Author Topic: [DEV] Trying out Chimera Linux  (Read 1340 times)

tle

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[DEV] Trying out Chimera Linux
« on: October 30, 2022, 07:31:01 pm »
Please note the distro is still being in heavy development

This Linux distro is developed by q66, yes the same person behind the Void Linux distro. It has distinctive differences to other distros:

* Adopt BSD userland utils
* Run musl C instead of glibc
* dinit instead of upstart or ..systemd
* support many archs for example riscv, ppc64le, x86_64, etc
* Adopt apk as package manager
* Use clang/LLVM instead of GCC
* GNOME as the de facto DE

The installation process is quite straight forward and primitive as this stage as it does not offer you any installer yet. The GNOME 43 is quite snappy compared to that of Fedora 37 despite of lacking some core gnome softwares (q66 will be adding them in the near future). Some features are not working correctly for example setting datetime in GNOME control center. There will be some hurdles to overcome to workaround GNOME integration with systemd. Overall I think this is a promising distro that would be supersede Void Linux in the near future.

« Last Edit: November 15, 2022, 05:25:46 pm by tle »
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tle

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Re: Trying out Chimera Linux
« Reply #1 on: October 30, 2022, 07:40:48 pm »
And yes it does play games nicely
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MauryG5

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Re: Trying out Chimera Linux
« Reply #2 on: October 31, 2022, 03:12:45 am »
Good news, what about navigation browsers?  Can Firefox and Chromium run like on Debian?

tle

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Re: Trying out Chimera Linux
« Reply #3 on: October 31, 2022, 08:20:06 am »
Firefox ESR runs fine. There is no package for Chromium but I don't see why it would not run
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MauryG5

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Re: Trying out Chimera Linux
« Reply #4 on: October 31, 2022, 04:38:16 pm »
Ah so currently Chromium only works under Debian, there are no packages for other distributions as far as I understand ... Too bad

DKnoto

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Re: Trying out Chimera Linux
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2022, 05:12:06 am »
I tested this distribution some time ago on my Talos II. From my perspective, the most discouraging part is Gnome.
I've been using this DE for more than a decade and with each release it gets worse and worse. Features that I care
about and that were good are disappearing. The stability of add-ons that bring back old functionality is unsatisfactory.
Before they work properly, the version of Gnome changes and the adjustment process starts from the beginning.
This takes more and more work and is frustrating. Add-ons such as DING Gtk4, for example, do not work properly
with an add-on such as Dash-to-Dock. GJS crashes every now and then, normal work becomes an ordeal.

I'm more comfortable with the concept as presented by ravynOS, I'm rooting for this project,
unfortunately at this moment there is no version for ppc64/ppc64le.
Desktop: Talos II T2P9S01 REV 1.01 | IBM Power 9/18c DD2.3, 02CY646 | AMD Radeon Pro WX7100 | 64GB RAM | SSD 1TB

ClassicHasClass

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Re: Trying out Chimera Linux
« Reply #6 on: November 02, 2022, 10:24:28 pm »
I've migrated to KDE Plasma on Fedora. Nuts to GNOME.

DKnoto

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Re: Trying out Chimera Linux
« Reply #7 on: November 03, 2022, 04:03:11 am »
I haven't used KDE in a long time, about 15 years ;-) I installed KDE on Talos II but I wasn't satisfied,
the graphics handling is somehow weird. When resizing the window, rendering runs terribly slow. But
I will try to play with it again. Configuring KDE to a usable state, I want KDE to look like my macOS
on my laptop, is tedious.
Desktop: Talos II T2P9S01 REV 1.01 | IBM Power 9/18c DD2.3, 02CY646 | AMD Radeon Pro WX7100 | 64GB RAM | SSD 1TB

ClassicHasClass

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Re: Trying out Chimera Linux
« Reply #8 on: November 03, 2022, 01:46:51 pm »
This is hardly exact, but I'm happy with what I have (combination of a modified KDE and GTK theme, hand tweaks).