Months before Lamenix 2018, one budding distribution has already wowed event judges and stolen several awards in the package management category.

Brainchild of 23 year old Magnus Ipka, Schizo Linux features a unique package manager that has generated much buzz in the community. He explains that:

“The split package manager uses systemd-nspawn to run a sandboxed container with snapd that will download a portage toolkit to compile upstream packages from source. The compiled executables are sent to a separate container with snapd that will download the latest AppImagekit to produce an AppImage based from the resulting executables, which will then be stored in a btrfs subvolume for packages. These are then are parsed by SchizoTools and combined with the current filesystem into a virtual RPM database containing the combination of AppImages as RPMs. The resulting RPMs are then merged into a separate system image and stored as a versioned btrfs subvolume. The result is that all package installations create a complete system image that can be installed - and reverted - atomically and securely so long as you don’t have any user data you care about or productive things to do with your life. It’s genius!”

The panel of event judges, upon being presented with the Schizo Wiki, unanimously shook their slackjawed faces in clear approval, some even blankly touching their foreheads with their hands in amazement. Even with a few months before the Lamenix conference, they had already accomplished their voting forms. SchizoLinux had already won.

Community sentiment has been at an all-time high, with 6 out of Magnus’ 8 personalities feeling good about the decision. Forum membership increased 200% and the number of split packages by 500%.

Not all sectors were happy with the announcement, however.

Long-time Gentoo contributor and user Jefferey Grant threatened that “if this shit makes its way into the portage tree, I’ll-(series of expletives)”. Various gentoo users have also chimed in, claiming that their proposal to “bootstrap a portage toolkit in LXC so that they can eliminate dependency on systemd” was unfairly overlooked.

The Schizo Linux community, however, was unfazed by the criticism, citing that their rapid growth as proof that the system works.

“We’ve just hit our 6th user, and our package tree has gotten to 15 packages after 2 months of development. Things are looking great”, said one of Magnus’ personalities.