If you know anything about Linux, you probably know how overwhelming it can be
choosing the right version or distribution. I mean, look at the
comments on this video where a small handful of people are only mildly upset
that I didn't pick this one cuz it's for gaming, or this one because it's more of
a stock experience, or or this one because it prominently features Justin
Bieber. That's right, friends. Today we are
going to be scouring the darkest corners of the internet to find some of the
weirdest Linux distros. And while some
of them seem like stupid gimmicks, because they are, some of them have very
good reasons for being the way that they are. And the first one is behind this
Windows 11 PC that we're going to be using to compare the exper.
Take this.
What? Windows was Linux the whole time?
No, it was just a bit. [laughter] Yes, it [music] was. Meet Linux FX. It
might look like Windows 11 sometimes in the very worst ways. The good old
control panel, but under the hood, it's as Linux as any other Linux. Let's take
it for a test drive. Um, okay. I guess we're getting right into it here.
Welcome to Linux FX. [laughter]
So, while this is called Power Toys, it was based off an older version called Power Tools, but then they kind of got
in some trouble because of Microsoft's licensing and like stealing the name
essentially. Uhhuh. I found out later that this Linux FX DRO
actually has had a lot of issues with basically just rebranding names and
stealing IPs and stuff. Oh. So, they've tried to get around it by
making it as similar as possible, but not interact the same way as possible.
Cool. [laughter] It's funny because they they go out of
their way to add basically what looks like the control panel and then don't
make it work like the control panel at all. [laughter]
Okay. But hey, I can rightclick this and configure my network connections.
Yeah. Oh, okay. Hold on. This one I can interact with. This looks and feels
about like the current iteration of the start menu. For better or for worse. Yep.
I could open Thunderbird mail. You want to know my favorite part? You know how I said that they were kind of
getting in trouble for stealing things? Yeah. Go change the wallpaper.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, cuz this is obviously stolen. Yeah.
Uh, okay. Yep. Do you notice there's one wallpaper in here that you might recognize at the
very top?
[laughter] Wait, it ships with this? Yes. By default, when you install this,
it includes this as one of the wallpapers and just calls it abstract
lines. [laughter]
Bro, why does this one exist? Well, if
you want to convince [music] people to join the freedom movement, you have to
offer more than just the savings of not needing a Windows license or costly
Apple hardware. You have to offer familiarity. And some dros, like this
one, aim to do that through a combination of similar design and strong
documentation and forum support. It's kind [music] of a one-two punch of come
on in, the water's warm, and ooh, you can have swimming lessons with Brody.
Oh, I just heard we've got nine more of these to experience, including the
Justin Bieber one. And I was like, Segway, Segue, Segue. Oh, like Segway
[laughter] Segue Segue. No. MSI with its
one piece perforated front panel, support for both AIO coolers and big
beefy graphics cards, and patented DIY friendly design. Their MPG gun 300R
airflow is the ultimate choice for gamers. Check it out at the link below
and be ultimate.
[music]
If our first Linux was neutral good, willing to break a couple of eggs to
make a freedom omelet, our next two are definitely chaotic evil. Bian and Hannah
Montana Linux, which were built on puppy lucid and kubuntu, respectively. Let's
start with BBN. And I've been asked to wear headphones, which is troubling. So,
you can right click on the desktop if you want to look into some settings. Fire up. Um,
if you can't tell, this is very old
by the picture of Justin Bieber. [laughter]
Yeah. No tattoos even. No. Fresh out of his baby face.
Paint, I guess. Can you draw Justin Bieber? Oh my. Um, [laughter]
my goodness. Look, the mouse sensitivity is a little funky. Okay, just stop. Sure, we'll
blame [laughter] the most sensitivity.
M
Oh, Canadian flag. I see where this is going. Our one Canadian artist. You're
going to notice it's very stock. There's like not much to do. When this operating
system came out, it was honestly meant as a joke.
Yeah. You just plug it into someone's computer. You reboot their computer. So
the next day they go to work, they have Justin Bieber blasting music or
I can't hear any music though. Am I supposed to? There should be music coming out of this
one. Oh, neat. Yeah. Again, also very old if you can't
tell based on the picture of Hannah Montana. Yes. I think you mean Miley Cyrus, but
yes. No, that's Hannah Montana. She's like my age. She was a children's
entertainer. Well, that's basically what you do now.
