
Stali is a static Linux distribution - kristianpaul
https://sta.li/
======
throwaway33339
Ah, the suckless philosophy - making everything as terse, austere and
featureless as possible in the name of 'simplicity'. It's a wonder so few
people want to adopt it.

To get a further glimpse into that philosophy check this out:
[http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/](http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/) and
recoil in horror as literally everything you've ever used (and sometimes even
_liked_ ) is deemed _harmful_. There also used to be some more _ahem_
'controversial' content which I assume was removed to get with the current
times.

~~~
Barrin92
what I never understood about the philosophy is their definition of
simplicity. For example all their terminal software and so on basically
requires configuration in C and every time you change one thing you have to
recompile it, and everything is one big mush of code. And when you want to
patch something you have to apply diffs in the right order and pray. That's
not simple, that's spaghetti code.

Modularity and proper configs produce more lines of code, but it's actually
simpler in human terms.

~~~
inamiyar
Simplicity of implementation vs simplicity of use (as well as simplicity for a
beginner vs simplicity for an advanced user). A suckless tool (lets say st) is
a simpler _implementation._ Easier to port, less likely to have bugs, less
likely to have security issues, etc. Features are added under patches, as it's
easier to add a feature then take one out.

If it helps think of it as how much of programming is dedicated to reducing
complexity, breaking things down, abstracting to core components, etc.

I do use a lot of suckless utilities but from personally experience running
Alpine as a daily driver for ~3 months I can't in good conscience recommend a
MUSL distribution, despite the fact that in my opinion Alpine does everything
else right.

~~~
ziml77
If it actually is common to customize with patches as GP suggests then it
seems like you're MORE likely to run into security issues.

~~~
inamiyar
Hmm, why would that be? The patches are all vetted by the suckless people, but
there might be something I'm not thinking of.

~~~
ziml77
I was thinking of the possibility of bad interactions between multiple
patches. But maybe in practice that's not actually a problem. It was just what
came to mind when I read that bit.

------
kristianpaul
"stali is a static linux distribution based on the original pre-2010 plans of
the suckless.org project, however since 2018 it became independent from
suckless.org and is maintained by Anselm solely."

------
lproven
There are other such things:

• [http://morpheus.2f30.org](http://morpheus.2f30.org)

Perhaps, arguably:

• [https://k1ss.org](https://k1ss.org)

There were more:

•
[http://web.archive.org/web/20141218065305/http://starchlinux...](http://web.archive.org/web/20141218065305/http://starchlinux.org/)

•
[http://web.archive.org/web/20150212085658/http://bifrost.slu...](http://web.archive.org/web/20150212085658/http://bifrost.slu.se/)

------
sacomo
Should have just ran with it and called in StaLin.

~~~
bitwize
Except that name is taken -- by a Scheme compiler:
[https://engineering.purdue.edu/~qobi/software/](https://engineering.purdue.edu/~qobi/software/)

~~~
bjoli
We all know: Stalin brutally optimizes. Iirc it is still one of the faster
scheme compilers. Sure, Chez will probably run more stable, but I for numeric
code or when the full program optimization can work it's magic in ways that
other scheme compilers can't it produces faster code than all other compilers.

Last time i checked it was the most capable at optimizing type inference in
the presence of mutation. Where most other schemes just did boxing, Stalin
produced nice and fast code.

------
raffraffraff
Are the resource overheads of a dynamically linked system really that
important in 2020, considering that Linux has always been famous for being
able to run on low spec hardware?

Musl has its problems too. I've stopped using alpine as a docker base image to
avoid having to sink time into fixing occasionally compatibility issues (pip,
Java)

~~~
eschaton
Dynamic linking overhead was not that significant in the late 1980s on 25MHz
68030 and 68040 systems. Only in an overwhelmingly large system will that
fraction of a fraction of a percent matter significantly.

------
5986043handy
Is this stable to use as a daily driver?

~~~
addicted
From the link:

> Note that stali in its current form is totally experimental. Use at your own
> risk.

So I’d say probably not yet.

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rvz
Love the modern approach to the project and breaking legacy technologies and
the use of statically linked binaries, but the name is... err...

I can see why a letter is missing, even when it specific to linux. So removing
the 'n' is, well saving you from a puzzling name revolt.

linux + static = Stalinux?

I'm sure you know there's something wrong here.

~~~
type0
> but the name is... err...

Nothing is wrong with the name and you are free to fork it and name it Hitle
if you want.

edit: s/ I'm sure it would be a big hit /s it should be Hitli then

~~~
denysvitali
HitLE, where obviously LE stands for Little Endian

------
lionkor
tl;dr: shared libraries considered harmful

