Obscure/Strange OSs

[exCode]

So I see no one has posted here for a while.. well here's my question:

What are your favourite weird, strange, and obscure Operating Systems? Which ever one I like the best I'll install on my laptop >:d

 

[Balrog]

It wasn't obscure but one of my favorites:

BeOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[_CyberGhosT_]

I had someone recommend this one: Front Page | ReactOS Project
I have to dig one of my spare HD's out and I am going to give it a spin
in the near future.

 

[Balrog]

I had someone recommend this one: Front Page | ReactOS Project
I have to dig one of my spare HD's out and I am going to give it a spin
in the near future.

I've already read about it. Looks good, but similar to Windows...

 

[Myriad]

It wasn't obscure but one of my favorites:

BeOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spooky ..... only yesterday I was reading up on BeOS !
It has been reborn as Haiku and appears to be alive and well ( as mentioned in the Wiki article ).

How about ArtistX Linux , and Hybride Linux ?
They are fairly obscure ...

 

[Deleted member 178]

i think Qubes Linux , so obscure that my machine can't handle it (resources requirements too high ^^)

 

[Wave]

I've already read about it. Looks good, but similar to Windows...

Anyone would think they just reverse engineered Windows 2000/old OS to build it. Oh wait, I'm pretty sure they did?

 

[Myriad]

i think Qubes Linux , so obscure that my machine can't handle it (resources requirements too high ^^)

I love the Qubes concept and have played with it quite a bit , but it's not easy !

Leaving aside the resource requirements , it is still very sensitive to hardware and needs a "bare-metal" install to work well.
It certainly doesn't " play nice " in a VM .

I have two laptops with very similar specs , and Qubes simply won't boot on one of them , and it is very difficult to pin down
exactly why that is .

I think this is one of the reasons that it has remained obscure .
It's a pity really because it is such a great idea and would benefit from wider use .

 

[LabZero]

BackTrack GNU/Linux, it is not strange, but certainly obscure.
It has big potential in the pentesting environment if you know how use it.

 

[Myriad]

BackTrack GNU/Linux, it is not strange, but certainly obscure.
It has big potential in the pentesting environment if you know how use it.

@LabZero

Yes indeed , I know it well !

It was the best pen-testing distro available , in it's day.
In some ways the grand-daddy of many such distros , but it will only get more obscure now ,
because it hasn't been supported for some time , and may actually be "hazardous" to use in some circumstances.

It morphed into Kali after BackTrack5 so it lives on through it's excellent and highly-respected offspring

PS - I notice that you carefully use the correct term .... " GNU/Linux " .
..... Stallman would approve ( don't know about Torvalds though )

 

[Deleted member 178]

I love the Qubes concept and have played with it quite a bit , but it's not easy !

Yep the concept is awesome, each apps running in its own "VM" , however as always , Linux and compatibility are not friends ^^

 

[exCode]

Haha, I see a lot of nice OSs I never knew about. I think i'll try installing Qubes on my laptop before I format it.

 

[jamescv7]

I had someone recommend this one: Front Page | ReactOS Project
I have to dig one of my spare HD's out and I am going to give it a spin
in the near future.

I've already read about it. Looks good, but similar to Windows...

I've tested ReactOS and as part of my last written documentation project, the operating system interface is way back on Windows 2000 however buggy within slow pace of development.

The number of employees are few hence creating functions as Windows like takes years from reverse engineering it because they rely on official sysinternals books.

So far that is the most obscure OS I've used considering for being alpha stage throughout the development.

 

[Deleted member 178]

Haha, I see a lot of nice OSs I never knew about. I think i'll try installing Qubes on my laptop before I format it.

Good luck , it is one of the most technical Linux i ever saw ^^

 

[Coffeeman]

BackTrack GNU/Linux, it is not strange, but certainly obscure.
It has big potential in the pentesting environment if you know how use it.

Backtrack has evolved into Kali, which was the next step. Maybe their true developers remained into the project, but it really is obscure now

 

[exCode]

Good luck , it is one of the most technical Linux i ever saw ^^

Well I like a challange

 

[exCode]

Backtrack has evolved into Kali, which was the next step. Maybe their true developers remained into the project, but it really is obscure now

I'm pretty sure a few devs stayed on the project, I might be wrong though.

 

[LabZero]

You're right, sorry guys, I used BackTrack a long time ago and then no more.
I will give a look to Kali!

 

[Myriad]

Haha, I see a lot of nice OSs I never knew about. I think i'll try installing Qubes on my laptop before I format it.

If you are keen to check out Qubes ( and it is quite unique and well worth a look ) I would recommend trying it first
from a Live USB stick.
Qubes releases from November last year onwards support Live USB .

It is far from easy because the usual USB creator tools will just not work ( apart from maybe Rufus which has a "dd" option )
If you are comfortable with Linux I recommend the "dd method" , but please be super careful with the dd command.
It is " lean and mean " and will happily allow you to write into the OS partition if you have accidentally told it to do so !

There is a good guide here.