I actually like this one over the BBN. It feels a little bit more fleshed out
as a desktop. Yeah, I think you could actually use this if you really wanted to, although
you wouldn't want to unless you had really old hardware, I suspect, which is
fair enough. But given that's true of most Linux distros, you'd probably
choose one that has unique features that have real world benefits. Like, say for
example, Vinux OS, a build for the
visually impaired that is based on Ubuntu and features a screen reader to
read off what the user clicks on or hovers over, as well as support for
external Braille displays. Uh, by the way, those are wildly expensive. But
hey, if it means people who aren't adequately served by mainstream OSS can
use a computer, that is absolutely great. Oh, there's a challenge.
Cuz we've been having audio issues. Let's make sure our actual screen reader works.
Uh, okay. So, just try clicking or hovering over something.
Window. That just said window.
Window. I see. Yes.
This needs to be better. Yes. [laughter]
Do you think that you could map Wanik with your eyes closed? [laughter]
Window.
Um, no. Okay, that's fair. In fairness,
it wouldn't be intended to be used with your eyes closed necessarily. Uh, many
people with visual impairments are are able to see somewhat. Um, [music]
however, this is just window not helpful. So I think the original
developers started getting you to a point where maybe you could install this
and then if you knew enough get a couple more plugins to help you get there
as as it is right now it is not very good [laughter]
enough about this computer help check system
settings it literally just reads off everything
and it's very overwhelming [laughter] I feel like this is the most Linux thing ever panel
page window panel page tab list panel.
Clearly, Vinux wasn't able to reach the lofty goals of its creators, but I would
be curious to know if there's anyone out there who is using Linux as an effective
aid, whether it's with plugins or applications or another DRO that you're
aware of that's a little more ready to go out of the box. Let us know what
you're doing with it and if there was a steep learning curve or if it was just
something you could jump right into. Speaking of learning, Edubuntu
Education Linux. So, Linux then their mission, as stated
on their site, is to bring the freedom of the Linux desktop and the vast
library of open- source education software to the classroom. Blending both
software and games, they aim to bring back the old feeling of going to the
computer lab at lunch and trying to beat your friend's high score in math circus.
You want to try one of the games? I do. Yeah. So, there's a ton 100% games. Well, okay. There's
those look like real games. Let's Okay, Edu. So, there's some in mathematics.
Mathematics. Here we go. Talk math. Let's go. I played this at work just to test it
and then I went home and played it for about another 30 minutes. Really?
Arcade. Uh, yep. Arcade game works. And then you can start with Space Cadet. That's just
the first one. You can start with Ranger. That's the third one. Start with
Ace. That's the fourth one. [laughter] All right. Get ready.
Okay. What? What? What? So, you got to you got to answer. Oh my
god. Who? Well, I mean, who knows 19 times two out of the Oh.
Oh, okay. There you go. Yeah.
Whoa, that really quickly escalated. What just happened?
Keep going. Whoa. Okay. 8 - 20.
Jeez. Let's go. Okay. Uh oh crap. That's
not -16. Oh, there we go. Okay.
I read it wrong. Okay. Sure. Uh,
so was that -45? What the hell is 126
divided by -9? I is there
what what do the math um
is there irrational like can I is that a real number 14?
What do you mean -14? You can't divide something by negative a number 60 um
minus 39 29. Damn it. [laughter]
Oh no. Look at Tux. He's running away.
Convert all. This is actually a really cool tool. You can convert anything to anything.
That's amazing. So, from kilometers to grams.
I mean, doesn't mean it'll work, but it gives [clears throat] you the option to
have anything. Apparently, one kilometer equals 1 g. So, aside from games, it has
those types of tools as well. I actually want you I I wrote it down here, so I
didn't mess up the word. Hold on. Can you find the ecliptic oblquity of the
sun? There is a dedicated app to help you find that. Of course there is.
[laughter] But it might be a science. Yeah. Um just chill. [laughter]
Uh I mean sun is definitely involved in
whatever this is. Oh, it is this app. It is this app. But you kind of messed
up by clicking on the lens. You need to actually click on the sun itself because
what this does is it puts you in a geographical location close to you
at the time of day where you're at. So not necessarily the same day.
Uhhu. and the sun will be in the appropriate position as to the date you
are at or the time you are at. You can click on it and find a bunch of stats
about it. It's actually kind of cool. Or
that's not as fun, Lionus.
Okay, in all seriousness, I cannot see the sun right now. It's raining and
miserable and cloudy. Okay, the app has a purpose. Tux typing. Let's go. I can't
read this.
They are very spaced out. Oh my gosh. It's It's actually really hard. You go
ahead. You can't even type. Yeah, he has to go over all my scripts.
