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Just Enough Chimera Linux ☯ Daniel Wayne Armstrong

✨ Check out this awesome post from Hacker News 📖 📂 **Category**: 📌 **What You’ll Learn**: Last edited on 2026-04-03 • Tagged under #chimera #linux #zfs #encrypt #zfsbootmenu Chimera Linux is a delightful community-driven Linux distribution built from scratch that does things differently: musl instead of the typical glibc for C library, dinit over systemd for system init, and a userland derived from FreeBSD…

https://viralpique.com/just-enough-chimera-linux-%e2%98%af-daniel-wayne-armstrong/

Just Enough Chimera Linux ☯ Daniel Wayne Armstrong - viralpique.com

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Ruben Apr 2

Thanks everyone for voting and the super helpful advice!

This is my current game plan for Saturday:
- Debian root on ZFS with xfce
- She'll be a regular user with no privileges, but can install Flatpaks via the Warehouse app (https://flathub.org/en/apps/io.github.flattool.Warehouse )

Some open points:
- I'm not sure whether I'll use grub (using the openzfs guide https://openzfs.github.io/openzfs-docs/Getting%20Started/Debian/Debian%20Trixie%20Root%20on%20ZFS.html ) or zfsbootmenu (https://docs.zfsbootmenu.org/en/v3.1.x/guides/debian/uefi.html )
- Related to ZFS DKMS: to unattended upgrades or not? I don't know how high the risk is of breaking the system via a botched kernel upgrade.
- On another SSD, she'll keep Windows. I'm a bit hesitant if I should synchronise files two ways somehow between windows<->zfs, or just provide the windows share in Linux (so she can just copy files she'd need incidentally in Windows)

As much as I'd like to experiment with NixOS or e.g. Chimera Linux, it's a bit too risky for this project, since I have no experience with those yet.

Anyway, just for the fun of it, here's a follow up poll re: my open questions. Voting/boosting/commenting with feedback is highly appreciated!

#Debian #Xfce #ZFS #ZFSbootMenu #poll

Boot: use grub with ZFS

Boot: use ZFSBootMenu

60%

Debian unattended upgrades work fine with ZFS

20%

Debian unattended upgrades are dangerous with ZFS

Sync Windows/Linux files (same laptop) via: ....

20%

Poll ended at Apr 5 at 9:49am.

Install Warehouse on Linux | Flathub

Manage all things Flatpak

Daniel Wayne Armstrong Apr 1

Updated post!

Chimera Linux is a delightful community-driven distribution built from scratch that does things differently: `musl` instead of the typical `glibc` for C library, `dinit` over `systemd` for system init, and a userland derived from FreeBSD core tools.

I show the choices I make to create an encrypted, minimal system with "just enough" to provide a solid foundation to build upon further:

https://www.dwarmstrong.org/chimera-install-zfs/

#ChimeraLinux #ZFS #ZFSBootMenu

Just Enough Chimera Linux ☯ Daniel Wayne Armstrong

Libre all the things

Daniel Wayne Armstrong Mar 31

Chimera Linux does things differently: the distro is built from scratch, musl instead of glibc, init is dinit, FreeBSD userland, ...

Fresh install on my Thinkpad using OpenZFS and ZFSBootMenu. Curious to explore further. I'm thinking of a setup where Chimera is my desktop and FreeBSD on a home server.

#ChimeraLinux #musl #dinit #FreeBSD #ZFS #ZFSBootMenu

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ahoyboyhoy Mar 1

@mcc @whitequark I run root on ZFS and #zfsbootmenu on my two primary devices (desktop and laptop) and I've been very happy. Native encryption on my laptop, compression on everything. NAS FS is also zfs and I rely on incremental snapshot send for off-site backup. Rsync used to take 15 minutes just to calculate changes that need to be sent, this is essentially instantaneous now.

[email protected] has moved Feb 13

So after a week with #zfs and #zfsbootmenu on my #alpinelinux install I must say both are real gems.

Example: I made a backup of my datasets on USB SSD. You just change few zfs properties and you have not only a backup but also full, working copy of your entire system in the drawer. In case something goes wrong you can boot from it and have a great rescue system with all tools you can imagine. If a tool you need is not there you just do "apk add ...".

[email protected] has moved Feb 6

Yesterday I migrated my #alpinelinux install to #zfs and #zfsbootmenu. It was not too difficult even though I've done it from partition to partition on one drive. Although I wouldn't recommend it to a non techy person.
I even managed to compile zfs modules for my custom LLVM compiled kernels.

So not a big deal actually.
Looking at you @vermaden

MJ Turner Jan 14

@joel I've not used it with Slackware but I can highly recommend #ZFSBootMenu - https://zfsbootmenu.org/ They don't have an installation guide but I'm sure it can be done...

Overview — ZFSBootMenu 3.1.0 documentation

Daniel Wayne Armstrong Nov 30

I think Chimera Linux is an intriguing mix of components: Linux kernel, FreeBSD userland, apk package manager, (non-systemd) dinit. I checked it out briefly last year. Now I want to take a second, closer look.

Installed Chimera Linux with Root-on-ZFS with ZFS native encryption and ZFSBootMenu as bootloader on a VM. Time to explore!

#ChimeraLinux #Linux #FreeBSD #apk #dinit #ZFS #ZFSBootMenu