What are your favorite lesser-known Linux distros and why?

[-]

cagehooper@reddit

Through the WinXP years I ran Mepis Linux 8.0. I liked Debian but Mepis had a live cd that included some of the non-free drivers I needed (ati vid cards). Even through a good part of the Win7 years. But once KDE 4 debacle came about I was back in Debian, just with Cinnamon.

[-]

SenjorSabaw@reddit

That would be Solus for me.

[-]

Kitayama_8k@reddit

Running it right now. All I really want from it that I'm not getting is BTRFS integration. Otherwise it's a similar experience to opensuse tumbleweed with a much crisper focus on desktop and much smaller, faster updates and quick.

[-]

dykethon@reddit

How’s the project going these days? I know the founder left and I remember there being a big mess of who owns what and it seemed like the project was in jeopardy, but I hadn’t heard anything since then.

[-]

zardvark@reddit

This is ancient history. The project lead took on too much responsibility and didn't know how to ask for help. She has since left the project. There is a very competent team at the helm and there is even some collaboration with the project founder.

[-]

sublime_369@reddit

Ikey's male not female and identifies as such.

[-]

xINFLAMES325x@reddit

Why is this downvoted? I think the other person got Solus confused with elementary.

[-]

sublime_369@reddit

Yeah some people are just odd.

[-]

PsyOmega@reddit

Didn't the founder leave the project? I haven't seen a peep of it since.

[-]

thebadslime@reddit

Second solus, my favorite independent small distro

[-]

SoggyPressure7934@reddit

Nyarch

[-]

ipsirc@reddit

OpenWRT, it can fit on a 16MB(!) SD card.

[-]

ZeroA4@reddit

I've used Coyote Linux a firewall/router Linux that fitted in a 1.44 floppy disk

[-]

ipsirc@reddit

Then continue using that.

[-]

ZeroA4@reddit

It was discontinued in 2005...

[-]

omicronns@reddit

Yup, it is very useful.

[-]

ZeroA4@reddit

Dynebolic a 2004 Linux distro from Amsterdam focused on media creations

[-]

miaisnyator@reddit

T2 linux because of how it supports a ton of architectures

[-]

landsoflore2@reddit

Void and Open Mandriva for me.

[-]

Neither-Ad-8914@reddit

Wait...there's a mandriva that still exists gonna have to try that for nostalgia purposes :)

[-]

miaisnyator@reddit

Has a lot of cool patches for building the whole system using clang :3

[-]

omicronns@reddit

Alpine

[-]

miaisnyator@reddit

So many containers are based on it it is insane

[-]

steverikli@reddit

Agreed. Alpine has a fairly small footprint, simple enough installation methods (including PXE), with nice post-install setup tools. Pretty straightforward to get started, even as a new Alpine user coming from Debian and FreeBSD.

I like OpenRC, apk seems solid, and I quite appreciate their efforts to support platforms beyond 64-bit x86_64.

Not sure if I could daily drive Alpine on my laptop yet, but from what I've seen so far, it will be worth a try. It's certainly suitable for small network services server in my machine room.

[-]

no2gates@reddit

Hannah Montana Linux

[-]

rcentros@reddit

I like BunsenLabs Linux. A very light Debian-based distribution for machines with limited resources. I was able to install it on a couple Wyse Thin Clients and it works surprisingly well.

[-]

FancyFane@reddit

Hannah Montana Linux, makes for a great gag distro if one of your co-workers is out for a long period of time. We did this to a friend of mine a few years back. Wrapped his whole desk in pink, and USB booted Hannah Montana Linux so he could come back to work in style.

https://hannahmontana.sourceforge.net/

[-]

zachfromband@reddit

Debian

[-]

Deenuttaz@reddit

Knoppix

[-]

Somnic_in_Capitza@reddit

Red Star

[-]

xINFLAMES325x@reddit

Void. I will be adding an m.2 drive with Void on it before the end of the year.

[-]

Agron7000@reddit

Oracle Linux.

It is a perfect replacement for Centos, and free just like Centos was, with optional paid support, and yet nobody knows about it.

[-]

Possible-Anxiety-420@reddit

I used to get a kick out of 'Damn Small Linux.'

I was just neat.

[-]

Mindless-Tension-118@reddit

Makula? Or something like that. The dev is doing really neat stuff with Ai

[-]

UgglanBOB@reddit

Crux is fun

[-]

SirGlass@reddit

As far as reddit goes OpenSUSE

It hardly gets much discussion and most people leave it out completely.

Even people on disro hopping (what I don't get Linux is largely Linux) will be like

I have tried Mint , Ubuntu, Debian , fedora, arch , catchy , bazzite , Endeavor, nonbra , pop.....

Then ask for recommendations on next distro and people will suggest void , nix , ect.

[-]

_angh_@reddit

As tumbleweed user I have to agree.

[-]

InsultedNevertheless@reddit

I know that feeling well. I try to be forgiving, because the idea of the Desktop Enviroment (and each having it's own optimised software bundle) was confusing for me too when I first smashed the windows for good. And it really is all good stuff, hearing about how much enjoyment users get hopping from debian fork to debian fork🤗...