No, that's not it. I just mean you're slow.
If you read them for me, I can type them. Court. Okay. Flood food.
Damn it. Stoke floor. Cello. Cello. Green.
Damn it, Elijah. Sorry, sir. It was actually pretty cool
the amount of apps they had. Yeah. And while you could make the argument that these simple apps could
just as easily be loaded on a machine with Windows 95, it also includes more
complex software to run basic simulations, calculators that can graph
in 3D, and even electrical engineering programs to help you map out a PCB or
circuit board. On to Red Star OS, which first started development back in 1998,
but has since had four major revisions, including updates as recently as 2019.
What is Red Star OS, you might ask? Why, it's North Korea's operating system of
choice? Based originally on Red Hat Linux, Redar took on a more Windows 95
look before ending up, I don't know, old school macOS. According to a study back
in 2015, [music] Red Star OS is very tough to tamper with
as when it's connected to the internet, it will check for system changes and
essentially brick itself
in the event that someone tries anything it doesn't like, like gaining root
access or deleting files. They also found that it tags western or outside
media that was passed around on USB sticks to help track its location and
lock it out. Unfortunately, we're not going to be able to test any of that
since that would mean connecting this to
the internet. And you know what? I think I'll pass. Uh, I still think looking
into an OS like this is cool, though, cuz we can see where the priorities are
for a user base that only has access to certain software. I see you managed to
get some Western media on here. Yeah, when I was trying to test it, I was
trying to test that tagging of the watermark because they found out it actually goes on the metadata of the
file, but again, that only worked when connected to the network. And again,
you did connected to the network. No, I never connected it to the network. Oh, I see. So, can I change the [music]
language to English or like No, but you can select the country as Canada.
Cool. [laughter] We can use Google Translate on our
phone. Oh, right. Hey, look at that. There we
go. Hey, in Korean, star is the same as
star in English. Is that just taking the image of the
star and just making it a different star? I I don't know. I don't know. But it's
good. It's cool. Oh, wow. Oh, okay. Uh
computer information. Here we go. We have 3.45 gigs of memory. And now we
know that it essentially is just a stripped down system as well with an internet access.
You have a web browser at the bottom, a media player to be able to play media,
just probably not western media, right? A calendar that has all the holidays
stripped out of it, right? It's just a calendar,
right? Because why would you need holidays? Yeah. I don't need to know when, you
know, July 1st is, right? Wait, no, that's can Oh, yeah. Canada.
Yeah. Sorry. I I thought it was America. You're not secretly American, are you? I
have a couple challenges for this one. I'm supposed to try to delete a file,
apparently. Yeah. So try to delete something that would be
integral. Yes. On the system, maybe an application
or something. Okay. You might have to use the Google
translate and this might take a while. Electron hydroxal group,
also known as a calculator. [laughter]
Uh, okay. Well, let me see if I can figure out how to actually open a file
browser. Like, can you? Yep. Okay. All right. I'll find it. I'll find
it. Oh, well, here here. I can just cheat. I'll just take a file that I
already know. Okay. Yes, I would like a hint. Files are right there.
Oh my god.
So, let's delete a default application.
Siag office processing. Yeah, time to
go, buddy. A lot of the default apps will not even
give you the option to delete. No, thank you, sir. I simply will not.
Oh, no. Oh, they just won't let you. Access is
denied. Okay. How did you manage to get it to brick itself?
I didn't. That was the requirement for the internet. If someone gains root
access, it basically is pinging some home server, right?
That home server will go, "Whoa, something's wrong." And issue a command
to reboot it at a stock state. Wow. So, it turns out Linux is sometimes
about the freedom and openness to oppress your citizens. Um, let's move on
to something more positive, shall we? Suicide Linux. [laughter]
You have got to be kidding me. Is that That's a thing. Yes, sir.
Technically, this is not a distribution like the ones that we've shown so far,
but there was no way we were not going to include this. It's a Debian package
that can be installed onto your OS that makes it so that if you mess up a
command, any command, it immediately wipes your drive. And if you're
wondering why this exists, you're not alone.
[clears throat] Sorry. Uh, it's actually based on an autocomplete function that was
originally intended to help people who mistyped a really long command. Maybe
they mistook the s for a dollar sign and then it would actually help complete the
command. Well, then user Q&M had a different idea. Instead, he had it just
resolved to rm-rf slash, which means remove recursive, so
all of its subfolders, and force, meaning it doesn't ask for confirmation.
And that slash, that's the top level directory. So, anything below that.
Great. But that's how I asked why.
