NiceOS -- a Linux distribution that uses packages from whatever Linux distro you want
No SystemD. No default package manager. NiceOS is... weird. But also nice.
I’m a sucker for funky Linux distributions. The funkier, the better. When I came across NiceOS, I knew I needed to tinker around with it.
What exactly is NiceOS, you ask? Well. It’s… really odd.
To start with, NiceOS has no package manager. None.
What it has, is a mechanism for extracting binaries from the packages of another Linux distribution. Which… is… weird but cool.
NiceOS uses a concept called “Presets” to build your base system… which you can modify further.
As of right now, NiceOS supports extracting packages from the following Linux distributions:
Arch / Artix
Debian / Devuan
Fedora
Linux Mint
MX Linux
openSUSE
Pop!_OS
Ubuntu
Void
Which… I mean… if you can’t find the software you want in a package for one of those distributions… it probably doesn’t exist.
NiceOS also does not use SystemD. If you don’t like SystemD, that’s a win.
The developer behind NiceOS put together a tutorial video showing how he builds the “Minimal” preset (which is, essentially, a vanilla Linux kernel with Busybox).
Note the speech synthesizer used to narrate the video. Really adds to the “funky and weird” aesthetic of NiceOS. I approve.
He also shows a more in depth how to on building the supplied “Ghost” image (which is a more fully fleshed out desktop installation using packages from Artix).
What do I think of NiceOS so far?
Honestly… jury is still out. But it’s weird. Definitely very different.
One way of looking at NiceOS, is that it is a mechanism for building a Linux system image. Sort of.
In a nutshell… I approve.
If anyone else takes NiceOS for a spin — please do so in a virtual machine, I get the feeling this hasn’t been battle-tested just yet — I would love to hear how it went!
