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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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Smoothwall. I used to run it a lot back in the early 2000s for personal use and even helped set up a couple small businesses with it but I don't hear of anyone else using it these days, people seem to love openwrt and pfsense more.
It was great for just taking any old x86 machine and making a powerful, fully featured firewall/router out of it, including a VPN server, all through a web interface. Nowadays that's boring shit but in 2002 it was pretty cool.
it's main feature is that it completely redefines the system's root directory structure. the only reason i even know it exists is because i'm friends with one of the creators
I see no one has mentioned Bedrock Linux yet. Not sure though how others would rate its 'obscurity' though. It's definitely a standout among distros.
The first one that came to mind was fli4l (Floppy ISDN for Linux). Originally a distro of German origin that fit on a single floppy disk to turn a 386 or 486 PC into a router for ISDN connections. Last I looked it's still actively worked on.
There are probably tons of more obsuce ones. But this is one I actually used.
I've recently gone through my dad's floppies and found one with fli4l.
Jarro Negro. Made by Mexican students. And as far as I know, it's independent, not based on another distro.
No one mentioned Bunsenlabs or Crunchbang Linux here, but they aren't really that obscure.
Not really obscure
KISS
it's just a single bash script and a repository containing package definitions to compile them from source.
Basically LFS on drugs.
elive
you think a distribution that automatically includes all the proprietary stuff that we use baked into the distro would be more popular since it makes linux ready to go for most people; but it still gets fewer than 300 clicks per month.
Its unpopularity may be related to that it asks money or a positive review in a blog to even try. Used to be so a few years ago.
SLiTaz
It's an obscure originally live usage oriented distro that you could also install. It was the first *Nix I ever used.
Not so obscure, just 50mb and very functional, in between tiny core and puppy.
Suicide linux. Nobody can run it for more than a day
Edit: i just searched "suicide linux" to see if it still exists and one of the top results was ian murdock's wiki page, :(
I used to run Reborn OS at around 2017 for a few years. It used Cnchi installer, just like Antergos, and when Antergos died, I saw Reborn as its successor. But the title went to Endeavour (why?) and Reborn never got popularity.
United Linux - the famous Red Hat Enterprise Linux killer!
I'm gonna go with Tom's Root Boot. Or maybe the father of all live distros, Knoppix.
One of the coolest distros, ever. It's like a mix of Alpine Linux and Slackware without dangerous firmware payloads.
most obscure and to me coolest but unfortunately not very active https://sourcemage.org/