Introducing Keru OS

Keru (ける) is a Linux distribution built on a deliberately unusual premise: the distro holds no opinion about your system. Not a light opinion, not a sensible default disguised as neutrality — no position at all.

Most distributions are an answer to "who decides what your system is?" and the answer is usually "the maintainers, wisely." Keru's answer is different: you decide, at install time, and the distro builds exactly that.

What that means concretely

• Init is a choice. runit, s6, openrc, systemd, busybox-init, sysvinit, dinit, shepherd — side by side, weightless.
• Your C library is a choice. glibc, musl, uclibc-ng.
• Your filesystem is a choice. ext4, btrfs, xfs, zfs, f2fs, jfs, reiserfs.
• Your kernel is a choice. linux, linux-lts, hardened, cachyos, zen.
• Even sudo is a choice. doas, sudo, opendoas, or su.

And it's source-only. The whole system — toolchain included — is compiled from original source by Kama, a package manager that's a ~225-line shell script. There are no binary packages, no opaque machinery, no background assumptions.

Why

Because "you get s6 and XFS whether you like it or not" is a fine stance for a distro that wants an opinion — but it's a burden for anyone who wants a system that is theirs. Keru's only opinion is that you have to form one. After that, it builds exactly what you chose.

Read the full philosophy, or follow progress here.