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Work · August 17, 2019

distri: a Linux distribution to research fast package management

Over the last year or so I have worked on a research linux distribution in my spare time. It’s not a distribution for researchers (like Scientific Linux), but my personal playground project to research linux distribution development, i.e. try out fresh ideas.

distri: a Linux distribution to research fast package management launched on August 17, 2019 with 92 votes, #378 of 3,185 launches that month and more than 90% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 7 years on.

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In plain words

Distri is a Linux distribution designed for researching rapid package management systems. Created by Michael Stapelberg, it focuses on exploring methods to speed up package installation and system updates. The distribution serves software developers and researchers interested in package management optimization. It emphasizes practical experimentation with alternative approaches to traditional Linux package handling, making it particularly relevant for those studying distribution infrastructure and performance improvement.

written from the facts on this page · September 2026

From the sources

Over the last year or so I have worked on a research linux distribution in my spare time. It’s not a distribution for researchers (like Scientific Linux ), but my personal playground project to research linux distribution development, i.e. try out fresh ideas. This article focuses on the package format and its advantages, but there is more to distri, which I will cover in upcoming blog posts . I was a Debian Developer for the 7 years from 2012 to 2019, but using the distribution often left me frustrated, ultimately resulting in me winding down my Debian work . Frequently, I was noticing a large gap between the actual speed of an operation (e.g. doing an update) and the possible speed based…from michael.stapelberg.ch

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