1. Common tasks. These should be simple because you do them a lot. Browsing the file system, launching applications, using a password manager, sharing data over networks, and making backups - these are all tasks that should be common and should be simple for anyone to do.
2. Important tasks. These should be simple because they are necessary, even if they're not common. Installing software, connecting to new networks, adjusting displays, enabling full-disk encryption, running system updates - these should be simple so that anyone can do them when needed, with as little difficulty or friction as possible. (Admin privileges may come in to play for some of these, of course.)
If any of these tasks are not simple, there are a lot of users who simply won't do them. And that's bad for all of us.
> designing so that complexity is only exposed if you really need it.
Yeah this is the right way to do things. But again, often stuff is just ripped out rather than sensibly managed. Another example: most of the useful WiFi settings in Linux are not accessible in Gnome by default. You have to install the third party `nm-connection-editor` tool. Why? All that stuff should be accessible from Settings.
Though probably not counting the DEs as an important part of the system (and maybe they have other DEs or WMs in the repositories), one may argue that the non-GNU userland is simpler in a sense. But then again, it is presented here as a simplified desktop, while GNOME-based and KDE-based systems are on the images it provides. And it lists GNOME as its primary DE [1].
Simple does not have to mean basic.
Take Systemd for example. Chimera Linux was to implement the same functionality and be full featured. It wants to do this with a simpler, more modular, more understandable, and more maintainable design.
So you're saying they should be simple?
>unless you are a very simple person who always only does very simple things and lead a uniquely simple life
Considering the massive popularity of MacOS and iOS which all mandate the same reliable and predictable user experience on every Apple device, most people are "very simple" persons who "do very simple things and lead a uniquely simple life".
The power user paradigm of old that expose all the knobs and dials and levers there are to pleasure us simply does not appeal to the commons.
If anything, their biggest criticism is that they're not capable enough for many productivity workflows.
I feel that I wasted years of my life changing UI themes and colors since Windows 3 and MacOS 7, and, frankly, I have never felt tempted to do anything like that since Gnome Desktop. On the more vanilla Gnomes I don’t even change the wallpaper.
Everyone who makes software, always follow this formula on your homepage: clearly state what problem exists without your software, show your software, clearly state what problems go away with your software, then describe its actual features
https://github.com/nixos-bsd/nixbsd
I came across it earlier today.
Other options are available though and there is even a KDE live bootable image. I use Chimera Linux with KDE.
An official Debian GNU distribution using the kernel of FreeBSD instead of the Linux kernel.
https://wiki.debian.org/Debian_GNU/kFreeBSD
Development of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD officially terminated July 2023 due to lack of interest and volunteers.
I think if they're aiming for simplicity, start with the installer. And no, "read the instructions" isn't making it simpler.
The installer also supports a bunch of advanced features, like scripting an automated install. OpenBSD is also some of the cleanest and simplest code I've ever read.
Chimera OS: https://chimeraos.org/
Chimera Linux: https://chimera-linux.org/
“The system also has no relation to ChimeraOS, besides the unfortunate name similarity. ChimeraOS used to be called GamerOS and renamed itself to ChimeraOS later; however, at this point Chimera Linux was already in public development with its name in place.”
I have always been a GNU user but have been using Chimera Linux. I ran into differences with ‘sed’ and read about a regex difference with “find’. Really curious what flags other people are using.
I was forced to get used to BSD syntax when I switched to MacOS but now I prefer it...
But that's the opposite of a simplified desktop
Apple can get away with all of that because they're a trillion dollar company, but unlike Apple, the power of the open source community doesn't stem from an unimaginable pile of cash, but from interoperability and cooperation.
A few months ago, someone wrote a blog post[1] cataloguing many of these issues. One thing not mentioned was the lack of a caps/num lock on-screen indicator, this is a feature that is present in GNOME 2, MATE, XFCE, Cinnamon, KDE, and Windows 7/8/10/11 out of the box and toggleable in their settings window. The only way to gain this functionality in GNOME is through a third-party extension. Many laptops continue to be manufactured without a caps/num lock indicator on their keyboard, it's insane this isn't a supported feature in GNOME.
