Linux distributions using musl
- Abyss - An independent Linux distribution based on musl and pure LLVM.
- Adélie Linux - A small, independent Linux distribution focused on delivering a high quality operating environment, aiming for POSIX® compliance, compatibility with a wide variety of computers, and ease of use without sacrificing features.
- Alpine Linux - based on musl since the 3.0 release.
- Ataraxia Linux - Independent, multi-platform, general purpose operating system based on the
Linux kernel and musl libc.
- Supports 17 different CPU architectures
- Has merged /usr for better compatibility
- Extremely bleeding edge
- Uses ZSTD where it’s possible. Kernel, modules and initrd are using ZSTD by default.
- Bedrock Linux - as of version 1.0alpha4
- bootstrap-linux - consists only of a minimal set of packages that can be crosscompiled. kernel, toolchain, busybox.
- Chimera Linux - use musl, LLVM toolchain and FreeBSD userland with Linux kernel
- Cross Linux From Scratch - CLFS uses musl since 16.10.2013 (Announcement)
- Dragora - An independent GNU/Linux-Libre distribution based on concepts of simplicity.
- Contains 100% free software. Musl is included in Dragora for the 3.0 series (back in 2012).
- Per-package directories using qi (an own package manager) and graft following the GNU stow’s spirit.
- /usr merge, offering compatibility with the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS).
- Uses sysvinit combined with perp for the supervision of critical services.
- Supports several architectures via bootstrap, but is currently available for x86 (i586+), x86_64.
- Embedded Linux From Scratch - a fork of CLFS embedded using musl libc
- 2013-09-28 Updated to correct name of toolchain used
- 2013-09-14 Updated to musl-0.9.13. Supports *-*-musl* toolchains.
- Exherbo has an x86_64 musl stage.
- Gentoo has stages for most architectures (has musl overlay for packages without mainline support yet)
- glaucus - A simple and lightweight Linux® distribution based on musl libc and toybox
- Iglunix - An independent, self-hosting, Linux distribution with no GNU software
- KISS Linux - An independent Linux distribution with a focus on simplicity and the concept of “less is more”.
- Mere Linux
- Built on the mere package manager, written in Zig, with a content-addressed immutable store and atomic upgrades
- Uses s6 for process supervision and LLVM/Clang as the primary toolchain
- morpheus - suckless linux distro
- oasis - statically linked linux distribution based on musl and other lightweight components.
- OpenWrt - defaults to musl as libc since 2015 (OpenWrt-commit) except for (as of April 2025) arc CPU ISA (OpenWrt-reference)
- sabotage - experimental Linux distribution based on busybox and musl.
- About 700 packages including X11, LXDE, alsa, SDL, C++.
- Supports i386, x86_64, arm, mips, powerpc
- Uses lightweight replacements for netlink, pkg-config, and gettext
- Optimized for build speed and small binary size
- Per-package directories following stow/gobolinux spirit
- Snowflake
- Includes only of a minimal set of packages that can be crosscompiled. (Kernel, toolchain, busybox, gawk, make and sed)
- Uses pkgsrc for additional packages, so supports thousands of packages
- Mainly a platform for testing usrview, a system for per-process views of /usr, for very fine-grained control of package management.
- solyste - statically linked linux distribution targetting embedded hardware and various architectures
- Talos - A modern Linux distribution for Kubernetes.
- TAZ - a Gentoo-based livecd/livedvd
- Vanilla - A radically different, new, simple, customizable Linux distribution based on musl, busybox using LLVM/Clang as toolchain.
- Void Linux provides official musl based images.
Linux distros shipping musl as an optional package
- Arch Linux
- Chromebrew provides an official musl package.
- Debian package is available.
- Fedora package is available starting with Fedora 30.
- Guix package is available.
- Ubuntu package is included in the universe section of the repository starting with Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr. There is also a PPA available (ppa:bortis/musl) for Saucy Salamander.
- openadk Embedded Linux buildsystem, musl can be selected as the libc of the system.
- Yocto - OpenEmbeeded based Yocto Project supports generated embedded Linux distributions based on musl C library
- Set TCLIBC = “musl” to switch default C library to musl for building embedded linux platforms
- poky-tiny ( Yocto Project Reference Distribution ) is now based on musl
- Yoe Distro - Fully supports Generating musl based images
Other Projects
Third-party projects using or building on musl:
- buildroot toolchain has musl libc option
- docker-muslbase minimal musl-based docker container
- Dwarf Fortress port
- ELLCC is a Clang/LLVM and musl based cross compilation toolchain for embedded systems
- Emscripten is a LLVM-based compiler from C to C++ to JavaScript, using most of musl (some filesystem parts are written in JavaScript)
- Firecracker VMM is an open source virtualization technology that is purpose-built for creating and managing secure, multi-tenant container and function-based services.
- Mirage OS is an Xen guest written in OCaml, its floating-point formatting code is from musl.
- Mission Pinball Framework is an open source framework to program real pinball machines. It uses musl to cross-compile binaries for embedded targets such as Stern Spike.
- mussel The shortest and fastest script to build working cross compilers targeting musl libc
- NodeOS linux with Node.js as userspace
- OSv “cloud” operating system used a musl based libc
- Rust is a programming language with musl supported as a cross-compilation option
- seL4 seL4 kernel ships with musl
- simplecct simple cross compiler toolchain
- toybox simple Unix command-line utilities