I rarely chat to Linux users - distro hopper or not - who aren't genuinely intersted in knowing what all the all the fuss is about. Like, I never believed veterans who assured me just a smattering of shell know-how would be so fucking useful everywhere in Linuxland. But it's shockingly handy. I love seeing people 'getting it'😎

[-]

kemiyun@reddit

I thought gobo Linux had some interesting ideas. I actually kinda dislike the Linux file system hierarchy so i found it while looking for alternatives. I didn’t use it much, just tried it a bit.

My fantasy distro is a distro that’s almost entirely immutable, uses nix like description files, but has a gobo Linux like file system hierarchy and most programs except for base operating system use just local stuff (no shared libraries or whatever).

[-]

Dense_Regular5919@reddit

Mine as well, and maybe Scheme or Clojure as the main configuration language.

[-]

crushthewebdev@reddit

Gentoo Linux, although "lesser-known" may be debatable, is certainly unique in being source based. It's my personal favorite.

[-]

Tryton77@reddit

void linux, for its independence and stability.

[-]

kc3zyt@reddit

I absolutely adore Void. I ran it for a few years, but I stopped when I found myself unable to get my scanner to work with it (Epson Perfection v550. For some reason it worked on Arch but not on Void)

[-]

derangedtranssexual@reddit

No systemd is gross tho

[-]

free_help@reddit

Oh yeah, because more complex means better, right?

[-]

derangedtranssexual@reddit

Not always but in this case it does

[-]

free_help@reddit

Why?

[-]

derangedtranssexual@reddit

Systemd just solves a lot of problems devs and sys admins have and makes their lives easier. It’s good that systemd extends to so much and is so universal because it has kinda turned into a universal interface for configuring and managing systems which makes things a lot easier for developers compared to the old way of doing things.

[-]

mmmboppe@reddit

yes, but it solves corporate demands

[-]

derangedtranssexual@reddit

It’s more than just corporations that benefit from systemd there’s a reason almost every major distro switched to it corporate or not.

[-]

letmewriteyouup@reddit

A centralized service manager is vastly more convenient for system administration. There's a reason why it got so quickly and ubiquitously adopted by everyone in the commercial world.

[-]

IAmSnort@reddit

You are under no obligation to use it.

[-]

derangedtranssexual@reddit

Obviously

[-]

AWonderingWizard@reddit

Void is a top choice for sure

[-]

Seek4r@reddit

The goat

[-]

colonel_vgp@reddit

My first distro. Sadly it doesn't exist anymore - College Linux.

[-]

terminalslayer@reddit

Pika OS, Garuda Linux, LMDE, Ultramarine Linux

[-]

pullmyhandleforcoin_@reddit

I believe it’s no longer maintained but I really enjoyed using crunch bang ++. I believe there is a fork by Bunsenlabs available that is very similar to what I recall.

[-]

pullmyhandleforcoin_@reddit

OK excuse me, it was crunch bang. Then that got spiritually succeeded by crunch bang ++ and bunsenlabs.

[-]

getapuss@reddit

MX Linux is kind of nice. I use it on virtual machines a bit.

[-]

Objective-Cry-6700@reddit

Void & KaOS: independent ruling releases. Xero: Arch/Plasma well done and easy. Bhodi: really usable Enlightenment desktop.

[-]

a_southern_dude@reddit

ok -- didn't see anyone mention Siduction, but I find that it checks all the boxes for me

[-]

sublime_369@reddit

AerynOs. It's still in alpha but I've been daily driving for a month and the only bug I've encountered was something minor in Plasma that wasn't Aeryn specific.

I like the atomic updates and boot-time rollback. I like how the share deep dives into the technology stack they've developed for this from-scratch OS, and I like the automation they've built for packaging that significantly decreases manpower requirements.

It's early days but it feels like end-game for me. It doesn't aim to be bleeding edge but they landed Plasma 6.5.2 the day it released. It's a rolling release without the concerns every time you pull an update.

[-]

Quenchster100@reddit

PikaOS for me. I just love the GUI first design they have going on. Been rockin' it for 10 months now.

Wiped PikaOS for CachyOS and within 20 minutes of updating my system, it borked my bootloader so hard that I reinstalled PikaOS. I always come back to PikaOS at the end of the day. 😂😂😂

Yes, I know PikaOS is "technically" within the top 50 distros on DistroWatch but it's still surprisingly not that known.

[-]

GoldNeck7819@reddit

I bought a Purism laptop a few years ago that came with PureOS, I really like it a lot.

[-]

Ra7Inut1OnRETranSi@reddit

https://crunchbang.org/

[-]

Blu3iris@reddit

Mageia.

[-]

LemmysCodPiece@reddit

KDE Neon. It gets a bad press, but I have been running it for a few months now and it is utterly superb. I have the latest KDE Plasma, currently 6.5.2 on top of the latest Ubuntu LTS package base. I am also trialing Tuxedo OS, which is pretty much the same as KDE Neon, as KDE Neon is reportedly on borrowed time.