I don't get the feeling that GNOME team has ever implemented accessibility research in their design choices. For those with disabilities, GNOME is unnecessarily difficult to use [2][3].
[1]: https://woltman.com/gnome-bad/
[2]: https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/s3vvot/state_of_acce...
[3]: https://lobste.rs/s/3bdlpn/thread_on_deterioration_accessibi...
On systems with both a hard drive and ssd (since on most distros /(s)bin and /lib* are sym links into /usr, most binaries are ultimately in /usr), my recent preference is to have the hard drive as / and ssd as /usr (then sym link or bind mount there as needed for things that could use the speed, like Steam). Am I the only one who thinks this way or am I way off?
Edit: it can also be a write cache but that’s more tricky, usually with a battery backed hardware raid it’s fine
It really highlights how the relationship with computers is changing.
The goals of Chimera Linux have little at all to do with the UI. In my view, Chimera Linux is highly innovative and disruptive. Yet, some people can look at it and genuinely wonder what it does differently or what the point of it is at all. Fascinating.
But Chimera goes beyond the BSD model in several ways. For example, it aims to bring the Systemd feature-set while avoiding Systemd.
It also uses pipewire and Wayland.
As mentioned elsewhere, the Chimera Linux founder also found the FreeBSD packaging system to be lacking.
Chimera Linux also aims for stateless /etc and /var.
There is a lot more to Chimera Linux than the userland.
Making the system configuration declarative, reproducible builds, etc., would also be a bonus, but I wouldn't consider those hard requirements.
I realize snapshots are a feature of some filesystems, which partially addresses this, but I would rather have this feature at the OS level.
There is a file, /etc/apk/world that lists all the packages you have explicitly installed. When you add and remove packages, all it really does is change this list. Then it runs the solver and installs the package versions and dependencies required. You could move /etc/apk/world to another system and it would result in exactly the same set of packages between the two.
Replacing /etc/apk/world to any previous state will “roll back” the system to that point.
The package manger is transactional and apk commands either entirely succeed or fail. When I was testing Chimera in a VM, I ran out of drive space during an install of dozens of packages. The system was left in the same state as it was in before I ran apk.
Cports itself is very declarative. Also, unlike most distros (including Arch) there is no separate install and update step. Other than the kernel, and maybe a couple others, nothing runs after the package install.
Finally, Chimera Linux is aiming for stateless /var and /etc.
Chimera Linux may be closer to what you want than you expect.
> Replacing /etc/apk/world to any previous state will “roll back” the system to that point.
That's not quite what rollback means, though.
Say that a new version of a display driver crashes my display server. With NixOS I could reboot into a previous configuration and have a working system in no time. If I have to keep track of /etc/apk/world changes myself, and boot into recovery mode or chroot to fix this manually, it takes time, effort and frustration I'd rather not have to deal with.
Stateless /var is a good idea, but I'm not sure it would address this problem.
In any case, I'll definitely keep an eye on Chimera. We need more distros that are not derivatives, and try to do something different. Wishing the team the best of luck, and hoping the project succeeds!
I was expecting something more like the ststem76 Pop OS kinda thing when I read this.
Chimera is not even out of beta and it already includes GNOME, KDE, XFCE, LXQT, and others. The founder uses GNOME but Chimera users do not have to.
Chimera Linux started off as a rewrite of the Void source packaging system. One of the complaints was using shell scripts for package templates. Chimera cports uses Python. Cports builds the binary packages (for apk 3).
I would personally go with something like Lua - small, trivial to embed, multiple implementations to pick from, etc. It would fit exactly where the shell falls short.
For me, one of my favourite things about Chimera Linux is that it is both everything I want from Linux and 100% immune to being called GNU/Linux.
Chimera Linux: no Glibc, no GNU utils, no GCC, and no Systemd. As a user, I am finally free.
We should consider “freedom from being labelled GNU/Linux” as “the 5th freedom”.
You're pointing out, in other words, that UNIX/POSIX is what matters, regardless of the package.
