5 pioneering Linux distros that quietly faded into history

While some Linux distros have stood the test of time, others have fallen by the wayside, remembered only by their users.

Nothing lasts forever, not even operating systems. This article will take a look at some distros that offered some innovative features, but for one reason or another, aren’t available anymore.

Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X

Live Linux distros are common these days. They’re popular because they let you try out a distro to see how it will work with your hardware before you commit to a hard drive installation. Yggdrasil Linux/GNU/X was the first to introduce a complete Linux system that you could run from a CD-ROM, when all of these technologies were still new to PCs in the early ’90s.

It was a much more complete system than the “root-boot” images that were floating around. At the time, DOS ruled supreme and Windows was becoming the premier operating environment on the PC. You could get Unix systems like Xenix, but they were incredibly expensive. Yggdrasil offered an easy way to try out Linux for a modest sum of $99, though if your software was included you could get it for free.

Softlanding Linux System

Like Yggdrasil, Softlanding Linux System or SLS was one of the first commercially-produced Linux distributions. It was founded by developer Peter MacDonald in 1992, shortly after Linus Torvalds announced the original Linux kernel on Usenet in late 1991. Its slogan was “Gentle touchdowns for DOS bailouts.” You could buy it on CD-ROM or tape, as well as download floppy images, though you would need over 30 floppy disks for a complete installation.

While SLS offered the Linux kernel, GNU utilities, an X Window System server, and other utilities, all standard fare in modern Linux distros, it was also infamous for the number of bugs in the system. MacDonald seemed overwhelmed, essentially trying to develop an operating system by himself.

YouTuber NCommander documented how difficult getting SLS working could be:

The frustration surrounding SLS was one reason that its legacy lives on in the distros that people were inspired to create due to how buggy it was. Ian Murdock founded Debian, and Patrick Volkerding founded Slackware in reaction to SLS’s dominance and bugginess. Both distros are the oldest currently-maintained distros still in wide use. The final version of SLS appeared in 1994.

CentOS

CentOS stood for Community Enterprise Operating System. This was effectively an open-source clone of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. CentOS debuted in 2004, not long after Red Hat changed its business strategy to focus on enterprise servers. While Fedroa took Red Hat Linux’s place on hobbyist desktops, CentOS was popular for deploying web servers. It’s not hard to see why. The source code was open without Red Hat’s branding, and it was possible to compile versions of RHEL that were completely free and open source. CentOS tracked RHEL releases closely. This meant that if you wanted to learn RHEL, you would have an effective free version, and smaller companies could avoid paying license fees for the real Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

Red Hat eventually joined the development effort of CentOS, while remaining officially separate from the distro. Red Hat would ultimately terminate the classic CentOS in favor of the rolling release CentOS Stream. Red Hat positioned the latter as upstream of RHEL, where users would have access to newer code. I wonder if the real rationale was to increase the amount of service contracts that Red Hat could sell to users who were using its main product for free. As with SLS, this led to splinters of new Linux distros: Rocky Linux, appealing to CentOS’s popularity in scientific computing, as well as AlmaLinux. Oracle also pitched its existing RHEL-derived Oracle Linux to disgruntled classic CentOS users. CentOS Stream is still available.

MkLinux

macOS wasn’t the first Unix-like system that Apple developed for Apple hardware. There was A/UX, which the company sold from the late 1980s through the first half of the ’90s, being based on the classic System V. In the mid-90s, the company was looking for a new OS with its Copland effort stuck in a morass of delayed development and its classic macOS showing its age. Linux’s buzz in the computer science world was growing, but it was still considered mainly as a kernel for x86 PCs, not Macs. Apple sponsored the development of MkLinux along with the Open Software Foundation.

MkLinux was not only a showcase for Linux on the PowerPC platform, but also included the Mach microkernel, hence the name. It attracted some attention among Mac power users, but Apple ultimately went in another direction with the return of Steve Jobs to the company in the late ’90s. Jobs overhauled Apple’s OS, effectively replacing it with the Mach-based NextStep. It evolved into the macOS we know today. The official website is still up, apparently unchanged since the dot-com era, with a 3D-animated dancing penguin.

Yellow Dog Linux

Yellow Dog Linux was another port of Linux to PowerPC, being based on Red Hat Linux. As with MkLinux, it was popular among technical Mac users. Its ability to run on certain PowerPC-based game consoles like the PlayStation 3 also endeared it to hobbyists.

Another tech YouTuber, Action Retro, has posted a video showing what it was like to install and use Yellow Dog Linux on a classic iMac:

As with MkLinux, Apple’s change in strategy ultimately led to its downfall. The company switched from PowerPC to Intel, and ultimately from Intel to its own Apple Silicon. Sony killed the ability of the PS3 to run different operating systems as well. Yellow Dog’s YUM package manager was also adopted in other Red Hat-based distros before being superseded by DNF.

While it’s rather sad when a Linux distro dies, due to Linux’s open nature, the ideas behind them will live on when the developers and users move to new distros.