Fun. All right. What's the challenge? All right. I got three. You're allowed
to use Google because you might not know the commands off by heart. Install an application.
Okay. I want you to create a new folder somewhere. And then I want you to change
your time zone. Okay. Using the command prompt.
Uh,
sure. I made a directory. Cool. You want to verify? Uh, navigate
to it.
He deleted something and then just retyped the exact same. Well, I'm thinking
I'm making really sure I don't screw this up.
Uh, how to set a change time zone. Okay.
Oh, come on. [laughter]
This is the point I'm making. There's some very, very long commands [laughter]
that you have to type out sometimes in Linux.
Wait. Oh, should have deleted by now. It should have killed me. I didn't even
notice I typoed that. Um, why do you think Oh, it should have
killed you. Wait, is it just a delayed death?
It might be taking its time. I think I'm dying right now. Yeah. Yes. That looks very not great.
[laughter] [snorts] And as someone who has killed Linux before,
what is the point of having a Oh.
Um, hello. Let me tell you.
Yes. Do as I say. This is about what it looks like. [laughter]
Stop. Can't believe that would happen so fast.
If you looked at that and went, "Dang, I am not into that kind of pressure. I got
to type everything perfectly or my stuff gets deleted. Maybe I'd be better off
with something that doesn't save my files in the first place. Hey, we've got
that, too. That's where Tiny Core comes in. It is a 16 megabyte distribution
that, yes, my friends, even includes a
graphical user interface. To put that in
context, the highest quality photos taken on a Galaxy S23 Ultra can be
double that size for just an image. It
also sits only in RAM and doesn't write to the boot drive by default, meaning
that every boot just reverts back to its stock state. Now, of course, a prime use
for this is loading everything up the way that you like it and carrying it
around on a USB that you can take from computer to [music] computer. And we've
got a challenge for this one as well, right? Yes. So, I'm going to plug in
[laughter] I'm going to plug in this USB. Mhm.
Wow, you already got it. That was really fast. I was going to say mount it, but I
didn't even get to plug it in yet. Okay.
Okay. 128 MGB of RAM. I mean, realistically, anything newer than a
Pentium 2 is going to have that anyway. So, that's still pretty darn impressive.
A lot of people actually use these types of OSS for like a POS system.
Oh, that makes sense, right? So, it's picking up any mirror
downloads to make sure your drivers and systems are up to date. Got it. Okay. It comes with terminal.
Yep. and terminal. Yep. You can have any application you want as
long as it's terminal. Well, again, like you said, this could
be used to save things directly to the disc. So, theoretically, this could
become a toolkit [music] or again, something you take to computer to computer. Very cool. We've talked a lot
on this channel about being conscious of e-waste and using a lightweight DRO like
this can be a great method of extending the life of older hardware. Windows 11's
minimum requirements for memory are 4 GB. Here's a visual comparison showing
you just how much 4 gigs is compared to the 128 megabytes that this device was
able to run on. Now, while all the distros we've looked at today can be run
as a live environment, meaning that you never have to install them if you don't
want to, this next one is one you would pretty much never install, but it could
be the most relevant one on this list depending on what you're into. System
Rescue is a Linux that is intended to be run off a USB drive and comes packed
with tons of tools to help you diagnose issues with your PC. Or if you're in it,
it can be a portable troubleshooting kit that you carry from workstation to
workstation to help your clients when, say, for example, their Windows install
won't boot. It's got drive partition management, DD Rescue, which can help
save data that may have been corrupted, MEST for checking if your RAM is bad,
RSYNC for backups, and lots more. Let's
give it a shot. Well, I what we're going to do is we're actually going to boot up to our Windows. I want to find our file here
and we're going to delete it. Then we're going to reboot into system rescue and
use that to recover my deleted files. Heck yeah. Show us how fat your fingers
are.
I don't get it. What do you mean? Like fat fingering a
Oh, I thought you were just calling me obese. I was like, brother.
What? No. Okay. All these pictures are in our
pictures folder. Yes, we can see that. I am going to shift delete them, which
in Windows will permanently delete them, not put them in the recycle bin. See you later, buddies.
Oh no, technician. I deleted my pictures. Can you help me?
All right, first thing, hit that power button immediately.
That is correct, though, because if you rewrite over the data, you won't be able
to recover it. That's right. By default, it is a terminal like this. It does come with a guey. If we just
type start x uh no space,
you would have died in suicide Linux. [laughter]
Depending on the drivers you have installed, it might flicker like this.
