A few days ago, I was cleaning my desk in the lab and happened upon a printout of a fake distro called Chuck Norris Linux — more commonly known as CHUX — which casually mentions that “…if Chuck Norris wrote Linux, you couldn’t boot it, it would boot you.”
It reminded me of the yes-it-really-happened Hannah Montana Linux, based on Kubuntu, which to my knowledge is still in existence, at least on Github. Following the logic that if these two can exist, even though one is fake and the other real, I started thinking about other distros based on other cultural icons which would never (thank God) see the light of day. Like…
Photo credit: Jerry Avenaim [CC BY-SA 2.5-2.0-1.0, GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0)
Based on: Arch
Motto: “You. Need this. Operating. System.”
Recent release Names: Kirk, Denny Crane, Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.
William Shatner Linux has a propensity for staccato performance across the board on all hardware, and on older hardware it tries to kiss female aliens. If you’re not in that select demographic of users, though, you should be okay. As far as performance goes, many users suggest that the distro overperforms at times. Also many of those who are new users to WSL have reported a tendency for the distro not to post any Facebook or other social media posts by George Takei. Yet the flexibility of Arch cannot really help this distro, which is very stiff in whatever role it plays.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Linux
Based on: Slackware
Motto: “Whoa!”
Recent Release Names: Royal Ugly Dudes, Rufus.
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Linux is just that — a good all-around distro which has stood the test of time, both past and future (trust me on this one). BTEL collects the historic best of Linux and presents it in a package that results in high marks across the board, as if it were a final exam presentation for, say, a history class given in a high school auditorium. The Royal Ugly Dudes release comes with a couple of hidden Iron Maiden tracks as an “Easter egg.”
Samuel L. Jackson Linux
Based on: Debian
Motto: “Linux, motherf***er, do you speak it?”
Recent release names: Mace Windu, Nick Fury.
In creating this distro, the lead developer was heard to scream, “I have had it with this motherf***ing Windows on this motherf***in’ computer.” And SLJL was born. But first things first — if you use Samuel L. Jackson Linux, change the default beep, unless a considerably loud and emphatic f-bomb is acceptable in your normal household or workplace conversation. SLJL is a very versatile distro which handles the most complicated tasks with relative ease. While the Mace Windu release provided much stability, some users have had considerable trouble using dual monitors with the Nick Fury release.
KISS Linux
Based on: Linux Mint
Motto: “You Drive Us Wild, We’ll Drive You Crazy.”
Recent Release Names: Gene, Ace, Love Gun
(Photo By Fileri [CC BY-SA 3.0 or GFDL]
Last, but certainly not least…
Grumpy Cat GNU/Linux
Based on: Trisquel
Motto: No.
Recent Release Names: No, No, No.
When approached by this reporter for this story, the lead developer just responded with a one-word answer: No.
Larry Cafiero, a.k.a. Larry the Free Software Guy, is a journalist and a Free/Open Source Software advocate. He is involved in several FOSS projects and serves as the publicity chair for the Southern California Linux Expo. Follow him on Twitter: @lcafiero
FYI,
You made an error with the Hannah Montana Linux link.
@terry jacks Thanks for showing us the error of our ways. With your heads-up, we’ve fixed it. 🙂
Found this in a USENET archive. A message I posted on news:alt.os.linux.slackware back in 2004.
http://www.unixresources.net/linux/lf/48/archive/00/00/11/33/113398.html
Strictly for humour…
How about Old Timey Linux – KDE 3.5, Gnome 2, no systemd, no Google Chrome, just good old, reliable software.
Blue Blood Linux (for the British Aristocracy) – exactly the same as every one else’s Linux except this comes in a walnut and teak effect box and costs £100,000. It only works properly when ‘the nice man from the village comes and fiddles with it for us’.
NeoLiberal Linux – has a random text generator that creates inaccurate statements about the poor and unemployed which it displays on the Desktop. The Motto of the Distro is “it’s OK to be rich”. Automatically qualifies the User for the Tax Department’s “this man owes no tax sub routine for wealthy patrons and multi-nationals everywhere”.
Government Scientist Linux – Is connected to all Government data stations and has a “what doctrine are you trying to support?” feature whereby the user selects, for example, “climate change” and the software will cherry pick data to fit the argument, will round upwards any partial numbers and will then delete the original data sets in order to obfuscate its tracks. Similar routines can be applied to drugs policy, foreign policy, economic policy, etc.
DoD Linux – awesome piece of software – kills everything that moves on both sides. No more uncertainty, no more “gee, did we just hit our own guys?” – total slaughter on the battlefield and for a few miles beyond (just to be on the safe side).
This just in: WSL has announced it’s coming out with a server edition called Enterprise.
Also, there have been reports of an upcoming fork of WSL by our old Romulan friend, Darl McBride, who’s planning on targeting the user base of Canonical’s user base by calling the fork Uhura Linux or UL. From what I’m hearing, all applications for the distro will come with the sticker “UL Approved.”
Came across the article from the techrights links of the day.
I laughed at each one of them but
Motto: “Linux, motherf***er, do you speak it?”
narrowly beats out the others.
Will the overfluffed Hannah Montana distro morph with the newer Miley Linux which is a bare bones install?
@Christine: kudos on your addition and bonus points for bringing back from the dead a name Id thought Id never hear again!
Maybe you can do one with Rob Enderle next!!
@lyle Funny you should say that about the S.L. Jackson quote. Just today there was a discussion on Reddit where some folks were trying to figure out how to get a recording of Jackson saying “Linux” so they could splice it onto the beginning of the quote. They want to fix it so that whenever a Bash command returns an error, such as “No such file or directory,” it’ll play “Linux, motherf***er, do you speak it?”
So, Larry might’ve started something. 🙂
Oh yes please!
Somebody be so kind as to share that spliced recording….?
…pretty please?