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Sell us on your favorite exotic/niche distro

The Linux ecosystem is vast and diverse, offering a multitude of distributions to suit every need and preference. With hundreds of distros to choose from, it’s a pity that most are rarely mentioned while the popular ones are constantly being regurgitated.

This thread aims to celebrate this diversity and shine a light on smaller projects with passionate developers. I invite you to pitch your favorite underappreciated distro and share your experiences with those lesser-known Linux distributions that deserve more attention.

While there are no strict rules or banlists, I encourage you to focus on truly niche or exotic distributions rather than the more commonly discussed ones. Consider touching upon what makes your chosen distro unique:

  • What features or philosophies set it apart?
  • Why do you favor it over other distros, including the popular ones? (Beyond “It just works.”)
  • In what situations would you recommend it to others?

Whether it’s a specialized distro for a particular use case or a general-purpose OS with a unique twist, let’s explore the road less traveled in the Linux landscape. Your insights could introduce fellow enthusiasts to their next favorite distribution!

MyNameIsRichard ,
@MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml avatar

I’m not sure if it’s niche but openSUSE Tumbleweed isn’t as popular as it deserves to be. If you are looking for more niche, back in my distro hopping days I enjoyed Kaos and Solus

puppy ,

Haha nice try. If everyone starts liking it then it won’t be niche anymore. So I won’t share it! /s

boonhet ,

It’s Puppy Linux, isn’t it?

puppy ,

Nah I just posted this as a joke. I am on Fedora + KDE. Mainstream and boring as they come. Rock solid and stable though.

dotslashme ,

Not so much a niche distribution, but I would like to recommend Chimera Linux, because it combines musl with BSD userland.

JustineSmithies ,
@JustineSmithies@lemmy.world avatar

Same as a Chimera Linux user I’d definitely recommend trying it. I was a Void user beforee and was Swithering whether to go full BSD when I stumbled across Chimera which gives me the best of both worlds.

Uli ,

I finally got fed up with my Windows machine and upon seeing symptoms of motherboard failure, I’ve ordered all the parts for a new rig and intend on installing Linux as my primary OS.

Haven’t decided on a distro yet. I’m a DevOps engineer with a few passion projects, so I plan on setting up a couple of kubernetes clusters where I can play. I do all the usual things (word processing, gaming, web browsing, multimedia, etc), plus some AI stuff (stable diffusion, local LLMs, OpenCV). Ideally don’t want to have to fuss with drivers too much, but I don’t mind getting my hands dirty every now and then.

Is Chimera the kind of distro I should be looking at, or should I pick something else for my first go at full-time Linux?

dotslashme ,

My reason for not using Chimera as a daily driver is because I am a developer and there are still packages I need, that require libc still. My only advice would be to look through their packages and make sure you can find the things you need in there. If not, you need to research if the package you want is available through some other source and can run with musl instead of libc.

Uli ,

Makes sense. Thanks for the info!

bsergay OP ,

May as well contribute my own 😜.

I’m an absolute sucker for exquisitely hardened distros. Hence, distros like Qubes OS and Kicksecure have rightfully caught my interest. However, the former’s hardware requirements are too harsh on the devices I currently own. While the latter relies on backports for security updates; which I’m not a fan of. Thankfully, there is also https://github.com/secureblue/secureblue/.

Contrary to the others, secureblue is built on top of an ‘immutable’ and/or atomic base distro; namely Fedora Atomic. By which:

  • It’s protected against certain attacks.
  • Enables it to benefit from more recent advancements and developments that benefit security without foregoing robustness.

If security is your top priority, Qubes OS is the gold standard. However, secureblue is a decent (albeit inferior) alternative if you prefer current and/or ‘immutable’/atomic distros.

fmstrat ,

Is Bazzite still niche?

barsquid ,

The atomicity probably counts as an interesting feature, but it does seem to be getting more popular.

makeasnek ,
@makeasnek@lemmy.ml avatar

Not a distro but Qubes. Incredible security and privacy out of the box. Not for everyone but absolutely one of the most interesting developments in the OS world in the past decade or two.