That makes sense. Oh, okay. Well, that's not what I Oh, okay. Well, hello. This
is going to be our Windows basic data partition. So, that's there. That's
cool. We found the desktop, so that's good. So, I found this folder.
I I I kind of misled you. I'm sorry. Oh, this one actually doesn't have a guey,
but I'm saying the other applications that are on this does have a guey. So,
let's open up our command prompt. So, this is if you want to keep track of whatever you're doing.
I do. Cool. So, then you're going to want to find our drive. Yeah.
And on this case, you're going to want to go to EFI GPT.
Awesome. And now you're going to want to do advanced. That's if I don't want to chat with it.
I just want to efi with it. I was wondering who was going to make that joke.
Someone had to do it. You're gonna want to go to unddelete.
There we go. Bad instructions. Dick sucking GPU fan.
I thought you called me a dick sucking GPU [laughter] fan.
I was very confused for a second. I was like, "What?"
Okay. Well, break me, please. I found it. Yeah. Okay. So, now you can select using
the instructions below what you want to grab. No, not the Snapchat data though.
Unselect that. You don't want that. It's just because the pictures were taken using Snapchat. That doesn't help
my case. Editor, cut that. It's pictures of my cat. I swear. [laughter]
Not. So, C to copy the selected files.
Yeah. And now you can Oh, I can copy them somewhere. Yeah. So, I'll put them on the desktop.
[music] Sure. Did it copy everything? Yeah. So, it actually copied it right
now to a temp location on our USB drive. Mhm.
In this case, then we could remap our C drive as a file location here and we
could copy it back over. Very cool. That right there is why just
deleting your files before throwing out or selling your hard drive is not
secure. As long as nothing has been overwritten,
they are still there. And using tools like this, they can be retrieved. Now,
we don't have too much more to explore here that would be funny or experimental, but we will leave a
download link for this one and all the other dros in case you want to try them.
Which I guess brings us to our last DRO. Elijah, what Oh, you're not even What
are you even doing? I'm installing our new dro or our last one, I guess. All right, let's go.
We're doing Uuntu. Ubuntu.
No, no. Oo, I see.
Yeah. [laughter] Isn't it cute? Yeah, it's cute.
I love it. This seems more modern.
Yes. So, this again is based off of Ubuntu. Um, more mo. You got a doggo.
Dogo. Dogo. What isn't it? Dogo.
No. Well, it's like pogo. Yeah, but it's spelled with two G's.
Isn't a pogo stick spelled with two G's? No, that would be Pogo.
A, which is a completely different thing. [laughter]
This OS actually, again, like you said, is more modern, more up todate. It also
comes with a lot more Okay, you don't need it. Is Oh, it is 2G's.
Pogo, the opposite of poggers. [laughter]
That's appropriate. That's a Twitch term. It's snake. Oh, it's snake. Oh, it's multiplier
snake. Oh, that's so cool. So, I can't hit another snake either.
No. Is this Bone Stock? It comes with Spotify and Steam and Cupid Torrent and
all kinds of things that I definitely wouldn't use.
Yeah, sure. Uh, no, it's not Bone Stock. And that's why it's just a little bit
different. This is what I'm talking about. I am
cursed. This is a Dro that comes with
Steam pre-installed and I managed to break it simply by trying to launch it.
This seems like a very complete experience. Yeah, it even has
Thunderbolt in the settings. Thunderbolt 3 support. Really? Using Ubuntu as its base, Ubuntu
just adds some a nice little theme and then comes with a bunch of apps that
you'd probably download anyway. It also includes guides to help get you up and
running, like the one that shows you how to enable the Proton compatibility layer
for non-compatible games so you can play pretty much
anything you want on Linux. Big asterisk. Ubuntu was made by two
students in Spain who wanted to try to have fun making their own dro. They
started out just wanting to learn how to do it and then it evolved into them
creating something that they would actually want to daily drive, which when
you dig a little deeper and see how this dro comes out of the box, I get it. I
mean, I'm not like an anime person or anything, but this already seems less
overwhelming and in some ways more friendly than some of what's out there.
Of course, there are a few things I would do differently, which come to
think of it, how about we make a DRO to call our own.
It's a good idea. Leave some suggestions down below of what you'd like to see in an LT DRO and
maybe, just maybe, we'll take a crack at Linus Linux.
Linux. If you guys enjoyed this video, go check
out the Linux challenge where Luke and I both switched to Linux as a daily driver
for 1 month. And no, maybe it is not time we revisit that. Not [music] yet.
When Steam OS has broader compatibility, I'm going to do it.