linux-x86_64-LIVE-20241204-plasma.iso. It is definitely an interesting distro, which is where it gets a lot of its points in this review.
Downsides
=========
Its repos are comparatively tiny (compared to say Arch or Debian; e.g. Google Chrome and Visual Studio Code are not available in their official repositories), I also found that GNOME on Wayland and LXQt doesn't launch in VirtualBox, although GNOME on Xorg, Xfce4 and Plasma on Wayland do launch. There was also a file system bug during one of my boots (post-installation) which caused the system to fail to properly launch, although most times the OS does launch successfully.
Using a BSD userland does mean that some standard GNU/Linux commands are missing like curl, wget and sudo. Can be mildly irritating to someone used to the Linux CLI.
I also found that installing VirtualBox guest additions was practically impossible, as there's no package for it in the distro's repositories and running VBoxLinuxAdditions.run from the guest additions ISO does not seem to be able to install it, even after installing make, clang and kernel headers. This too is a bit irritating if you're running Chimera from a VBoxVM.
It also not possible to enable Dinit processes from the Chimera chroot during system installation. Gives errors that seems to imply the Dinit command was not found.
I only found out the password for root, which was required to install Chimera via the CLI, only after I accessed an agetty terminal. It would be great if all terminal sessions started with a mention of the root password.
Upsides
=======
Usable, includes many unique design decisions, fast package manager (about as fast as Arch's pacman or Void's xbps), and packaging files seem pretty simple and straight forward, so I'd imagine it'd be easy to make your own packages for the distro.
Conclusion
=========
Its young age is definitely showing, as there are some aspects of it that prevent it from being a suitable distro for me just yet. But it is definitely an interesting distribution and is doing pretty well for such a relatively new distribution.
|
Project: Chimera Linux
Version: 20241027
Rating: 10
Date: 2024-11-28
Votes: 60
|
I came across Chimera Linux in 2023 when I was looking for distributions other than Artix Linux that use the Dinit init system and service manager, as it is super fast, stable and easy to use. I found the unusual combination of Chimera Linux's system components quite intriguing and tried it out. The deeper I delved into Chimera, the more I learnt about the shortcomings of other distributions. What makes Chimera so special is not a single feature, but the combination of many well-chosen components. Everything together results in a really smooth-running and stable system. The focus on reproducibility and easy cleaning of an existing installation also stands out here. The APK 3 package manager contributes a lot to this. Only the explicitly installed packages are stored in the plain text file /etc/apk/world (i.e. a kind of list of the differences to the standard system) and the rest is done by the programme that internally draws a dependency graph. If you remove a package from the list and then run 'doas apk add' or uninstall a package with 'doas apk del PACKAGE' (which is equivalent to deleting it from the list and running apk add), all dependencies that are no longer required are uninstalled. This is a much cleaner solution and much smoother than all the other package managers I have come across on Linux and OpenBSD, as the list in /etc/apk/world contains only the really relevant information and thus remains very short and manageable for humans. The fact that the much leaner doas is used instead of sudo is already an indication that Chimera Linux also uses many good solutions from the BSD world, which are otherwise rather uncommon in Linux distributions. I also think the idea of using musl libc instead of glibc, which means that Chimera Linux is not binary compatible with most other Linux distributions, but at the same time providing flatpak in the repository by default, which solves the disadvantage of a package manager that is not widely used and the lack of binary compatibility due to musl libc, is ingenious. This automatically provides sandboxing for non-open source software and software that is not provided by the distrubtion itself and solves the dependency problems of old or non-open source software. Another choice that keeps the base system clean. For lovers of ZFS, Chimera Linux also comes with well-maintained packages for this filesystem.
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