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 under multiverse.

This is a very different approach from heavily ideological distributions,

some of which don't even support many packages/features many find useful.

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.