# Everest Linux - About

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## About Everest

Everest Linux is a source based Linux meta-distribution, with a focus on simplicity and flexibility.

## History

2021 - The idea of a packaging system that combined the simplicity of binary based packaging with the power of source based packaging was proposed.

Early 2022 - Early prototypes of Glacier were created. These versions came with no multi-repository support, caching, or logging of any kind.

Mid 2022 - Glacier v1 releases. This was the first stable release of Glacier.

Early June 2022 - Glacier v2 is released.

Late June 2022 - everestlinux.org is registered.

September 2022 - Different ways of bootstrapping a base system are tested by the development team.

October 2022 - Glacier v3 is released.

December 2022 - System image builds done by the development team.

## Design Principles

Our design principles heavily influence and guide development. You may notice we share many of these with Arch.

Simplicity

We follow the UNIX philosphy when possible. Programs should do one thing, and do it right. Our packages have almost zero modifications from upstream. The base system contains only what you need to start building your system. The base Everest system also weighs in at around 100 MB

Flexibility

Everest is designed with flexibility in mind. Any modification can be achieved if the user has enough knowledge. For example, it is possible to replace Busybox with sbase, or use runit as your init system, all without breakage.

Functionality versus Ideology

The developers of Everest are strong advocates of free software, but understand that it cannot be implemented 100% of the time, such as in the form of drivers. We also understand that some users may prefer proprietary software over libre counterparts. We take no steps to prevent proprietary software in our package database, only requiring it to be licensed as such. This is a very different approach from heavily ideological distributions, some of which remove support for certain programs on a purely ideological basis.

User Centrality

We believe that instead of trying to make Everest easy to use out-of-the-box, we should instead focus on improving functionality for experienced users.