TexasDrunk ,

I have HoloISO running around on mini PCs because they just work as remote steam machines, can play games in their own right, and I can use them as media boxes if I want. I don’t necessarily recommend it, but it was super easy to install and configure except for the Bluetooth issue that cropped up occasionally where I had to unload and reload the Bluetooth module. Now I just have a script that automatically does that on boot because I can’t give a shit about fixing it.

I also have a couple of Slax USBs running around. They used to be relatively popular with folks who fixed computers. I like building from modules and I’m familiar with Slackware so it was a good fit for a live environment.

variants ,

www.crunchbangplusplus.org

Crunchbang was one of the first Linux experiences I had and then found ++, I stopped using it recently to try out pop!os but the idea of crunchbang++ never leaves me. It was great on my little thin client laptop

rescue_toaster ,

My first linux install was crunchbang. I don’t remember why I picked it. Perhaps i liked the minimalistic look. Ended up not really liking openbox and I vaguely remember running into some problem with debian’s old packages, though I honestly can’t remember what. So I switched to ubuntu, which was great for me as a linux noob.

Presi300 ,
@Presi300@lemmy.world avatar

Alpine. The Linux, not GNU/Linux joke aside, Alpine’s kinda great. Light, fast, stable, great package manager. I’ve daily driven it on both a server and as my main distro and it’s pretty nice for both… Unless you’re on Nvidia.

pr06lefs ,

I think nixos is still niche, but seems to be gaining momentum. It has some unique features:

  • Every package has its own dependencies, so you can install a 7 year old firefox alongside the latest, and have no interference.
  • Packages with dependencies in common still share them (for space savings).
  • Abandons the HFS, but can still fake it for apps that need it.
  • Can make dev environments that are exactly reproducible across machines, and only exist within a specific shell session. So you can have a project that relies on an out of date version of a compiler, and another that uses the latest, and run both at the same time.
  • Make your own packages that other people can install using a git repo address.
  • The package language can also describe a machine’s configuration; systemd services, default packages, user accounts, etc.
  • You can build and remotely deploy a machine config in one line.
  • You can cross compile a machine config for another cpu architecture, like ARM.
  • OS upgrades are atomic, and reversible. If it doesn’t work out, you can go back to the previous config.
  • No reason to ever reinstall. Recently upgraded a machine that had sat in a closet for 5 years to the newest release. Flawless upgrade.
  • Nixos boasts more packages than any other distro, over 100,000.

There are certainly downsides - poor docs, confusing core language. Instructions for installing something on say debian will not work on nixos. I do think this style of package management is the future, if perhaps not this specific implementation. It can be a pain but its also super solid.

thejevans ,
@thejevans@lemmy.ml avatar

I use NixOS on my workstations, and I’m slowly migrating many of my server VMs over to it.

NixOS w/flakes + home-manager + impermanence on zfs + disko w/ nixos-anywhere is amazing and gives an insane amount of declarative control over your system.

That said, the current state of the leadership gives me pause to recommend it to anyone, and I do have a few devil’s advocate responses to some of what you said:

Every package has its own dependencies, so you can install a 7 year old firefox alongside the latest, and have no interference.

Unless the dependency is Qt, then it better all be the same version.

Abandons the HFS, but can still fake it for apps that need it.

Using ldd and nix-alien to patch in dynamic libraries still sucks, and often doesn’t work without a lot of extra effort. If what I want isn’t in nixpkgs, and I can’t get nix-alien to work on the first try, I just end up not using whatever I want trying to run.

pr06lefs ,

I hear you, its great for most cases, but when a package isn’t available or downloads binaries that depend on hfs it sucks. I’ve been going through hell with android dev lately and am currently doing my compiles on debian, lol.

roux ,
@roux@hexbear.net avatar

Not gonna lie, I thought elementaryOS was gonna take off and I guess it never did. I used it on my school laptop when I was in college for most of the time there. It was fine but mostly just a sleaker looking Mint basically.

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