About Ragnarok
Ragnarok is a Gentoo-based Linux® distribution whose purpose is to be small, simple, Unix-like and hardened by default. One of its core principle is to provide a fully functional base system while remaining as minimal as possible.
In essence, the Ragnarok project provides a custom Gentoo stage 4 archive, along with extra package sets (eg. X11, Virt) which can be cherry-picked upon system installation. Only "base" is mandatory, while other sets are optional.
Note that the base system does not include extra programs such as web browsers, video players, files managers, etc. It is up to the user to install what is desired.
Ragnarok is not associated with the Gentoo project, and using their distribution as a base does not imply that the Gentoo project supports Ragnarok in any way.
Base and Third Party Packages
All packages from the base system are provided, and upgradeable, as binaries, while packages not found in the base system may be compiled from source using Ragnarok and Gentoo's ebuild repositories. This puts Ragnarok in between a binary and source based distribution.
Ragnarok strives to give users the same level of ultimate freedom that a standard Gentoo system would. Those who wish to compile their entire system from source, using custom flags (eg. -march=native) are free to do so. Likewise, binary (pkgname-bin) packages are provided for a lot of software (for example: web browsers), either through Ragnarok's ebuild repository or Gentoo's. Likewise, Gentoo's binhost may be used.
The Ragnarok project does plan on providing their own binhost in the future.
Development Guidelines
The project is developed while abiding to the following guidelines:
- Build as many packages with LLVM/Clang as possible. This include using extra hardening flags as well as ThinLTO.
- The build infrastructure should be as straightforward as possible, and easily extendible so that it can be used to create customized installs.
- A lack of documentation should be considered a bug.
- Treat security as a first-class citizen and don't hesitate testing new security features in the development branch (-current).
- All tools developed by the project should be usable either together, or on their own.
- Decisions are made, and contributions accepted, on the basis of their technical merit alone.
Ragnarok's Infrastructure
Soon...