Freedom to choose, customize, create, and distribute is what Linux is known for. That is why we have more than 500 active Linux-based operating systems. In addition to the same, we’re going to have another new Linux distribution called Serpent OS, which is currently under heavy development.
Serpent OS is a new project announced by Ikey Doherty, who is currently CEO at Lispy Snake and also ex-leader and founder of Solus OS. He is the person who gave us one of the most beautiful Linux distribution Solus OS and desktop environment Budgie.
Now, he is creating a truly modern Linux Distribution with notably different goals from the mainstream offering. To know what it means to say, you have to know what Serpent Linux is not going to be.
What Serpent Linux Isn’t
As Ikey says, if you’re looking for modern, lightweight, user-friendly, and privacy-focused Linux desktop distribution, then you’re in the wrong place. Serpent is not a ‘GNU/Linux’ distribution as it will be independent of the GNU toolchain or runtime.
Serpent dev team aims to build a Linux distribution for people who want to use Linux, not a “Linux-based-OS,” focusing on interoperability with macOS-plus-Windows. In simple words, Serpent Linux is not an operating system for everyone.
Rather, it’s an advanced Linux distribution that will be both modular and optimized for modern machines. Hence, you should consider it if you want to use Linux distribution as Linux.
Serpent OS: Linux Distro For Modern Machines
I guess you now have enough idea what Serpent Linux is going to be. It definitely won’t be for beginners and people who want to run it on their older hardware.
On top of that, Ikey also says that Serpent might not ship proprietary driver support that holds back the development of Linux. For instance, NVIDIA and their lack of support for accelerated Wayland support on their GPUs. Therefore, they might blacklist the NVIDIA proprietary drivers from the Serpent distribution.
Though a clear picture of what Serpent will include and what not is not out yet. But here are some features revealed so far.
- Systemd init system
- No more usrbin split
- 100% clang-built throughout (including kernel)
- musl as libc, relying on compiler optimizations instead of inline asm
- libc++ instead of libstdc++
- LLVM’s binutils variants (lld, as, etc.)
- Mixed source/binary distribution
- Moving away from x86_64-generic baseline to newer CPUs, including Intel and AMD specific optimizations
- Capability based subscriptions in package manager (Hardware/ user choice / etc)
- UEFI only. No more legacy boot.
- Completely open-source, down to the bootstrap / rebuild scripts
- Seriously optimised for serious workloads.
- Third party applications reliant on containers only. No compat-hacks
- Wayland-only
- Fully stateless with management tools and upstreaming of patches
Speaking of release dates, the project is currently in a stage1 bootstrap phase, with stage2 ready. The process of establishing the project is underway and development will properly start by the end of July 2020.
What do you think of the upcoming Serpent Linux? Do we really need a new Linux distribution? Do share and comment.
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