Really unique distros that everybody should know about...

[Sporkman]

What would you nominate for unique distros that people should know about? Not just because they're really good/minimal/hardcore/user friendly etc, but that stand out as different and/or fill an important niche.


Here are my nominations:


Puppy Linux (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=puppy)

A live-CD based distro that loads into & runs from RAM.


SystemRescueCD (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=systemrescue)

Another live-CD based distro, specifically designed for system repair and disk configuration & maintainance.


FreeNAS (http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=freenas)

A distro to run NAS servers - implementation is tiny yet very solid and feature rich, and user-friendly (so I've heard).

[chriswyatt]

Hannah Montana Linux (http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/)

Hannah Montana Linux is a free operating system based on Kubuntu with a Hannah Montana theme.

[NightwishFan]

When I read the thread title I was going to say Puppy.

[Yes]

BasicLinux. It'll give new life to 15 year old computers. Won't run well on newer hardware because it lacks support for stuff like USB.

[XubuRoxMySox]

SalixOS (http://www.salixos.org/wiki/index.php/Home). It's intriguing to me because it seems like they're trying to do with Slackware what Ubuntu - at least early on - was aiming to do with Debian: Simplify it, stay true to its philosophy, but bring it to the ordinary desktop user. It's Xfce, which I am a big fan of and which I believe is at least as simple for a newbie as Gnome is, only lighter and faster and free of all the Gnome cruft that even Xubuntu hasn't been able to avoid.

It seems very much like Zenwalk, 'cept it seems to work alot better for the few reviewers I've read who compared the two, "out of the box" with much less configuring and tweaking to do in order to make everything work (including wireless!). Easy to add multimedia codecs and whatever isn't already freely distributable. Seems to have really good hardware support, too, from what I've read.

Gonna check this one out, if only because it's non-Debian/Ubuntu and offers a completely new experience for me.

Courageously (or just adventurously),
Robin

[tica vun]

Offline NT password & registry editor (http://pogostick.net/~pnh/ntpasswd/)

Very specialised compared to some listed here, but there you have it. It's a live CD that lets you reset passwords and edit registry of XP/Vista/Windows 7 installs. Saved my life many times in "YOU TOLD ME TO USE A 16-CHARACTER RANDOM PASSWORD, I FORGOT IT, PREPARE TO DIE!" situations.

[Dharmachakra]

I wish Foresight was a bit more popular... it doesn't seem to be maintained as much anymore. Conary, the package manager, is probably the best one around. It only updates the new parts of packages and can rollback to practically any version of any package ever... not to mention it's simple and speedy. I hear there's talk of adapting it to use RPM's from Fedora.

[Phrea]

Not sure if everybody should know about these, but they are unique:

* Vector Linux (http://www.vectorlinux.com)

* Elive (http://www.elivecd.org/)

Long live cd list: http://www.livecdlist.com/

[witeshark17]

Nice thread! :popcorn:

[fremantle]

i really like FEdoRa, but everyone already knows about it. Gento0 and ubuntuStudio are also go0d. CreationOS seems to b a good one also.

[Khakilang]

I just install Lubuntu Lucid (Development branch) or my Pentium 3 machine with 384MB RAM and a 20GB hard disk. So far so good everything works. Now I can put my old computer to good use.

[RiceMonster]

Hannah Montana Linux (http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/)

Hannah Montana Linux is a free operating system based on Kubuntu with a Hannah Montana theme.

This. The only you'll ever need.

[NightwishFan]

I plan on using Hannah Montana as an evil prank somewhere down the line. :popcorn:

[WinterRain]

Tiny Core Linux (http://tinycorelinux.com/) Tiny Core Linux is a very small (10 MB) minimal Linux GUI Desktop. It is based on Linux 2.6 kernel, Busybox, Tiny X, and Fltk. The core runs entirely in ram and boots very quickly. (quickly is an understatement. It's almost instantaneous)

Pretty cool. I think I am going to play around with it in Virtualbox.

[Nburnes]

Mach boot linux (http://www.machboot.com/) - 5.68 second boot

[mrebanza]

Hannah Montana Linux (http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/)

Hannah Montana Linux is a free operating system based on Kubuntu with a Hannah Montana theme.
http://thumbla.com/images/images/hml2.jpg


OMG . . . LOL

[NormanFLinux]

My nomination:

ZevenOS - Xubuntu based distro that captures the unique look and feel of the BEOS. Its shipped with its own set of tools. It is pure Xubuntu under its extraordinary interface.



http://www.zevenos.com

[Dawei87]

i like MoonOS a lot. nothing too unique about it, its a lightweight distro running e17 as the DE, but IMHO it has been the prettiest OS by default. the artist do a very good job making all the elements look complete. you can check it out here: http://www.moonos.org/

[Sporkman]

Hannah Montana Linux (http://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/)

Hannah Montana Linux is a free operating system based on Kubuntu with a Hannah Montana theme.

I'm really surprised they haven't been sued yet (or maybe they have, & sourceforge hasn't taken it down yet).

Their website doesn't seem too well maintained...

[manoriax]

http://www.knoppix.net/ :)

[bruce2000]

I've been meaning to give Wolvix (http://wolvix.org/) a try.. just because I'm a dog lover :P Looks pretty good, based on Slackware.

[donkyhotay]

http://thumbla.com/images/images/hml2.jpg


OMG . . . LOL

Thats... kind of scary actually.

[DeadSuperHero]

I would have to say GoboLinux (http://www.gobolinux.org/). It's unique due to the fact that they changed up the filesystem layout heavily. Very underrated distro.

[Sporkman]

I would have to say GoboLinux (http://www.gobolinux.org/). It's unique due to the fact that they changed up the filesystem layout heavily. Very underrated distro.


GoboLinux is an alternative Linux distribution which redefines the entire filesystem hierarchy.
In GoboLinux you don't need a package database because the filesystem is the database: each program resides in its own directory, such as /Programs/Xorg-Lib/7.4 and /Programs/KDE-Libs/4.2.0...

Very interesting!

[Sporkman]

Here's an interesting one:

QubesOS (http://qubes-os.org/Home.html)



Qubes is an open source operating system designed to provide strong security for desktop computing. Qubes is based on Xen, X Window System, and Linux, and can run most Linux applications and utilize most of the Linux drivers. In the future it might also run Windows apps.

...

Qubes implements Security by Isolation approach. To do this, Qubes utilizes virtualization technology, to be able to isolate various programs from each other, and even sandbox many system-level components, like networking or storage subsystem, so that their compromise don’t affect the integrity of the rest of the system.

EDIT: Looks like this distro is being put together by some heavy hitters in the security and virtualization fields:

http://invisiblethingslab.com/itl/About.html

[cascade9]

I'm really surprised they haven't been sued yet (or maybe they have, & sourceforge hasn't taken it down yet).

Their website doesn't seem too well maintained...

Sueing a free OS that just generates publicity doesnt seems to be a good idea.

Maybe if they had money it would be more attractive, but lets face it.....someone remixing kubuntu isnt going to have enough cash to bother. :lolflag:

[hhh]

I'm keeping mine semi-secret. And stay away from their forums!

[Gone fishing]

Parted Magic http://partedmagic.com/ very good distro for partition tools cloning utilities etc.

[Fixman]

Parted Magic http://partedmagic.com/ very good distro for partition tools cloning utilities etc.

Ditto. I love parted magic.

[Doctor Mike]

It's not Linux, but it's very fast... Haiku

[Sporkman]

StressLinux

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=stresslinux

A live CD distro for running stress tests.