I am also trialing Rhino Linux, which is a rolling release distro built on Ubuntu with either a custom XFCE based DE or a custom Plasma based DE.

Another good one is DietPi. It will run on anything and is great if you want to run a minimal home server.

[-]

crazyyfag@reddit

How are you finding Rhino so far?

[-]

LemmysCodPiece@reddit

It's alright, does what it says on the tin. Everything works. I find their Unicorn version of XFCE to be a bit too simplistic. I used to use XFCE as daily and left it for that very reason. I am wanting to play around with their Plasma based DE, but haven't got round to it.

[-]

pinhead26@reddit

https://levinux.com/

[-]

CornFleke@reddit

Aeon. Simple, immutable, clean and opinionated.

[-]

shadedmagus@reddit

Interesting - the tagline for Omarchy Linux mentions being opinionated, too. I have no idea what that means in the context of a whole bunch of other Linux distros maintained by small teams for specific purposes.

[-]

CornFleke@reddit

For aeon it means that Mr. Richard brown created the distro that he wanted to use fir himself making all the choices and not giving any to the user which means that everything is already preconfigured to be useable, so if you agree with his choices or you don't care about these, you can just install it and use it without having to choose anything.

[-]

PsyOmega@reddit

Red Star OS

[-]

shadedmagus@reddit

Holy crap, a DPRK distro?!

Linux really does go everywhere, huh...

[-]

Fast_Ad_8005@reddit

Probably NixOS, if you can even call it lesser-known nowadays. Declarative configuration, rollbacks, extensively customizable, vast repositories, etc.

If not, Rhino Linux. It follows a rolling release model, is based on Ubuntu's development branch so has access to vast software repositories, has bleeding edge software and packages can be specified with shell scripts.

If these don't count, I'd go for Vanilla OS. Immutable pair of root file systems — one is booted and the other is updated when updates are available. This means if an update breaks something you can revert to the old root file system. Also uses Apx package manager to provide packages, in a container, from any distro you want.

[-]

shadedmagus@reddit

Immutable pair of root file systems — one is booted and the other is updated when updates are available.

Yep, this is the way. I've used quite a few RHEL-based tools which do the active booted / inactive updated model. Very, very stable.

[-]

CeleryShoddy3951@reddit

Slitaz is one that comes to mind. Fooled around with Makulu for a few back before it went all in on AI. These are all on old laptops just for the fun of playing with obscure distros. Surprisingly I find many that are still actively maintained. Recently have been tinkering with FunOS, Ubuntu base but with JWM. Saw PCLinuxOS mentioned, if there ever was a stable roller, like I mean seriously stable, this is it.

[-]

OpabiniaRegalis320@reddit

Hi, ChatGPT...

[-]

DustOfPleaides@reddit

why does AI text always read like ad copy

[-]

PsyOmega@reddit

Guess what it was trained on. among other things. but it can't tell the difference that, ad copy isn't the same as formal post or informal post or shitpost.

[-]

Toby-4rr4n@reddit

Slackware

[-]

brovaro@reddit

No offence, but how is Slackware lesser-known?

[-]

Toby-4rr4n@reddit

Let me then correct myself. Underrated and forgotten. Since I do not see many youngsters using it nowadays

[-]

brovaro@reddit

Ah, here I can't disagree.

[-]

pm_a_cup_of_tea@reddit

I'll reinforce this by adding Salix. Its an OS built upon Slackware with the aim of being easier to use. Its minimalised, desktop orientated with slapt-get dealing with dependencies. Its fast light weight and if anyone wanted to check out Slackware, Salix would be the a great gateway

[-]

vmcrash@reddit

I really like Q4OS. It easily can be tuned to look like Windows XP or 2000, and works fine on old hardware (e.g. 2GB RAM, Core2Duo).

[-]

NC654@reddit

I just installed PCLinuxOS on an older laptop that came with Win 7. No issues at all during install and looking forward to trying it out over the next week or so. If anything, it will be a nice spare.

[-]

mclipsco@reddit

PCLOS has a longstanding, tight-knit community. Check out the archives of their monthly newsletters, for example. As you found, it works great on older hardware.

[-]

NeonVoidx@reddit

Slackware because that's what I started on

[-]

Character-Split-8003@reddit

For me, Feren OS is sensational. I'm currently using it and I have nothing to complain about.

[-]

redrider65@reddit

In the past I've enjoyed Puppy Linux and Bunsen Labs in netbooks.

[-]

Dont_tase_me_bruh694@reddit

Asked a couple weeks ago. See some more responses there https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/1oblh3t/linux_users_of_reddit_whats_your_favorite/

[-]

DeGamiesaiKaiSy@reddit

NixOS is very interesting

[-]

Neither-Ad-8914@reddit

Nix has been pretty well recommended recently and highly rated 😀 .. its on my to tryout list

[-]

Equivalent-Silver-90@reddit

Tiny core Linux,most lightweight Linux, somewhat usable like normal. And ponyos(I JOKING!) but is most rarest distro what i heard one time even on "isberg Linux" videos is rare.

Aerynos i founded in news,was very positive but can't search again,maybe is Linux too?

[-]