dyne:bolic - specifically 1.4.1
Had support for the original Xbox, a multimedia editing / streaming focussed OS. I'd never run it on mine - just messed with xdsl before going back to XBMC.
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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
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dyne:bolic - specifically 1.4.1
Had support for the original Xbox, a multimedia editing / streaming focussed OS. I'd never run it on mine - just messed with xdsl before going back to XBMC.
Meego, a combination of Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo. It only ever shipped on one device, the Nokia N9.
I much enjoyed it back in the day. Nokia even had their own app store for it and gave a nice financial incentive for the first hundred or thousand apps.
I feel Jolla & SailfishOS is the spiritual successor.
Bohdi linux. smoll and beautiful. Used to run it on my eeepc 701
That's a blast from the past! I used to run #! On my 701...
Bohdi is pretty nice. Needed a Linux test device at a job a few years ago and for some reason this was one of the only ones approved. Was pretty solid for the few times I needed to use it.
There was a bunch of weird rebadged Ubuntu derivatives back in the day.
Ubuntu satanic edition. https://archiveos.org/ubuntu-satanic/
Ubuntu Christian edition. https://archiveos.org/ubuntu-christian/
Hannah Montana Linux https://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/
Ubuntu CE outlived Ubuntu Satanic. W.
Technically it died and was resurrected.
Maybe not some obscure ones, but here are some lesser known ones:
Talos Linux. It's an immutable operating system designed specifically to deploy kubernetes.
OpenSuse Harvester Think Proxmox, but instead of VM's and LXC containers, it's VM's and Kubernetes.
XCP-NG is a RHEL based distro designed for managing Linux virtual machines using the xen hypervisor, as opposed to KVM. Think Proxmox, but RHEL and Xen (also no LXC). However, it does not come with a web ui out of the box, you have to deploy it yourself. Technically, XCP is a Xen distribution, since Xen is a kernel with nothing but a hypervisor that runs under the main distro, but the primary management virtual machine is RHEL based, and uses Linux.
Speaking of Proxmox, Proxmox is technically a Linux distro.
SnowflakeOS is a project that aims to bring a GUI focused experience to NixOS.
TurnkeyLinux (site is loading very, very slowly for me right now) is not a single distribution, but rather a set of debian based distributions that are designed to be turnkey appliance virtual machines that contain and host a specific app. To deploy the app, all you have to do is set up the virtual machine.
Now, here are some not-linux, but interesting distros:
SmartOS. They ported KVM to unix, and also can use Linux syscall translation (similar to wine) to run apps in containers as well. There is also Bhyve. It's a very interesting hypervisor platform.
OmniOS is similar. Bhyve, KVM, and Linux syscall translation in containers.
Sabayon Linux. I'm not sure if it's still releasing updates, the main website is dead. It was based on Gentoo and later funtoo, but had a package manager of precompiled binaries. You could still use emerge if you wanted to. Definitely a weird and interesting distro
Blend OS is trying to do the declarative nixos thing but with an arch base. That's pretty cool.
ClearOS was Intel's attempt at an immutable os. From what I remember it was really fast.
Edit: actually it clear Linux not clearOS. Edit: also clear Linux is stateless. I don't know, there's a lot about it I don't understand
Rebecca Black OS.
It is the only Linux distro to date built around Weston, using Wayland's full capability:
It doesn't include any Rebecca Black theming or is related to her in any way.
It's just called that cause the dev is a fan of hers.
From the name, I expected a Hannah Montana Linux type distro.
Hot Dog Linux, X11 Window Manager with Windows 3.1 Hot Dog Stand, Amiga Workbench, Atari ST GEM, Mac Classic and Aqua UI
There was this distro that stuffs everything of a package in one folder, instead of /usr/lib & co. What was it called again?
hyperbola
they have a wiki with insane nonsens about why they don't package certain things. Example:
pam
Package has different security-issues and is not oriented on the way of technical emancipation as Hyperbola is trying to adapt lightweight implementations.
https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id=en:philosophy:incompatible_packages
Wait... they're militant enough about Free Software to refuse to package anything even slightly non-Free, but their "final goal" is to switch the kernel to BSD (i.e. away from copyleft)? WTF?
but their “final goal” is to switch the kernel to BSD (i.e. away from copyleft)?
HyperbolaBSD is a hard fork, that relicenses the OpenBSD kernel as GPL (as permitted by permissive licenses.)
HyperbolaBSD has already dug into the OpenBSD source tree and discovered numerous licensing issues.
HyperbolaBSD will be a truly libre distro that takes advantage of copyleft, while moving away from the major issues Linux is stepping into too.
Ah, that's different then!
Hmm...
From https://wiki.hyperbola.info/doku.php?id=en:manual:contrib:hyperbolabsd_faq:
HyperbolaBSD is under a progressive migration by replacing all non GPL-compatible code. It will be replaced with new compatible code under Simplified BSD License. We do this in order to incorporate GPL code from other projects such as ReactOS, as well new code from scratch.
It's not clear to me that relicensing the existing code to GPL is what they're planning on doing; it sounds more like they're going to mix in GPL code but not change the existing files to GPL en masse after they finish harmonizing them to two-clause BSD.
Frankly, IMO that's too bad: I'd love to see them make the whole shebang GPLv3-or-later
Related question: is all Linux kernel code required to be licensed GPLv2-only, or are individual contributions allowed to be GPLv2-or-later? I'd be nice to see if that project (and stuff like HURD and ReactOS) could benefit from at least some Linux contributions, even if they can't copy it wholesale.
Limiting to those I have used daily and treated as Linux (used the terminal for example) probably Maemo. I used to carry my Nokia Internet Tablet 770, and then my N800 everywhere with me.
Maemo is also an ancestor of both Tizen and Sailfish OS
My first smart phone was a Nokia N9. I loved Meego which was between Maemo and sailfish. I hatred Microsoft before that, but them killing Nokia made my hate burn even brighter.
2 days ago my friend found an old SATA hard drive and gave it to me to check what's on it, and me, not having a disk station or anything, and against all better judgment, I just swapped the disk in my laptop for my friend's, and instead of my laptop being fried it turned out the disk was running something called Crunchbang Linux
I lived that distro. Unfortunately it got discontinued at some point.
Crunchbang++ is alive and we're using it
Yup, in 2015, more or less, from what I remember reading the Wikipedia page. Got superceded by bunsenlabs, like notthebees said.
Check out the random button on Distrowatch (distrowatch.com/random.php) - it's like a Linux lottery, but you always win something weird!