History

Chimera Linux started in the middle of 2021 with the goal of creating a modern non-GNU distribution. The first component of Chimera was cbuild, first imported at the beginning of June 2021 after about a month of development.

Initially, cbuild was a from-scratch rewrite of xbps-src from Void Linux. It came with a minimal set of build templates, then still based around the GCC compiler and GNU coreutils, as well as the xbps package manager, on the ppc64le CPU architecture (self-bootstrap was possible from the start).

Milestones followed:

  • June 21 2021: xbps dropped in favor of apk-tools
  • June 24 2021: gcc and binutils removed in favor of clang and elftoolchain
  • June 30 2021: coreutils removed in favor of bsdutils
  • July 4 2021: aarch64 and x86_64 support added
  • July 16 2021: cross-compiling support, riscv64 support
  • October 2021: universal unit-test and lint coverage
  • October 2021: added dinit, initramfs-tools, Linux kernel
  • October 2021: bootable system
  • November 2021: GUI support (Weston)
  • November 2021: system-wide LTO
  • December 2021: DOOM runs
  • December 2021: audio support (PipeWire)
  • December 2021: GRUB support (complete boot coverage)
  • December 2021: system-wide user services support
  • December 2021: X11 support (pekwm, Enlightenment)
  • December 2021: syslog-ng support
  • December 2021: video playback (ffmpeg, mpv)
  • January 2022: OpenSSL 3.x
  • January 2022: WebKit + Epiphany web browser
  • January 2022: GNOME desktop (Wayland, X11)
  • January 2022: Firefox web browser
  • February 2022: CKMS (Chimera Kernel Module System)
  • February 2022: ZFS support
  • February 2022: Initial live ISOs available
  • March 2022: Transition to apk-tools 3.x
  • …
  • June 11 2023: Alpha release