Casuarina Linux

Introducing Casuarina Linux: A glibc-Based Chimera Linux Derivative

webmaster@casuarina.org (Casuarina Linux) — Sat, 16 May 2026 12:00:21 +1000

by Wesley Moore</a></p>

Casuarina Linux is an experimental, in-development Linux distribution derived from Chimera Linux</a>. It uses glibc instead of musl as libc. The motivation for this is to preserve much of the Chimera experience while remaining binary compatible with the wider GNU/Linux ecosystem. The initial x86_64</code> ISO has been published, check out thedownload page</a> to download it.</p> </a>

Casuarina is comprised of LLVM</a> toolchain, Dinit</a> init system, GNU libc</a>, FreeBSD derived core utilites</a>, and apk package manager</a>. The resulting system is compact and efficient, but still full-featured and well suited to desktop use. It may appeal to people that want a Linux distribution that’s up-to-date, doesn’t compromise on functionality, compatible, and easy to understand and contribute to.</p>

The system was bootstrapped from source using the same multi-stage process as Chimera. The use of glibc</code> complicates this because it currently requires gcc</code> to build, so the bootstrap process requires building GNU binutils</code>, gcc</code>, and then glibc</code>. After that LLVM is built and all other packages are built with LLVM. An implementation of libgcc</code> is also provided by LLVM.</p>

Packages are built with Chimera’s cbuild tool</a>, which builds all packages in an isolated sandbox. Package building is automated with Buildbot</a> at build.casuarina.org</a>. All development takes place on Codeberg</a>. Currently only x86_64</code> is supported. Eventually aarch64</code> should be supported too, but probably not any architectures beyond that.</del> For other architectures it’s better to use Chimera as there isn’t an established ecosystem of binaries to try to be compatible with.</p>

Edit 22 May 2026:</strong> Plans for aarch64</code> have been dropped. It makes more sense to use Chimera for all non-x86_64</code> use cases.</p>

The distro is still considered in-development and experimental, but it is readily usable. I’ve been daily driving it on my desktop and laptop for work and personal computing since mid-April.</p>

If any of that sound interesting I hope you’ll try it out. Be sure to read the other pages on this website too. There’s also forums for discussion atforum.casuarina.org</a>.</p>

Backstory</h2> I’ve wanted a distro like this for a long time (my earliest experiments are from 2019). Chimera Linux was exactly what I was looking for and I used it as the primary OS on my laptop from June 2023. However the reality of using a musl-based distribution on the desktop proved challenging for me. It meant I never quite made the switch on my desktop, which I also use for my day job. Some of the musl incompatibilities required compromises or workarounds. Eventually I decided to see how hard it would be to swap in glibc</code> for musl</code>, and Casuarina is the result. See the about page</a> for more details.</p> Casuarina development began in June 2025, but things really got going in February 2026 after a break in development. During that time the system was bootstrapped, the package set built, and infrastructure set up. I’ve been using it as my daily driver for a while, and am now opening it up to others, which I will admit is a bit daunting.</p>